Why Social Class Is Important

Why is social class so important in society? Imagine yourself in these two situations, one being poor and the other being rich, these will be the circumstances you will be raised in. In the poor environment your father is a drunk that wastes the family's income and your mother is always dazing off into her own world where only she matters. You are constantly moving because of your parents’ action. At every new school you attend you get bullied by your fellow peers for being poor. Though you get bullied on a daily basis, you still look forward to attending school because there's a heater and food is available. Now imagine yourself growing up rich. Your parents have the highest position at work, making high incomes. You attend a private school, having several friends because your dads are in the same country club. You are given a weekly allowance, which you spend buying chocolate bars on. Now that you have imaged being raised in both circumstances, which household, would you rather be raised in?
The answer is that neither household is better than the other.
Society has taught you that the rich upbringing is the “better one”, though it’s not. Social class doesn’t determine how an individual is created. Author Jeannette Walls was raised in the poor environment described. Her experiences growing up helped her become the strong, independent woman she is today. Instead of running away from her problems she faced them and considered ways to improve her life. Her actions while growing up caused her to not become similar to her parents. When attending elementary school, girls would jump her because she was poor, she didn’t fight them back the first time to display her humbleness, but when they started to bully her young brother, she fought back because her family was all she ever
had.
The Walls family may be dysfunctional but they love each other unconditionally. Jeanettes main love was towards her father and younger brother. Though her father was a drunk that abused their mother and crushed his children's dreams. She was the only one out of her siblings to always have hope in him. She oversaw his bad actions and only viewed the good in him. We all know someone that does bad actions, but we still love them because we view the good in them. No matter how bad an individual may seem, they still need to be loved. The strongest love is usually within the family, her strongest love was her younger brother because she wanted to protect him from the dangers of the world. One of the daily challenges that arose was finding daily meals, she would improvise by raiding the girls bathroom trash in search of food, she would provide food in return. She always had his back and he had hers. We all have a family member we care deeply about that we’d make sacrifices to see them happy.
Many of you may question how she managed to remain happy throughout her childhood regardless of the circumstances of her upbringing. Jeanette viewed the conditions she was raised in, as an adventure because in each event she experienced she learned something new, she was a character to love learning. Her mother taught her that she shouldn’t care about what others thought of her because that would bring down her ego and cause her to become vulnerable to society. The worst circumstances, she has experience have taught her lessons for future references. Mistakes are good because you learn from them.