To Be Like Or Not To Be Like My Parents?

All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was meeting my grandpa's brother on Easter. He and his wife said that I look and acted like my mom, but on the other side, others have said that look and act like my dad. Although both my parents are agents of socialization, will I still end up being like both or just one of them? Another thing that always makes me think is when my friends always say that they will never end up like their parents but I sometimes think that's unavoidable since they are your significant others. Could other agents be more dominant than others?

This reminded em of the survey we did during class about who we were most like; mom or dad. What if you don't have several agents of socialization? Would that limit your socialization development? Is it possible for a son or daughter to not turn out like their parents when they grow up or does it matter how they were socialized? Could it affect our looking glass self?

Crazy Eights

All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was watching a movie called Crazy Eights. It was under the "Horror" genre so I thought it was going to be about just plain scary things. It turned out to be a movie about how eight (later on in the movie it turned out to be nine) children are put into a sort of total institution. It was for experimenting on the children to show them what guilt is and to repress the memory of them even being there. It worked and they never remembered what happened when they were younger but their memory came back when one of their friends passed away because of his re- occurring nightmares of his past childhood and his final wish is for all of them to go back to the "Total Institution".

This reminded me of what we were learning in class about socialization. The children had to re-socialize their life and adapt to the institute's new rules and procedures. They also were de- socialized because they had to unlearn on what they though guilt was. For the children, the institute was like a prison to them. Even though they tried to repress the memory of their childhood, it came back.

Buisness men but no buisness women?

All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was working on my gender role cartoon for sociology. I was trying to look for a female character with a business look attire. At first I couldn't find it. So then I searched it. I typed in business women but it didn't find any results. Then I typed in business in general but only in the female section. Still no results. I was really surprised and pissed off in knowing that there was only like five business women characters in that section. The men section had so many options of careers and many of them had ties and suits. On the other hand, women were mostly seen wearing skirts and aprons. There were men astronauts but no women astronauts.

This reminds me of what we were talking about in class about gender roles. It's amazing how society tries to really emphasize about how certain genders should act in society. When I was a little girl, I was given a play kitchen by "Santa" and I absolutely fell in love with it. After awhile, my sister played with it but my little brother and some little nephews of ours also wanted to play with the kitchen.Although they were always given the choice to play with other "boy" toys, sometimes they wanted to play with us in the kitchen. Some parents didn't seem to happy about it but it's not like they could explain to their child the reasons why he couldn't play with the girls in the kitchen. Society tries to categorize each person gender wise with colors and products such as a toy kitchen. They're usually pink and purple, girl toys, and boy toys are usually red and blue, more dark colors. I never noticed this when I was little but so many toys have tried to influence each gender to act ho they're supposed to act (girls and play kitchens and trucks and boys). But do we really need all of this gender categorizing... does it help keep things in balance?

Mamma- Maniac!

I all of a sudden found myself thinking sociologically when I was reading the article about the chineese mom. I honestly believe that she is going way too overboard. She is messing up her kids by being way too strict with them and not letting them do what they want to do. She is trying to teach them to be very good at something that they don't even like and she is not forming a very loving bond. Instead, it is going to end up as more of a fear bond instead of having trust and confidence towards her mother. I think that she needs to let her children relax a little bit and try to support her children in activities that they want to do, not in things that she wants them to do.

According to Mead, her children would not have a generalized other nor a symbolic other becasue the relationship the children have with their mother is so strict that they would not have the ability to form a close and healthy, happy bond. And according to both Cooley and Freud that all of the things happening during their childhoo, which the chineese mother is overcontroling, will affect their personality. And because all of these special bonds aren't forming, their stages of development aren't going to be able to develop. The mom may think she is helping her children but she is making them feel like they have to do things for their parents, not themselves. She needs to let her children do what they want while still having discipline on them. Balance is the key to everything.