Advanced Essay #2: A Mother's Voice

People believe that our school environment has the largest impact on our speech development and interpretation of literacy. This effect on our speech happens much earlier on in life. Our parents are this early effect. A parent who instills the importance of reading in a child's life gives that child an interest in learning, which will blossom into a dominant cultural capital. A parent who is not involved in a child’s life reading wise places this child at a disadvantage. Recently, I recalled when I went to my mother’s house and remembered a conversation we had about our childhoods. I was about 13.

I sat on the sofa and pulled out my book that I had been reading. Animal Farm, by George Orwell.

“Animal Farm. That’s a good book.” my mom said.

“You read Animal Farm?” I said.

“Of course, I read it a few years ago. Do you like it so far?”

“Yeah, I’m really enjoying it...in a strange way. But I wouldn’t peg you as someone who’d read something like this.”

“Why do you think that?” my mother said, confused.

“You read romance novels and I doubt that Nani would’ve asked you to  read something like this.”

“Why does my mother care about what I should and shouldn’t read?”

“You were sort of… for lack of a better word, poor as a child. I was raised reading books and craving to read more books.

“I had to work for my education, and sure, maybe I wasn’t as proper spoken as you as a child but I’m smart, Eric.” I stood up and grabbed my book not saying anything. I went to my room and fell asleep quickly. It was as if the night went by with a blink.

This memory is like an essay we read in class, The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children by Lisa D. Delpit. “I am also suggesting that appropriate education for poor children and children of color can only be devised in consultation with adults who share their culture. Black parents, teachers of color, and members of poor communities must be allowed to participate fully in the discussion of what kind of instruction is in their children’s best interest.” (296).  

As a society, people neglect poor children no matter how much they need help, but the moment a child with money has an issue they get all the necessary help. When Delpit states, “instruction in their children’s best interest,” she believes  that  as a society need to put our differences of privilege aside and help the poor, using our privilege because that is a part of our culture. My mother as a child wanted help and my grandmother never got my mom any help at all.

The next morning, after my “discussion” with my mom, I heard her voice from downstairs in the kitchen. I walked downstairs, making a slight noise and saw my mom drinking coffee in the kitchen, her phone was on the table. On the phone was her mom.

“Never heard of Animal Farm, sounds fancy.” my grandmother said.

“Yeah it’s pretty advanced for his age, guess all that reading at night with him helped.” my mom said.

“ I loved reading to you.”

“ You never read to me, Ma!” my mother snapped back

“ Yeah I did, I read you….”

“You can’t even think of a book, you were never there for me!” There was a moment of silence, my mother burst into tears and hung up the phone, putting her head on the table in shame.

As Mike Rose wrote in his essay, I Just Want to be Average,  “You're defined by your school as "slow"; you're placed in a curriculum that isn't designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you're lucky, train you, through the training is for work the society does not esteem; other students are picking up the cues from your school and your curriculum and interacting with you in particular ways.” (3).

We separate kids into two groups, smart and slow and we do this at a young age but old enough so that child understands that their behind. Instead of allowing “slower” kids to integrate their ideas with “smarter” kids so that both groups benefit schools put you in classes that just fill up your time, rather than giving you a purpose.

Literacy is a tool used to understand words and people, some people understand these messages better than others. Our parents are meant to lead us, the amount of guidance are parents give us varies.

Works Cited:

I Just Wanna Be Average by Mike Rose

Rose, Mike. "I Just Want to Be Average." Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared. New York: Free Press, 1989. 162-67. Print.

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand: the Making of a Poet. Grove Press, 2001. [This is the book…]