Daddy Issues

     This unit in ELA, we've been doing a very interesting unit. We've been reading coming of age books, (COA) and having multiple discussions over an assortment of essays, vignettes, a movie, and more. For my part, I started and read to the middle of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith. The setting for this book is very important because it takes place in the slums of Brooklyn in the early 1900's, a time when where you lived and who you were defined everything about you, from your lifestyle to how you grew up. The main character, Francie, lives in a very poor family with a loving but drunk father and a hardworking, practical mother, along with her younger brother. What I found interesting in this unit is how often parental issues come up in a COA novel.
     You see, this wasn't the first COA book I've read. I feel like everyone in their lifetime reads a great number of COA books that they just don't realize are COA books. Many of these are great classics- Tom Sawyer, Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Secret Life of Bees- and an awful lot of them have parental issues in them. This was very prominent in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn- "Johnny Nolan was a handsome lovable fellow far superior to any man on the block. But he was a drunk. That's what they said, and it was true." I feel that it's interesting how often there are parental problems in COA books, and I have a theory as to why that is true. I feel that almost always, coming of age doesn't happen peacefully. For some people, it may be a simple matter of when they experience their first heartbreak at the age of 16, and that's when they really come of age. But for some people, people who's father or mother is abusive, or a drunk, or mean- these people come of age sooner, because I think that Coming of Age is when you first realize that life's not always going to be on your side.
     So, that's why I think that parental issues are so often included in COA books. It's a large reason for many people to COA. It's apparent what it does to Francie- she's aware of her father's drunkenness for a long time, and it forces her to take on more responsibility than others. "Two men brought papa home today. He was sick. Mama was away. I put papa to bed and gave him black coffee. When mama came home she said that was the right thing to do." I feel that for people who have more problems, coming of age happens more quickly, because I feel that people come of age out of necessity. For example, a child born on the streets would have to learn how to take care of themselves as early as they could, but a person born into utter privilege who never needed anything or was never told no and always sheltered- honestly, that person may never come of age. It's all a matter of necessity.
     One thing I found interesting, however, was how gender roles came up in the middle of all this. You see, I talked to alot of people to try and figure out how parental issues played a role in their books, and while a lot of them said they played an important part, it was almost always the father that was a drunk or abusive- not the mother. I contemplated this, and came up with a theory. I feel that the reason mother's are always portrayed as caring or in the very least not abusive is because people have a stronger reaction to abusive mothers than fathers. It's not that either are any less wrong- it's just that I think some people have a stronger reaction to motherly abuse than fatherly abuse because women bore the children, were supposed to have a bond with it, a maternal instinct. What do you think? Do you think you would have a stronger reaction to an abusive mother? Why?