The Role Of Environment In The Other Wes Moore

There are multiple factors that come into play regarding our environment: neighborhood, family, friends, religion, school, etc. Humans are constantly under the different influences that surround us, whether we know they are there or not. In Wes Moore’s “The Other Wes Moore” those factors are clear throughout the transitions in the two boy’s lives and how it helped shape who those boys have become today. Both boys started out in similar situations, both without a father and being raised by a single mother while living in Maryland. Throughout the novel, their situations begin to deviate as they get older and are faced with different life events and changes within their physical and mental environments. An important environmental factor that …show more content…
Both the boys were left without fathers, one who passed away and the other who abandoned his kids, leaving their mothers to raise their children by themselves. Fortunately for ‘author’ Wes, his grandparents were more than willing to allow him, his sisters and his mother to move in with them in Bronx, NY. There ‘author’ Wes was given an overwhelming amount of support from his family, all of them wanting him to succeed in life. ‘Author’ Wes’ family was well educated, his grandparents and mother having all graduated from college, so there was quite a bit of pressure on Wes to do well in his schooling. That is strongly portrayed when in the novel, Wes’ mother would make sure to put him in the best schools as possible, like Riverdale and Valley Forge. Regardless of what Wes wanted, his mother was going to make sure he had a future and that beginning step was building a strong foundation through his education. While on the other side, the ‘other’ Wes, his mother would be at work so often that Wes didn’t have the proper motivation to do well in school or in his ‘extracurricular’ activities. It seemed that his mother was so caught up in the idea that Wes couldn’t possibly be following in the footsteps of his older brother, Tony. Tony was a source of motivation for Wes, but only to a certain extent. Tony would get on Wes’ case when he started coming to the conclusion that Wes was starting to get into the drug business, he didn’t want Wes to end up like him. Tony didn’t want Wes to end up on a one-way ticket down the wrong path like he was, he wanted to look after his younger brother. Tony would face the situation at hand immediately, although he doesn’t pursue whereas their mother would try to turn the other cheek while her perception of Wes would start to distort. Their mother would start making excuses such as, “Or maybe it was because she wanted so much for Tony to be wrong. She knew what her