Personal Narrative: The Kendall-Wright Family

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Family is such an important aspect to everyone’s lives, it is what shapes and develops you for the society that you are a part of. For this photographic essay, I decided to look at a family that I know well, the photos that I was able to gather from them help show their family and the uniqueness that they hold. The Kendall-Wright family is a biracial family of 4, who’s family has gone through many steps to identify who they are as a family. I have labeled and described the photos based on the terminology that was taught and learned from readings and lectures. The Kendall-Wright family story starts in the late summer of 1997, when Beth had her daughter Anna. Anna’s father wanted to be involved in her life until a few days after she was born, when he realized that he was not ready to have a child, and then left both of them. Beth had to learn how to be a single parent all on her own. In this first photo is Beth and Anna when it was just the two of them, Beth had to adjust her new life as a single parent which is related to the number of unmarried parents. It used to be a common trend that if a couple was expecting they would be married, but it is becoming a common childbearing trend of the rise in unmarried parents because of the decline in marriage. Beth decided to not get married to Anna’s father, and having a child as an unmarried parent. Beth worked hard to set up a good life for herself and Anna, being a younger single mother she looked towards her own parents for help. When Anna was just over a year old, Beth met Brandon. …show more content…
Beth and Brandon both went to the same college but they had very different backgrounds. In 1999 Beth and Brandon started cohabiting, they made the decision to start living with each other prior to getting married. Thy decided to live together about 2 years before actually getting married. There are more couples making the decision to live together and it is more of an acceptable practice. In this photo is a Beth and Brandon on their wedding day, during their first dance as a married couple, after knowing each other for 5 years and living together for 2 years. Beth and Brandon met from mutual friends, they both attended UC Davis for their undergraduate degrees. Although they are from two different social classes, they also are two different ethnicities. The difference of their race never affected them or who they were. Intermarriage which over time has become more common, in which people from different racial and ethnic groups are getting married. This shows that the level of social distance for the acceptance of the two ethnicities marring each other has been changing over time. In this photo, it is of Beth and Brandon at their wedding, over 17 years ago. There has become a culture acceptance towards race and ethnicity marriage decisions over the years which they have become a part of. After Beth and Brandon got married it began the journey to become a complete legal family. Since Anna’s father had not been in the picture since the day she was born, once Beth and Brandon got married they decided to make Brandon Anna’s legal father by becoming her adoptive parent. They had to go through many processes of back and forth trying to get communication with Anna’s strange father. By having Brandon legally adopt Anna she become a part of his legal family, many people saw Brandon as Anna’s father already before he legally adopted her, but it was something that they wanted to see on paper. In this photo is a section of Beth, Brandon and Anna together not long after he became her legal adoptive father. About 5 years after they got married, Beth and Brandon decided that they wanted to expand their family. In the summer of 2006, they welcomed their son Silas, everyone was thrilled to meet Silas. Although at the time Silas was born, Brandon was Anna’s legal adoptive father, they are still a blended family. Since Anna and Silas only share the same mother they are technically considered half-siblings. As a family, they do not separate each other based on the fact that they have different biological fathers, they all see

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