Is This Love? By Brittney West

Remember when you were little and your mom would say, “Everything will be okay; it is not the end of the world,” and when she said those words everything would be okay? This is an example of how in families there is usually someone who holds the power, and that power held helps hold the family together with strength. When parents hold power, they can help their children grow, learn, and stay hopeful. When there isn’t someone in power, children can grow apart and become distant. I believe that parents play an important role in their child’s development. It is evident in day-to-day life that every family has someone in power; however, if they do not, these families can break.
To start with, children grow and learn through their parents’ influence.
For instance in the narrative “Is This Love?” by Brittney West, West shows how sadness and doubt overcame her when her mother gave up on her. In the writing, she communicates her feelings by saying, “I always felt that if my own mother didn’t love me, than who would?” I believe that this reveals her loss of hope after her mother left because she felt neglected and unloved. This shows the importance of strength in a family, for children need to be raised correctly to grow up to be strong. For this reason, Okonkwo from “Things Fall Apart” believes that once his son betrayed him, making Okonkwo lose his power, he slowly become weaker day by day. On page 153, he reveals this by suggesting “Suppose when he [Okonkwo] died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye’s steps and abandon their ancestors?”(Chinua Achebe). This acknowledges the relevance of the need for power in a family. In total, when power is lost, hope is soon to
In the poem “Parents” by William Meredith, Meredith articulates that “Their lives: surely we can do better than that.” This quote is stating that children will usually try to do better than their parents did. This means that parents should be strong and show their children the lessons they need to learn. Another example of the effect of a weak head of the family can be seen in “Is This Love?” when West writes, “All I know is that when I have children they will not wait for me because I will be there.” This poem suggests that West learned from her mother’s weakness with the help of her father. This quote illustrates that being strong to teach your children is better than being weak because this way your children will not resent you in the future. These examples expose a child’s need for their parent’s