 |
| Real Housewives of Beverly Hills |
Was there a pecking order tin the community you grew up in? What kind of person was looked down on in that pecking order? If you had to describe the kind of person who would be shunned or spoken of with disapproval in the community you grew up in, what kind of person would that be?
In the small town of Needville, the stereotypical family is; a stay at home mom, a working husband, a few children, and some pets. The kind of person who is looked down upon is a single parent. Going to a small school my whole life, my parents would be at every sporting event and every school event. Sometimes my dad couldn’t get off work, but my mom would always be there. However, most kids don’t get that support system when they have single parents, obviously because they have to work. Like the book mentioned, there would always be the “too good” moms who would put themselves in competition to a single parent home, and talk down upon them.
ReplyDeleteI grew up here in Ada, OK... I never thought it was "bad" to be raised by a single parent, in fact, most of my friend's parents were divorced. The type of person who is looked down on in Ada would be one with low income, a shabby house that needs painting, tons of children bare-footed in the front yard, and maybe even a few drug roomers.
ReplyDelete-Abigail Fowler
I have always lived in the country. I don't really have many neighbors. The few neighbors I do have do not live very close to me. In my community, we aren't super close-knit. Despite the fact that I haven't been close to my neighbors, I know that if I needed their help with something they would be there for me. Likewise, my family would be there for them if they needed us. The only people that really get looked down on are the people that aren't willing to help their neighbors. My community does not care if you're a single parent, how much money you have, how many kids you have, how you dressed, or even if you do drugs. If you treat them with respect and help them when they need you, they will treat you the same way.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a small town filled with close-knit and frankly, small-minded people who have known each other for generations. My town isn’t too friendly or accepting of new people who move there. For example, I remember sitting in class as a sophomore in high school when one of my classmates blatantly declared that if you were not born here, they are not going to make you feel welcome. So, someone that would be looked down on would probably be someone who does not have roots in the town going back generations.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up in Shawnee, Oklahoma, my father and I were the one's who were looked down upon. We were poorer than most people, and my father had a long line of addiction in his lifetime. As a single parent he was charged with twice the responsibilities that a normal family would have, yet he was treated like half the man. Society has a way of shaming those who do not replicate their lives simply because it does not follow the status quo. Judgement falls from men and women alike when it comes to parenting methods in even the smallest details; the clothes children wear, what they eat for lunch, and who their parents chose to spend their time with. Small town people often fill their time with consuming their minds with other people's lives and affairs.
ReplyDelete-Macy Phillips
Most of my life I have been raised in a very tiny town which had only 2 gas stations and a post office. Like other small towns there wasn't a lot to do and we didn't know all of our neighbors. However, we did have some neighbors who would lend a hand when needed. Most of our townspeople were from middle to lower income households. A couple of years ago my family and I moved to Ada and since then I have heard several people speak negatively about my former hometown. One person said, "all of the people in that town are drug dealers and have no front teeth." I wanted to reply that I have all of my teeth and most of my neighbors were decent, hard-working people! They stereotyped us based on a small minority that did abuse drugs. I believe we should not look down or judge anyone, no matter what they are doing or how they are living, because no one is perfect.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in the country, right next to my grandparent’s house, there was a family that lived down the dirt road from us that I heard a lot of talk about. They had a lot of children and were rumored to be drug addicts. My family didn’t exactly speak disrespectfully of them, but I could tell that they looked down on these people because of their situation, and how they perceived it to be lower than ours. At the time, I was pretty scared of them because of everything negative about them that I had heard, but looking back now, it was most likely all hearsay anyway.
ReplyDeleteI too grew up here in Ada, Oklahoma. Though I was homeschooled up to the time I was going into the eighth grade, so I never really noticed such a harsh social pecking order until then. However, within just a week I realized how cruel society can be to those less fortunate. Those kids that did not have very nice clothes to wear or had the body odor that told you they did not shower very often were often the ones that were looked down on. Other things that my town uses to deem you as a worthy candidate for a low spot in the pecking order is when you cannot seem to concur the stress of your life without picking up a bad habit or two along the way. It also took me less than a week to notice the apparent, and growing, drug problem in my school's community. It always seemed that those who can ill-afford it, were the ones that work their hardest to make sure they had the extra money needed for those habits.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in rural Oklahoma. We waved at each other passing on the road and helped when it was needed. The only people shunned in my community were people committing crimes and sometimes people who recently moved to town. In my town everyone knew each other, we all grew up together and spent our free time together. Being a new comer in my town would be hard at first but once you were excepted in to the family like community you were one of us.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThis type of discrimination was definitely prevalent in the community and school that I grew up in. In the community, people who did not attend church, those who were poor, and those who had children before marriage were looked down upon. In school, kids whose parents were not on the school board were treated as second class citizens. Furthermore, if you were not in 4-H or FFA, you were seen as inferior.
Growing up in Ada not many were looked down upon because so many people were in different situations. Many parents were divorced, remarried, single, or still together. The only ones that I saw talked down upon were the parents that had less than the others. In Ada the families that had more than others such as those that were a part of the country club or where heavily involved in the school system were the ones that looked down on the ones with less. The person that was talked down on was the person that did not always dress incredibly nice in the expensive clothes, did not always have their hair and make-up done, and if they did not have a good family history or a history at in this town.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Lagos, a big city in Nigeria. Not a lot of people were looked down upon unless they dressed in an indecent way. For example men with dreadlocks and sagging trousers and older women who wore excessively revealing clothes were seen as irresponsible. Also, older men who drank a lot and played draught (usually a game of betting) are also seen as irresponsible because they did not take care of their families most of the time. Young adults who drove flashy cars are also seen as fraudsters.
ReplyDelete