Traditions

My grandparents live in West Virginia and every few years my family would travel out to their house for the reunion, which is a very long drive. I love the lush, rain storms and fire flies out there. I love that family tradition to get together with family.

I watched some of the documentary “People Like Us: Social Class in America” and it was so interesting. There is a lady named Tammy. She grew up in a poor family. She has a family of her own and has a few boys. They live in a trailer home that is very small and has a messy yard. Tammy works at Burger King and walks to work every day, which is about a 10 miles walk from their house to provide for her family. One of her boys, Matt, is in high school and wants to be a class up from what they are. He dresses a little bit better from the rest of his family and doesn’t want his friends to know where he lives, see who his mom is or be with his little brother in public because they don’t dress or look like he wants them to. Tammy has dreams to go to college and have a little better house. Matt has plans to graduate from high school and then go to college for 2 years.

After 13 years the film crew went back to see what had changed for this family. Tammy had moved way closer to Burger King, so she didn’t have to walk as far. Matt didn’t end up graduating from high school because he had gotten a girl pregnant and he decided to step up and work to provide for his family. They weren’t able to live what they had planned for their lives, but Tammy still holds strong to being able to go to college.

While watching this, I was so sad for them. They both had dreams but weren’t able to reach them yet. It was hard to see how Matt would treat Tammy with frustration and disgust in front of her face. I couldn’t help but wonder what Matt’s life would be like? His children’s life? Would this life style, culture and tradition continue to repeat itself? How can it be changed?

I’m not quite sure if I have those exact answers, but I know that each decision we make has an effect on not only us as individuals, but also our families. Let’s say that Tammy, whether or not she was married at one time I’m not sure, either stayed married or got married to the man that she had children with. That would change their family so much. Hopefully he would be able to work while she stayed home to teach and spend time with them. The boys would have a father to look to as an example of how to become a man and the importance of working and attending school. The husband and Tammy would be able to support each other and both of them would have more time to spend with their children because of their shared responsibility with work and household needs.

Traditions are inherited patterns of belief or behavior. I believe that having the tradition of getting married before starting a family and teaching the family the importance work would greatly bless and benefit each family unit in each culture. Some traditions that I think would be discarded from each culture would be spoiling children and parents being out of the home for the majority of the day when the children are home from school.

We usually praise and envy parents that spoil their children. The parents are able to provide for their children and they can take care of a lot of their needs. But, I’ve realized that spoiling a child is actually hindering that child’s growth. We need to help them learn how important it is for them to do things on their own, so they will become responsible parents and citizens of our country. We also need to include them in our budgeting and help them to see the benefits of working to provide for their future families. If we choose to make good decisions, those effect our children and their children and so on. I hope that our traditions can bless our culture and nation.