Reflecion # 8

Our parents play an important role in out lives. They are the ones who usually teach us about life. All children including myself learn from what their parents teach them. It is the parent’s job to make sure they teach them right from wrong.

When it comes to understanding my social class, my parents taught me well. I come from a middle class Hispanic background. By that said, I am Cuban, in which my parents have always followed Cuban cultural traditions. For example, my parents always play Cuban music as well as cook Cuban food so that we don’t forget the customs. As for being socialized as a middle class family, my parents taught me that we don’t always get what we want but we live comfortably. As a child I usually got everything that I wanted, yet there were times when they would say we couldn’t afford it. However, when it comes to social class and television, that’s when it changes. In today’s world popular media is taking over and is influencing all of our lives. It is proven that children are spending more time in tune with the popular media than in school. Popular media is in introduced with in T.V., radio, computers, advertisements, and books. Whether you like what the media has to say, it offer’s important information for parents in making good media choices for their children.

In addition, getting to know your gender is an essential part of being a kid. Children usually started having and understanding of their gender as soon as their born. Once you are born you go through stages. As an infant, you start identifying gender by listening to your parent’s voices. As you get older, and become a toddler you begin to use different gender forms in playing. For instance, as a child my mother would buy me Barbie dolls and as for my brother she would get him toy cars. Another way my parents provided me with an understanding of my gender was by the clothes I wore. Girls are typically dressed in pretty delicate clothing with pigtails and bow on their hair. Boys are dressed more in cute sporty clothes. Many parents like mine involve their kids in extra activities like ballet for girls and sports for boys to show them the differences in gender.

On the other hand, understanding what sexual relations are is very important. It is vital that parents explain to their young ones about sexuality and understanding what sexual relationships are. Now a day’s teenagers are becoming more and more drawn into sexual relationships. Nevertheless, there are many parents who don’t know how to speak and take time to enlighten their child about this topic on sexual relationships. Some parents may feel too embarrassed talking about sex or just might not know how to bring it up in a conversation. I remember when I was about 12 years old and I had turned into a young women, my mother sat me down and explained to me what sex was and how I need to be carful now. My mother and I have always had an open mother daughter relationship which has always made it easier for me to tell her things as well as being able to understand her better.

In conclusion, I feel that parents play a very important part in a child’s life. Overall, parents need to remember that a child is always depending and counting on their parents for basically everything. By parents getting involved and actually educating their kids they can make a difference and could prevent many things from happening.