My Family Has Shaped American Culture

It is no secret that families have traditions and customs that are passed from generation to generation. Families have been a crucial part to every person who has ever lived. Not every person has this fantastic, positive, supportive family that is thought about when hearing about the American family, but everyone has been impacted by their family in one way or another. Family has been an idea that essentially shaped America. Immigrants from all over the world flooded into the United States sometime throughout history including my family. The typical family has changed throughout time. We see families during the Colonial time period who had blended and extended families that were living together, as well as the Victorian period. In the Industrial …show more content…
I have heterosexual parents who separated when I was just three years of age and my sister was one. My parents had split custody when I was growing up, they raised me separately-together. They basically co-parented with equal say. However, when I was about thirteen years old my father chose another path. He chose another woman over his kids, and that was that. I no longer have much contact with my father, but I talk to my mother almost every day. Along with not talking to my father, I do not talk my father’s side of my family. This came with a lot of heartbreak, guilt, and confusion, throughout my teenage years. I did not understand what I ever did. I saw the social world around me changing. My friends were able to be happy with both of their parents but I went from two to one in no time at all. However, it honestly was for the best. My sister and I grew close as well as my mother’s side of the …show more content…
I was raised with both a natural growth influence as well as a cultivated growth influence. Natural Growth occurs when there is not a lot of structure, not many organized sports or activities, free time, and there is a sense of constraint (Lareau, 2011). Concerted Cultivated Growth occurs when parents structure their children’s schedules and keep them busy, the children also have a sense of entitlement (Lareau, 2011). To start with the natural growth, I played outside with neighborhood friends whenever I could. We would always be creative with making some type of game up, these included: volleyball, different basketball games, whiffle ball, or even throwing balls on the roof and trying to catch it. I never had had restrictions with television or the internet, and I think not having strict parents in this area was beneficial. When I got older, I never had a curfew either, even though I was always home before midnight, due to a hectic schedule that I later adopted throughout high school. In all honesty I was just too exhausted to stay out past midnight. I had multiple AP and honor classes, clubs, as well as swimming twenty-two hours a week, which included three morning practices a week at 5:00 am. My mother started to adopt this concerted cultivated growth. My late middle school and early high school years is when my mother started to