Being parents is one of the biggest changes in anyone's life. It is about something very scared when bearing a new life and then being responsible of bringing that new born into life. That is the reason why parents always demand on sons and daughters so that they can grow up becoming good people (in parent's ideals). From Hochman's essay and Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet, we are challenged by the chilling idea that families demand that sons and daughters "be like us, or be alone". This quote is true for many families. In this context, I think about my family and ask myself whether we are in one of the cases.
I didn't like the idea of being in a traditional family when I was younger. At that time, in my thinking, being traditional was something not cool. However, we are traditional, a Vietnamese traditional family. Although my mother is also working but she still spends the morning at home to do housework. Thus, my father is still considered the top of the family. My mother, like many Vietnamese women, spends more time with children than my father. In our society, it's popular that men work and women take care of children. I didn't talk to my father as much as I do to my mother. It doesn't mean that I hate him or something, just because I've been growing up closer to my mother. My mother always takes care of everything for me and my sister such as our food, our sleep, our schools, our classes, My father is care loving but he does not show it, that's how our men are like. Moreover, he feels it's natural for women to take care of household and children. Thus, he just leaves the tasks for her. .
When I read Girl of Jamaica Kincaid (from Global Voices), I felt the resemblance between the mother in the story and my mother. Kincaid listed her mother's advice into a story. Many of those advices are just like my mother's. Probably, that's how most mothers are regardless to their backgrounds. My mother and I talk a lot.