After reading the poems "Advice to My Son,"" by Peter Meinke and "Mother to Son,"" by Langston Hughes, there are many differences as well as comparisons between the two. The father and the mother both explain to their sons how to live life gracefully but also how to keep pushing forward when times get hard. The specific comparisons between the two parents, their use of language and their race, and the message they distribute to their sons are all different but they also have quite a few similarities as well. When reading the two poems, the parents in each poem are two extremely different people. This is not explained in either of the two but after comparing them, the father in Meinke's poem has a superior vocabulary to the mother in Hughes' poem. This then explains that the father is educated and the mother has little to no education at all. "Ise been a-climbin' on, and reachin' landin's, and turnin' corners"" (Lines 9, 10, 11). These lines from the poem "Mother to Son,"" display how the mother spells her words and they also show her use of slang. The father, on the other hand, uses proper modern vocabulary. In the poem "Advice to My Son, " stanza two, line eight the father spells the word "seeing" as it should be spelled but if the mother were to spell that same word, she would have cut it short by using an apostrophe after the "n"" replacing the "g"." This shows the education differences between the two parents and their use of words.
As stated before, the mother's vocabulary shows that she is not educated but her vocabulary also reveals her race. The mother is black and the father in Meinke's poem is white. For this to be known, it did not have to written in fine print. African American slaves were not educated during their enslavement. However, the father had the privilege to go to school. Although the two authors are both male, Meinke's poem is from a father to his son and Hughes's poem is from a mother to her son.
