The Other Wes Moore By Wes Moore: The Influence Of Family On A Person’S Development
A person’s development and the outcome are directly associated with the type of experiences and the influence they have in their lives. Whether the experience is positive or negative, there is a strong connection between the person and the type of people which they are influenced. Often family members, especially parents are the one who impacted our life the most and the most influential factor in life. The family members influences were one of the major themes throughout The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, it focused on how himself and another man named Wes Moore, and both live in Baltimore. They both experienced almost the same struggles, both have the same name but living in different lives and faith.
Moore (author) was influenced by at least one of the close family members and the influence that had changed his life and respectively shaped him as an individual of what he wants to become. Throughout the books, Moore’s shows many different themes that are contributed to how he turned out the way he did. He becomes really successful, one of the factors contributed to his success is the influence of families behind everything. Throughout his life, there are many great individuals that can have an impact on his life. One of those individuals will be his grandparents, they value education more than anything. They sacrifice and move to the United States from Jamaica to pursue the dream of education, “bring the family to the States to fulfill my grandparent’s dream of theology degree from an American University”.
Moving to America was one of his grandparents dream, they wanted education for themselves and their children, but also to build a family, have a stable house and a brighter future than what they have in Jamaica. “When my grandparents moved to the United States, their first priority was to save enough money to buy this house on Paulding Avenue. To them a house meant much more than shelter; it was a stake in their new country. America allowed them to create a life they couldn't have dreamed of in their home countries of Jamaica and Cuba”. This shows the significance of education to Moore’s grandparents and his parents. With the previous generation of going to college, it pushes and pressured Moore to be aware of what he wants to become. And to fulfill his grandparents dreams of trying to pursue a better life and opportunities. Moore’s lacked a father figure in his life to act as a role model, he turned his mother, Joy into the figure and someone he looks up to. Joy has a significantly influenced on Moore as he grows up fatherless. She always wanted all the best for Moore and she made enormous sacrifices to ensure that her son will have a better life than what she has. She worked two jobs but still making the decision to send Moore to private school “when we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs, from a freelance writer for magazines and television to a furrier’s assistant- whether she could do to help cover her growing expenses”.
With the finance struggles but when they moved to the Bronx, Joy instantly making the decision not to send her kids to public school. She always wants them to get out of the dangerous and drugs dealers zone, that’s her main reason to send them to Riverdale “My mother saw Riverdale as a haven, a place where I could escape my neighborhood and open my horizons. But for me, it was where I got lost”. She decided that her children will attend Riverdale High School, an elite prep school in the Bronx area. While attending Riverdale, Moore ran into many troubles, he hangs out with two different group of friends. His “street” friends often teased him for attending a “White school”, “How Y'all like it up there at that white school?” and while his school friend rarely saw the side effect of the streets. This causes a lot of tension in Moore’s life because he was struggling between two spheres of influence affecting his life. He feels like his family is not as wealthy as everyone in school and he never want to mention his disadvantages. He always feels lost and disconnected himself because he feels like the school he goes to, he doesn’t fit in regardless of anything. Moore starts to stop putting the effort in school, he was trying to get in between two different worlds. “I began to let my grade slip. Disappointed with Ds, pleasantly satisfied with Cs, and celebratory about a B, I allowed my standards at school to become pathetic”.
Wes was lost between two worlds, he trying to manage between school and trying to be a hip-hop artist. Those are not the only struggles, he had to overcome, he gets arrested for tagging with his friend, Shea. Shea has involved the drug game, and he doesn't know that. One time, he got in troubles at school, the school dean called home, his mother and the dean having a long conversation, and explain why they put him on academic and disciplinary probation. “It wasn’t pretty. Bad grades, absence from classes, and an incident with a smoke bomb were just some of the reasons he rattled off as my mother sat silently on the couch with the phone to her ear”.
A few days later, Joy decided to send Moore to military school, “I knew my mother was considering sending me away, but I never thought she’d actually do it”. She did not want her son to be surrounded by all the bad influences around him that eventually will corrupt him and led him into the drugs. Joy made every attempt to get her son out of the drugs and all the concerns she has been worrying. Making the decision moving from Baltimore to the Bronx was not only saved Moore to stay away from the drugs but it was for his mother, who took action to threaten her son and send him to military school. The first few days in military school, Moore feels like attending the school wasn’t for him. He felts homesick and lonely trying to escape the military school and finding a way to go home, By the end of the fourth day at military school, I had run away four times. I had heard that there was a station somewhere in Wayne where I could catch a train that would take me to Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia. From there I can take a train… and transfer to the Number 2 subway train, which would drop me off on the grimy streets that would take me home. His plan was work out like the way he expects it, he doesn’t know the direction to Wayne station. One day, Sergeant Austin gives him a map with the direction to go home, and he gets really excited to get out of the military and go home to see his families and friends. But it was a trap of Sergeant Austin, leading him into the woods and that's when his first real training started. A few months later, he called his mom for the first time after many months in the military camps, he wanted to go home and promised that “Ma, I know I haven’t been perfect, but I promise to do better. I will pay attention in school and go more often. I will clean my room, I will clean your room, I will…”. He really wants to go home, but he mom doesn’t fall for all those words. She replied with, “Wes, you are not going anywhere until you give this place a try. I am so proud of you, and your father is proud of you, and we just want you to give this a shot. Too many people have sacrificed in order for you to be there”. She wants him to realize that there are many sacrifices for him to be where he at right now, she doesn’t want him to give up, she wants to make Moore’s father proud of what he becomes. He doesn’t know the kind of sacrifices that he mom mentioned, he founded it out later. Both of his grandparents and mom agreed on the idea to send him away, but the problem is the expenses to go to the military is not cheap. His mom struggled with the shortage of money, she asked for help and his grandparents have to give their decades of saving and mortgage payments to be able to afford to pay for his first year of military school.
Due to all the sacrifices, he commits to stay and start over and not to disappoint his families. His mom starts to see how he had changed and grown since he joined the military, “my mother had noticed the way I had changed since leaving for military school. My back stood straight, and my sentences now ended with ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’. He changed to be more mature comparing to when he first start military. He is more open and willing to learning new things, which will have a big impact on his life. A few months later, he went back to the Bronx to see his families and friends. His uncle Howard took him out to shoots some hoops at the park and his uncle said, “I receiving the recruiting letters from colleges, and talking about how I knew I could make it to the pros”. His uncle wanted him not to give up when things don’t turn out as the way we hoped and use it as the encouragement to fight on. Since joining the military school, it gives him many opportunities to explore and find himself. He was able to have a chance to jump out of the plane and imagine himself as a paratrooper. He starts to realize making the decision to commit and join military school was the right option for him. “It had been a little more than a year since I decided to make the Army a fundamental part of my future. As my high school career was coming to an end, I was still being avidly recruited by college programs”. The military not only changes his life but open up more opportunities for him to recreate the life, he wanted. He realizes all the struggles he been through, it leads him to something bigger in life.
The next step of his life is to stay at Valley Forge and attend its junior college to receive his associated degree and to become a second lieutenant in the Army, he wants to be the lead soldier. And he doesn't forget of the sacrifices behind his success, “As I started to think seriously about how I could become the person I wanted to be, I looked around at some of the people who'd had the biggest impact on my life. Aside from family and friends, the men I most trusted all had something in common: they all wore the uniform of the United States of America”. Besides the sacrifices of his families, there’s the help of the military school, which changed and shaped him to be the person his mom wants him to become.
Change someone else perspective of life is not easy, but with the positive influences and attitude will cause someone to changes. Joy makes the right decision to send Moore to military school because it not only changed his life but he turns out to be more open and be more responsible for his own decision and life. Joy was self-sacrificing and that encourage Moore to change for the best for his families. It is clear to say that the influence of family members and self-motivated played a strong role in shaping the lives of Moore for the better.
Family influence was a major theme throughout the book. Even though, the lack of father figures, but there are many great individuals will impact him in term of developing into the person he is today. With all the great opportunities, Moore has come more successful in life. Moore is a Johns Hopkins educated Rhodes scholar. He gets chance to serve in Afghanistan to united former insurgent with the new Afghan government. In 2008, he speaks at the Democratic National Convention and in 2010, he has an interviewed with Oprah to talk about how his family and strict military academic helped him turn his life three hundred sixty degrees around. With all the influences, Moore was able to have the opportunity he has, and the lifestyle he been dreamed of.
