Dreadful Destiny

"Lying there, With a halo in her hair she cried"
      -Panic! At The Disco, "From a Mountain In the Middle Of Cabins"

Sometimes, children are cruelly born into inferior situations. The number of babies being born addicted to drugs is rapidly increasing. This year at The Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida, they admitted "about 75-80 addicted babies, five to seven times the normal amount" (Today). Usually, the mother becomes addicted to drugs (commonly prescription drugs) before pregnancy, and once they become pregnant, they are reluctant to obliterate the use of drugs because they are hooked. Then, the toxic chemicals infused in these drugs transfer to the innocent child and affect their growth development.

These children are born with birth defects, and encounter medical issues such as tremors, digestive problems, and unstoppable crying. They are experiencing the horrible side effects of drug withdrawal. Frankly, a newborn child does not have a choice in their fate. They never were given the ability to alter their awful situation.

Pearl, born to Hester Prynne, relates similarly to this situation in The Scarlet Letter. Her mother committed adultery, and she was born out of her indecency. To society, she is seen as a "freakish, elfish" child because Hester's sin ultimately created Pearl, and Hester's immorality is rooted deeply inside Pearl (Hawthorne 93). Society shames and humiliates Pearl for being this way. Pearl does not have the choice of being born into sin, similarly to a newborn child forced to be addicted to drugs. Both of these detriments create consequences for its culprits and harm a child's well-being. It is ultimately unfair for predestinates to determine a child's fate internally or publically.

Visit this link to watch a short report on the baby addiction epidemic: http://www.today.com/video/today/48078597#48078597

Standard Stereotypes

"I've spent so long living with these heavy clouds following me" -Tom Odell, "Storms"

   If there is one thing I have learned from being a woman, it's stereotypes. Whether it's at a small get-together with friends, or at an important school event, a woman always has to fit into the ideal characteristics of a modern woman.

   Women who are curvy are fat. Women who are thin are anorexic. Women who enjoy sports are tomboys. Women who like shopping and makeup are prissy. Women who are quiet are self-conscious. Women who speak up are overconfident. Women who like the color pink are girly. Women who like the color black are dull. Women who are feminists are "man-haters".

   Stereotyping is thoroughly discussed in Brent Staples piece Black Men and Public Space. He explains how African American men can "alter public space in ugly ways"(Staples para 2) with their external presence. In contrast, women are likely to be ignored in public spaces, unless they fit into the standards of the public's eye. Being one of the few girls in the trumpet section of the marching band, I have personally experienced this. I will walk into the storage room to return my instrument to my locker, and the guys will be crowding the entire doorway, so I will politely say "excuse me". No response. Inevitably, I feel very invisible and insignificant, because I am completely ignored.

   I have concluded that a woman is overlooked if she does not represent modern standards. We simply cannot alter the public in any way if we are not suitable. The only way we can alter public space is to model how society wants to view us. And that ability, is never worth the consequence of losing individuality.

 

 



Parallel Poverty

Some people are fortunate to be born into wealth and acquire its privileges.  Others, like Jeannette Walls and Sherman Alexie, are not. Although both authors come from different backgrounds, they both encountered traumatic poverty during their childhoods. Walls travels around the country with her family, including her drunken father and deranged mother. They manage to scrape by on the mysterious earnings her father obtains, and encounter conflicting scenarios. Alexie also lives in destitution on an Indian reservation, where education and moral values are inconspicuous. Like Walls, he faces problems at school and with hunger. He even says, "And it is this: the sons in this book really love and hate their fathers"(Alexie xxii), which completely relates to Jeannette's feelings for her father as the creator of her family's poverty. Both authors want to escape the drudgery of poverty and create a better life for themselves. So, Walls moves to New York City as a writer and eventually works for NBC. Alexie also finds opportunity in New York and becomes very successful as a poet. They remove themselves from their past environments in order to release any negativity associated with their previous poverty. The upheaval these authors pursue portray the motivation poverty can instigate. They depict how the drive, independent of the situation of destitution, can initiate a want for success, and a want to possess what they've been rejected of.