The Role Of Parental And Societal Expectations In Shaping Children
Often in the current society everyone plays a role in forming a person's personality. Societal expectations have a large impact on teens in this generation as well as a parent’s speech. They allow for us to live with others in society, give us a sense of rights and wrongs we come across and the vast viewpoints of life in general. In Jamaica Kincaid’s, “Girl”, it is shown that the mother is authoritative and has full power over her daughter. The relationships that teenagers have with their parents or parent are one of the most key things in ones life. Whether it be a strong positive relationship, love, judgement or strict parenting styles the immutability of a well connection with young ones will have a tense influence on the teenage lives.
Relationships with your children are one of the strongest connections a child can have which also helps and influences them on their future decisions in life. The mother feels as if it’s only with her care that her daughters life can be saved and exempt from the society and for her to remain a likeable and respectful girl, not a slut. In the eyes of her mother its thought that the girl is beginning to act like a so called slut, as her mother puts it which she tries to reform her in a way of giving her strict comments which all teach the girl lessons on how to properly act. Examples that prove the mother's point in this case are “don't squat down to play marbles - you are not a boy” as, she is limiting the girl from what she can and can't do and telling her that playing games is a childish thing also interpreted that it is something only boys do. Another example is the “on Sunday’s try to walk like a lady”. This is the mother saying that to be a lady you must walk a certain way and if you do not walk in the proper way that you should, you're not being ladylike which leads to the girl being a slut with low self standards.
The mother also has a sense of wisdom as she educated the girl of ways to act and react around all kinds of people. This embassies the fact that the mother looks upon a feminist theory as its prescribed that there are gender roles, “this is how you smile to someone you don't like very much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely;”. This is an unfair expectation that the mother and also society has towards females to always be polite towards everyone. Other expectations are the rules of being in or having a relationship, you need both a male and female. The women would be needed for doing the in house chores such as cooking, cleaning and ironing the mans clothing, as the girl is taught by her mother.
Throughout this piece the mother guides the girl and directs her which mainly gives the audience a sense of how the daughter thinks in regards to her mother. The speech she used was very aggressive as it was all positioned out in a one paragraph list like form. The girl’s mother talked non stop and did not give her daughter any chance to speak which indicates that she was the primary speaker in the piece. She only got 2 chances to share her insight one of which she muttered it beneath her breath, “I don’t sing Benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school”. This is a manifest that the mother does not give her daughter a say and just steps on her, ignores her as she is undermined, discounted and challenged. The mother was telling her daughter instructions and how she should and shouldn't act.
It was sort of like giving her advice on how to survive in today’s society as she encounters small town judgemental people. The mother has a fear of others talking about her daughter being mislead. I personally feel that the mother takes what others have to say more seriously as she might believe that their beliefs are more important than her own and the girls. She is also very concerned about her daughter becoming a “slut” like leading into teen pregnancy, experience with aids, increased risk for medical problems and also public ramifications which all potentially lead to historical and biographical consequences like how the experience shapes everything as a hole.
It can be concluded that the society consists of people who all have their own mindsets and opinions based on certain topics and issues. It is the sympathetic action of the society and parents based on their stance that miseducate people and the societal expectations that, bring upon a great effect on the teenagers nowadays. to summarize in all the mother has a picture painted in the back of her head of exactly how she wants her daughter to be so she always has dislike in all of the topics she brings up while speaking to her daughter.
