Essay
Professor Eric Wallman
20th Century Humanities
20 November 2013
Existentialism
Parents are meant to be role models for their children, raising them to be responsible members of society and overall decent people. It’s essentially a job bestowed upon them from the start, one that some choose to follow through with while others do not. However, what happens when parents decide to mold their children instead of teach them? This is the dilemma I have faced my entire life, and while I love and respect my parents with all of my heart, I still sit back and wonder some days about how I missed out on so many experiences because of them. Due to the lackluster experiences they had with my brother and sister, my parents deemed me as the “perfect child” and attempted to shape me into their image, though this past year I’ve attempted to break from those chains and live the life that I want to lead. Seventeen years is the difference between my brother and I, and my sister is two years older than he is, so I guess you could say I was a “surprise” to my parents. During that gap of time my parents were struggling trying to take care of the family financially while still trying to raise two children. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it easy for them at all. My brother decided he was going to travel down the tough guy route, getting into fights constantly, dropping out of High School after two years, and overall acting like a rebel without a cause to me parents. My sister had the same rebellious attitude towards life, though she wasn’t tough and violent, but rather relaxed, high, and more hippie than anything else. My parents loved my brother and sister very much, but clearly they made life stressful and unnecessarily complicated. Even though they turned out ok in the end, with both of them being largely successful, I still get the sense that my parents, especially my mother, felt like they could’ve done a much better job. That’s about the time that I was born. As mentioned
20th Century Humanities
20 November 2013
Existentialism
Parents are meant to be role models for their children, raising them to be responsible members of society and overall decent people. It’s essentially a job bestowed upon them from the start, one that some choose to follow through with while others do not. However, what happens when parents decide to mold their children instead of teach them? This is the dilemma I have faced my entire life, and while I love and respect my parents with all of my heart, I still sit back and wonder some days about how I missed out on so many experiences because of them. Due to the lackluster experiences they had with my brother and sister, my parents deemed me as the “perfect child” and attempted to shape me into their image, though this past year I’ve attempted to break from those chains and live the life that I want to lead. Seventeen years is the difference between my brother and I, and my sister is two years older than he is, so I guess you could say I was a “surprise” to my parents. During that gap of time my parents were struggling trying to take care of the family financially while still trying to raise two children. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it easy for them at all. My brother decided he was going to travel down the tough guy route, getting into fights constantly, dropping out of High School after two years, and overall acting like a rebel without a cause to me parents. My sister had the same rebellious attitude towards life, though she wasn’t tough and violent, but rather relaxed, high, and more hippie than anything else. My parents loved my brother and sister very much, but clearly they made life stressful and unnecessarily complicated. Even though they turned out ok in the end, with both of them being largely successful, I still get the sense that my parents, especially my mother, felt like they could’ve done a much better job. That’s about the time that I was born. As mentioned