Walnut Convalescent Home

Assignment #4 My parents met at the Walnut Convalescent Home were my mother was currently a certified nursing assistant and my dad was working as maintenance supervisor. My mother had just got out an eight-year relationship with the man that she had my older brothers by and a harsh drug known as crack cocaine destroyed their marriage. So once my mother met my father at the convalescent home it was like love at first sight because he had the physical attraction that she look for in a man. However, she was on rebound from being in a lonely eight-year marriage and a five year depression stage so it didn’t take much for my father to sweep my mother off of her feet because she was in a state of vulnerability and looking to be loved. So with that
being said there where many of women that were trying to pursue my father at their workplace and my mother being the woman she is was eager to test her skills and she if she still had it and the final conclusion was she did. The dating practices that led to their alliance were bowl night every Tuesday with their job. On some weekends they attended parties and events together. On numerous occasions they would also go down to Belmont shore and park at the beach and just listen to oldies but goodies and talk for hours. Their dating lasted for approximately sixteen months and then shortly after that my mother became pregnant with my twin sister and I. When my twin sister and I were two years old my mother gave my father an ultimatum that consisted of separating for good or become committed. My father had a past of living with women but never committed to any of them and my mother wasn’t having any part of that. Additional, motivational factors that lead to their marriage was primarily based on my mother religion, age and because she didn’t believe in shacking with no man and lastly she was going from a mother of two to instantly a mother of four.
Their choice to marry one another was a collective choice and also a third party which was the pastor at our church. Although it was a collective choice my mother still had a little doubt before they got married because my father had low self-esteem, signs of not being responsible and signs of being a cheater, which in the long run proved to be truthful. In addition to all of that, my mother was told by our pastor to move the wedding date up and he insured my mom that marrying my dad would be a perfect match for my mom so our pastor thought. As the years rode by my father’s hidden agendas came to the forefront. However with all that being said love did play a role in the marriage because my father had a good job, he fit my mother standard of physical appearance, and she felt that he deeply cared for her. As stated in the reading by Pasupathi that “it may seem obvious that different cultures will consider different criteria in mate selection” for example it says in India the criteria for marriage partners are multidimensional and includes: religion/horoscope matching, character, education, dowry, appearance, employment, caste/subcaste, geographic distance between families, financial status and lastly family status, tradition and reputation. When I asked my mother what criteria did her and my father base there alliance on she said it was her becoming pregnant, sex, how they made each other feel and the looks. They only had one criterion in common with India criteria, which was appearance. I honestly thought that my mother would have told me more characteristics that they based their alliance on but my mother said
no.