Analysis of the Impact of Race, Gender, and Family on My Upbringing

Sociology is defined as "the recurring patterns of group relationships that form a given the systematic of human society social groups and social interactions" ("Sociology+definition- Google Search" 1). Each individual has several sociological forces which contribute to who they become, and as the surrounding forces change, so may the person. The most prominent forces found in American society include race, gender, sexuality, and education. This paper will analyze how my upbringing was affected by my family structure, gender, and race.

Twenty-five percent of all families in the United States have births which are considered "non-marital", according to a 2013 statistic, leaving numbers to most likely have risen over the past 3 years (Jacobson 1). My mother struggled significantly as a single parent. She worked a full time job and often had trouble finding places for me to stay during that time. Even with that, I was never put into a day care. My grandmother watched me for a lot of the time.

With that dynamic, I quickly became an independent child. I never asked for help with my homework, I made my own dinners, and I have packed my own school lunch for as long as I can remember. Starting in sixth grade, I got myself up in the morning, and got ready all by myself, something that still has not changed. If I had been brought up in a two parent household, I believe that I would not be as independent of a person as I am today.

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Even though my upbringing was primarily by a single parent, I was also lucky enough to live with my extended family for the first ten years of my life. Seeing how my Aunt and Uncle interacted with each other and with their children gave me another view of the world. Now, seeing how their nuclear family is broken, I know mistakes to not make in my future family.

Growing up in a fatherless home can have negative effects on girls specifically. Many girls who have not had a proper father figure in their childhood or adolescent years will go through stages of promiscuity, poverty, and have many emotional complications. Promiscuity is 2 defined as indiscrete associations with others, especially referring to having many sexual relations with several partners ("Promiscuous" 1). Not only are these actions hazardous physically, but hook-ups can bring down a female's self worth.

In some families, mothers may be dating many people, trying to find another relationship. This behavior may shift onto the daughter, who will repeat those same actions. My upbringing, thankfully, was not filled with many men passing through my life. My mother has not dated since before I was born. Besides that, however, I have had far too many boyfriends since my first in sixth grade. I also decided to keep a list of all my previous boyfriends so I would not forget who they were. I believe that girls who grow up without fathers date a lot to try and fill that empty male spot in their lives, which stands true for me.

I struggled mostly with the emotional consequences of my father's actions throughout my middle school years. I never felt like my mother's love was enough. But when I was dating a boy, those feelings were not as strong. Middle school relationships are never serious, not typically lasting more than five months, at most ("Education.com"). My longest middle school relationship was four months long, but the only reason it lasted past two months was because I did not know how to break up with the boy.

Other emotional consequences I feel are a result of my absent father include abandonment and trust issues, and trouble forming long lasting relationships, the latter of which also relates to the middle school promiscuity. Abandonment issues have many symptoms which range depending on the person. The symptoms which I can locate for myself include extreme insecurity, anxiety and depression, rejecting others before they can reject you, and pretending to not care about others ("What Are Abandonment Issues Really?"). Now, my father is married, for 3 the second time, to a black woman whom he dated in high school. Their relationship is exogamous, since they are of opposite races. They currently live in Texas.

I live out of two primarily white towns, yet Haverhill is much more diverse than Amesbury could ever dream of being. Though I never noticed it growing up, Haverhill is a very segregated town; even my own neighborhood is segregated into a "white area" and a "black area", not to say that families do not cross into each area. On my street, through my childhood, there was only one black boy, but even his parents are white. At about age ten, a black family moved in next door to me, and they are still there. Then over the summer, a Muslim family moved into the house attached to mine. The black and Muslim families are the only two on my street which are not white, to this day. But if you go down the road, closer to the train tracks that go through my neighborhood, you would find the more run-down homes, most of which are black families.

Going to school in Amesbury, I grew up around almost no people of color. I can count on one hand the number of people of color in my grade, and might need to use a few more fingers to count the everyone in the school. This is a really sad fact, because my norm is white people. Sadly, when I do see a person of color, I do not always know how to act, and I latch onto the negative stereotypes, and typically get scared for no logical reason. I am by no means racist, but I do need to work on being more of an accepting person over the next years.

Females for hundreds of years have been considered a lesser part of humanity, as whites as a whole viewed darker skinned people. While there are social change movements fighting this ideal, there is no doubt that women are still considered by many to be unequal to men. For example, only 33% of our country's STEM jobs are occupied by women.

This statistic in enforced into children for a very young age. Typically speaking, young boys spend time with their male guardians, if they have one, learning how to change the oil in the car, and help fix the kitchen sink, while young girls are with their mothers running errands or preparing dinner. Many fathers neglect to teach their daughters the same skills which they teach their sons, until much later in life. My mother experienced this in her upbringing; my uncle was always the one helping to fix the car or the pipes in the house, while my mother was cleaning.

My mother desperately tried to change change that with me. She tried to get me interested in cars, plumbing, anything that could guarantee me a steady job for the future and challenge female gender roles. When I was little, I fell into the stereotype that those were "male only" jobs, so I wanted nothing to do with them. Now, I do not think those jobs are for men only, but I still have no interest in them; instead I would like to be a teacher or child psychologist.

I still strongly believe in traditional gender roles, and I think that is because of all the challenges I have faced in my upbringing. I want to have a husband before a child. I would like to have my first child before I am twenty-six. I do not think it is a bad thing for my husband to be the main provider for my family, while I am a stay-at-home mom. Those are my goals for my life.

My early childhood proved to be filled with many difficulties, stemming from my father leaving. Little did anyone know then that having my father leave would blossom into many other issues that would not be resolved for many years. Living in two towns, both made up of primarily white folk, gave me a white person view of the world; a view which is fearful of what is different. But most of all, my life so far has shaped my ideals for my future, with contributions for all different aspects of my life; family, gender, and race.

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