Only Daughter

SMG
English 100-017
September 6, 2012
WA 1: Narrative Essay, Only Daughter, prompt 2 I trace the development of my upbringing and think to myself that I can’t believe I have become the woman my father would want me to be. He was Hispanic with strong morals. He would be fifty years old and still pressuring me to respect another and myself, work hard and work to succeed. I was the youngest of three girls and we three needed to grow with those thoughts in our heads. Cisneros says, “Being only a daughter for my father meant my destiny would lead me to become someone’s wife.”(4) Should my father had believed this, respecting myself, working hard, and working hard to succeed; that was what my father instilled in me. As my childhood years passed, I didn’t have his hand to hold, nor my mother to continuously teach me respect. I didn’t understand respect another until the day my mom found my backpack filled with stickers I had stolen from a teacher. Respect wasn’t a factor to me at the time, being that I was only in third grade. My mom made me take those stickers back and apologize to the teacher directly. I remember who told me, “I respect you for coming to me and being honest”. That day I told my mom that respect was important and that
I understood. She smiled and said, “Que bueno, mi’ja”. (4) My teenage years came too quickly, and as time moved on, I knew as I got older, working hard was a part of life. My seventeenth year arrived, and it was time I found my first job. I had an unstable family, and leaving to get away was all I could do. I remembered the words, “work hard” from my dad, and that’s what I intended to do. For the first time, I was taking on the challenges - having a job and learning the roles of a good worker - without the help of my parents. I worked to my next promotion and was determined to know that I worked hard just like my father would want. I am now 24 and have succeeded in getting my GED after having dropped out during my junior year in high school. I’ve succeeded in finding myself a better job because becoming complacent was not success. I’ve now made my way into college, reminding myself that I will succeed at getting my Bachelors Degree no matter how hard it may be. My father didn’t allow the minimum, nor any reason to get comfortable. Because change was always good, and learning something new was always even better according to my father. I grew up without my father for the majority of my life. I had to continuously teach myself to respect another and myself, work hard and work to succeed. That’s what I’ve done because that’s how my father would expect it to be. I wash my hands of my day, but everyday
I continue to respect another and myself, work hard and work to succeed.

Work Cited
Cisneros, Sandra. “Only Daughter.” Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. 12th ed. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 111-14. Print.

Cited: Cisneros, Sandra. “Only Daughter.” Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. 12th ed. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 111-14. Print.