<Institution>
Introduction
I am a student, a wife, a sister, and a daughter. Currently, I take on many roles, but being where I am now is not without many struggles and challenges. Growing up, I faced several difficulties which helped me develop and grow as a person. Right now, I intend to be my best here at the University of Maryland University College or UMUC. I started taking my first semester at UMUC as an undergraduate in the year 2002. I was stationed at Misawa Japan during that time as part of my service in the military, and through distance learning program, I decided to continue my education. However, I was not able to complete my studies because I became busy with work and other activities in life. After 12 years, I felt and realized that there are many good reasons why I need to go back to college. This is why I am back to UMUC where I know that my educational needs are being met.
Sociological Perspective
It is true that the family and school environment can greatly impact a child’s development. This happened to me. Although I am aware that my parents and my siblings provided me with the best care and understanding that they could give, interaction with my family and my peers in school influenced the development of my identity crisis. To begin with, I am the eldest child from my mother and my father. Following me was my little brother. However, I have an older sister from my mother, and she has a different father. On the other hand, I also have two brothers from my father’s side (different mother). I am not sure if being in a blended family affected my sociological perspective, but I have always felt different from my brother and half-siblings. When I was a child, I was very sensitive. When I get into fight with my sister and brothers, I cried easily, and I’m also easily offended when I felt like I am not being appreciated. This feeling became apparent to me because as a child, it was never easy for me to be identified as a girl. I knew I was a girl, and I never wanted to be a boy either, but my preferences over “boy” things are stronger. I love to play with other boys. In fact, I was very much into sports, and I also like their toys. I do not like dolls, and I do not like to wear dresses as well. However, I am my father’s only daughter, and he always expected me to be his little girl. Every Sunday when we go to church, my parents, especially my father, would order me to wear a dress. It was a painful experience as a child because I do not understand why I had to wear something that I was not comfortable with. I remember how I would cry my heart out and how it would ruin my day. When I learned about Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, specifically the identity vs. role confusion stage, I instantly remembered this phase of my life. Based on Erikson’s concept, “the adolescent may feel uncomfortable about their body for a while until they can adapt and ‘grow into’ the changes” (McLeod, 2013). Perhaps this is what happened to me because I felt uncomfortable with identifying myself as a girl. In addition, it is said that “pressuring someone into an identity can result in rebellion in the form of establishing a negative identity” (McLeod, 2013). Personally, I felt pressured because my parents were forcing me to be the girl that they expected me to be; thus, I thought that something was wrong with me, a negative identity that I probably carried with me even outside of my home.
In school, I continued to feel different. I also found it hard to fit in with other kids. Instead of hanging out with girls, I tend to be more comfortable playing with boys. If I’m not with them, I hang out with my brothers in school. Because I was not comfortable in dressing up as a girl, other girls would tease how I look. In other words, I was bullied during my grade school days. High school was no different. When I reached the 10th grade, I decided to transfer to an all-girls institution, a Catholic school. My parents also thought that it would be a good idea so that I would be exposed to the ways of other girls and perhaps be influenced by them. However, I remained different. Every day, I had to wear a skirt, and I did. Unfortunately, other girls would roll up their skirts to show a part of their legs, and I was not comfortable with that. Some of my classmates would convince and force me to do the same, and as much as I tried to be like them, I just could not fit in. As a result, I performed poorly in school. At one point, I met a girl who was known to be a Goth. She made friends with me, and I thought that she would help me with my social struggles. However, she had other things in mind that I do not agree with. I asked my parents that I would rather attend a public school. Because they saw that I was not happy, they agreed to my request. I transferred to a public school, where many of my classmates and even my teacher initially thought that I was a boy. From time to time, I still became a victim of bullying in my new school. However, I met some people who became my friends. They accepted me for who I was, and I began to feel comfortable. I started doing well in school, and I became more energetic. Although I remained timid in most days, I know that finding people who accepted me, my self-esteem has improved. This is the story of how my family and school environment influenced my development as a person.
Anthropological Perspective
I am an African American who was born and raised in New York. Both of my parents were from the Island of Antigua and Barbuda. Although both of them know how to speak creole, I never really learned our native language. In Antigua and Barbuda, many people are Christians. My parents were born and raised as Catholics, and as a child, they also raised me and my siblings within the same religious beliefs. I even remember going to church every Sunday with my family. However, although I remain a Catholic, I didn’t grow up to be religious, so this aspect of much life didn’t affect me much. At the same time, since I was born and raised in New York; therefore, I was not exposed to the culture that my parents were born into. What really affected me and my life the most is my race and my gender. As I have mentioned before, I had always been a victim of bullying at school. Most of the time, I blame it on my skin color. Being black, I have always felt that my peers tend to look down on me. I only started embracing my race when someone made me realize that color doesn’t really matter. This was when I transferred from Catholic school to public school during high school, where I met some real friends who made me feel comfortable with my skin. Moreover, I felt that being a girl made some people think that I cannot go beyond my limits. When I was a child, I also felt like my parents think that I was weaker than my brothers only because I am a girl. However, when I made it to the military, I felt a sense of strength and achievement, and it made me realize that a woman like me can still be competent in any field.
Psychological Perspective
My personal development from childhood to adulthood has been influenced by several interpersonal factors, such as my interaction with my family and with my peers. For example, I believe that I have suffered from “middle child syndrome.” This refers to the situation where the middle child feels “ignored and often grow resentful of all the parental attention given to the oldest and the baby of the family, and feel short-shifted” (“What are the effects,” 2006). Both my mother and my father have children from their former partners, and these siblings of mine were older than me. Thus, I believe they got their full attention when they were born. This made me a middle child since I got a younger brother from my parents. When he was born, both of them were very excited. They would always tell me that I had to be more patient and more understanding since I am older than him. On the other hand, I am also always told to be patient and respectful to my older siblings. This is why I felt like I was always the one who needed to make adjustments. In addition, my parents would always tell me to behave properly like a girl, which was why I felt that something must be wrong with me. Although my parents and my siblings are loving, some of my experiences being a middle child and feeling awkward affected my self-esteem.
I have to admit that I greatly suffered from low self-esteem during most of my younger years. Several researches suggest that “people with high self-esteem focus on growth and improvement, whereas people with low self-esteem focus on not making mistakes in life” (McLeod, 2012). This was exactly what I went through when I was young. Although I tend to act and dress like a boy, at the presence of my parents, I always try my best to act like a girl because I’m afraid that I would make a mistake in the way I behave. I was afraid that my parents would get mad because of my wrong behavior. Moreover, children who have low self-esteem are said to be “withdrawn or shy, and find it difficult to have fun” (McLeod, 2012). This is true for me. Because I felt different, I had always been shy of myself. I only had few friends at school, and I didn’t even find my school environment to be interesting. Many times, I found that I was only dragging myself to school out of my parents’ orders.
Moreover, I also developed negative self-concept. Self-concept is the way I perceive myself or my personal value. When I was young, I tend to think that I was not beautiful and I was not worthy of people’s attention. This was because I experienced bullying at school for many years. I found it hard to belong to a group of friends who would genuinely welcome me and like my personality. As a result, it affected my academic performance, which made me feel even worse. Fortunately, my self-concept improved when I reached adulthood with the help of the few true friends that I met and also with the help of my husband.
I know that my personality has been formed and influenced by all the experiences I have been through in life. Right now, I can say that I have an introverted personality. According to McLeod (2014), “introverts are reserved, plan their actions and control their emotions. They tend to be serious, reliable and pessimistic.” True enough, I am a reserved person, and I am not sociable. I only have few good friends because I believe that there are many people who are not reliable. Most of the time, I keep things to myself. I am also a home buddy, and although I make it a point to travel at least twice a year, I only travel with my husband. I also do not have hobbies outside my work. As I think about it, perhaps being a victim of bullying and enduring the middle child syndrome influenced me to just stay away from bigger social connections.
Conclusion
Overall, who I am now and what I have become is a product of many factors in my life. For the most part, my family and the people within my school environment greatly influenced what I felt as a child. Because I was more comfortable in behaving and dressing up like a boy, it was hard for me whenever I had to obey my parents when they pushed me to act like a girl. I felt uncomfortable with my gender as a young girl, and this feeling reflected in the way I behave and relate to my peers in school. As a result, I was bullied and I was not accepted by most of my schoolmates. This bullying and criticisms was also ignited by my skin color. As an African American, I used to be uncomfortable with my skin color because I felt like it was one of the reasons why my peers would not like me. The outcomes of my interaction with my family and with my social circle ultimately affected me on the psychological level. I developed identity crisis, low self-esteem, and negative self-concept. Fortunately, I was able to find few good friends who helped me reconstruct how I view myself. Little by little, I started to become comfortable with my color, and I started to believe that I have a worth and value in the society. This pushed me to give my service to the country and become part of the military. Later on, it also allowed me to establish a healthy relationship with my family, which includes my husband who also helped me with my personal struggles.
References
McLeod, S. (2013). Erik Erikson. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
McLeod, S. (2012). Low self esteem. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-esteem.html
McLeod, S. (2014). Theories of personality. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-theories.html
What are the effects of ‘middle child syndrome’? Today. Retrieved from http://www.today.com/parents/what-are-effects-middle-child-syndrome-2D80554876
