American Values
Despite the United States being a pluralistic society, there are set of core values present throughout the country. Core values, or values that are common among a group, are however, found to have the ability to cluster with not only other like values, but contradictory examples as well. In addition to these collaborative abilities, values also have the ability to evolve over time and are dependent on the circumstances of society. Hard work has been a long-standing American core value, which still remains relevant today. Efficiency, while significant in the past, has taken additional steps to the forefront of importance recently. These two value examples have played a key role in my socialization while growing up as well …show more content…
They not only led by example out of necessity, but also took great pride in their efforts. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, and as a result, they were unable to obtain employment that was anything but hard physical work. My father, being the son of a baker and the eleventh child of twelve, exuded a hard work ethic without question. I was never encouraged to achieve academic success, but was rewarded for any display of hands on hard work. He interpreted the value of hard work in the most literal sense of the words. There was a distant hope, of course, that I would be the first in my family to attend college, but it was never stressed. It was this very value that I feel held me back from achieving that goal in some ways. My parents work so hard to get by that it almost seemed selfish of me to go off to school and further their burden. Looking back now, I have come to realize how wrong that was in many ways. “By the end of the 1950s, college attendance had risen dramatically, and a college degree was viewed as the key to professional status, which in turn was seen as embodying an American ethos: advancement built on merit and hard work, not birth” (Webb, 2006, p. 2). I had adopted my father’s literal definition rather than understanding that hard work didn’t have to be physical. As an adult, I realize the importance of this value in both physical and mental senses. I have adopted hard work to be an integral part of my ideal culture and find myself surrounded with like thinking friends and coworkers. Today, I work hard at being a wife and mother, a full time manager at work, and a student in school. I have found a balance with the contradiction of interpretation that I embodied and make every effort to pass that equalized approach on to my
Despite the United States being a pluralistic society, there are set of core values present throughout the country. Core values, or values that are common among a group, are however, found to have the ability to cluster with not only other like values, but contradictory examples as well. In addition to these collaborative abilities, values also have the ability to evolve over time and are dependent on the circumstances of society. Hard work has been a long-standing American core value, which still remains relevant today. Efficiency, while significant in the past, has taken additional steps to the forefront of importance recently. These two value examples have played a key role in my socialization while growing up as well …show more content…
They not only led by example out of necessity, but also took great pride in their efforts. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, and as a result, they were unable to obtain employment that was anything but hard physical work. My father, being the son of a baker and the eleventh child of twelve, exuded a hard work ethic without question. I was never encouraged to achieve academic success, but was rewarded for any display of hands on hard work. He interpreted the value of hard work in the most literal sense of the words. There was a distant hope, of course, that I would be the first in my family to attend college, but it was never stressed. It was this very value that I feel held me back from achieving that goal in some ways. My parents work so hard to get by that it almost seemed selfish of me to go off to school and further their burden. Looking back now, I have come to realize how wrong that was in many ways. “By the end of the 1950s, college attendance had risen dramatically, and a college degree was viewed as the key to professional status, which in turn was seen as embodying an American ethos: advancement built on merit and hard work, not birth” (Webb, 2006, p. 2). I had adopted my father’s literal definition rather than understanding that hard work didn’t have to be physical. As an adult, I realize the importance of this value in both physical and mental senses. I have adopted hard work to be an integral part of my ideal culture and find myself surrounded with like thinking friends and coworkers. Today, I work hard at being a wife and mother, a full time manager at work, and a student in school. I have found a balance with the contradiction of interpretation that I embodied and make every effort to pass that equalized approach on to my