Blog 4

After investigating my topic and attempting to understand the differences in style of upbringing, I came to the conclusion that 1) In order to come up with the type of data I was hoping for, my research needed to be much more expansive, as I only asked questions of a small group of people (my friends) who have relatively the same background as me, and 2) The survey questions needed to be much more specific and numerous so that I could get a better idea of each individual’s family life and background.

If I had, say, asked the interview questions of people I didn’t know, I feel I would have gotten a better range of lifestyles and parenting techniques. The issue was that the questions I wanted to ask were quite personal, and I felt I couldn’t ask them of people I didn’t know. Luckily, I was still able to make some conclusions based on the information that I ended up with.

Most of the people I interviewed described decent, if not great, childhoods and family lives. Each of them was able to identify a lesson they had taken from home, whether the message was positive or negative. Most of them also said that they make decisions that they know their parents might have made or told them to make in the face of a challenge. Even Stephen, with answers that suggested a rocky childhood, agreed that he left for college with ideas about approaching life that he learned form his parents.

Emma reflected on difficulties with her parents as she reached her teenage years. It appears that most American teenagers struggle at this time and are most resistant to the values that their parents try to instill in them. Sometimes, arguments that come up between a parent and child can be quite detrimental to the relationship and therefore affect a lot of the choices that the child makes as they become more independent. In these situations, the child tends to make decision that are the opposite of what their parents might tell them, however this fact reinforces the idea that parents and the choices that they make when parenting have an extreme effect on their children.

Because I asked questions of people with relatively good family upbringings, they each were appreciative of the wisdom they felt they gained from their parents. All but one expressed appreciation as well for any advice they were given, and said that they will continue to seek help when dealing with difficult situations.

We see examples every day of the positive and negative effects that parents can have on their children. Still, there is evidence in every culture that children would not survive without the knowledge they receive as they grow.

Blog 3

When I began to write the survey questions for this blog, I started with very specific questions about family upbringing, but I realized that each person’s relationship with their parents is so unique that I would have had to write over a hundred questions to get a full view of each interviewee’s background. I was finally able to come up with 15 questions, except that after I began the interviews I became unsatisfied with them again. The answers I got just did not paint the picture of the interviewees’ background and upbringing as I had hoped. But, whatcha gonna do, right?


The following has been edited to omit any information that might breach the privacy of those interviewed.


I first interviewed my friend Eric who I met here at Humboldt State. Overall, Eric seemed to believe his parents did teach him some valuable lessons. He spoke highly of his mom, and did not mention anything that might have made him less conscientious of his parents’ advice. However, he was fairly vague and the most I understood was that he’d learned to be a logical, reserved person. I felt that his ambiguity could have been a product of his upbringing and could at least deduce that he’d learned well.


Alex, a close friend from high school, was the most explicit when answering his questions. He described a warm family, grounded and stable. He mentioned that both of his parents taught him many life lessons, most to do with how to approach life, and that the most valuable lesson he feels he learned from them is to “THINK.” When asked whether he sees similarities between the choices he makes and the choices his parents might make, he said that although he does make decisions sometimes that he knows his parents would not understand, he also lives by the lessons he’s learned from his upbringing and holds in high regard his parents’ values and opinions. He explained that he is not afraid to take advantage of any help his parents provide, but that he feels he has become an independent person and a great product of his parents’ life teachings.


My third interviewee was Emma, my best friend from back home. I am very close to both Emma and her mom, so it was interesting to hear Emma’s perspective on her relationship with her parents. Although Emma is much closer to her mom and described her with words that were much more positive than the words used for her dad, she was able to come up with lessons learned from both parents. She, like Alex, also mentioned appreciating her parents’ help and advice, but recalled that she was resistant to their advice until after her teenage years. She was the only person I interviewed that expressed worry that her parents might be disappointed in the decisions she makes, although she says she values highly everything she has learned from them.


I know Brandon from high school as well. I was quite surprised by some of his answers as I know a bit about his relationship with his parents, and it was clear that he was not completely honest when answering the questions. However, it is not my place to make this assumption, so I will report only on what he said. Brandon put the most emphasis on how close he is with his family. He was the only interviewee to say that he was never really punished for his mistakes, yet he also said that the decisions he makes are exactly the decisions his parents would make. Although he spoke of being part of a “tight-knit” family, he was very unenthusiastic and vague when asked about the life lessons he’s learned. Ironically, he claimed the most important thing he’s learned from his parents is to try his best at everything.


I interviewed last my friend Stephen, who is a fairly close acquaintance of mine here at Humboldt. Stephen was the only person who showed a bit of disdain for his parents, although he still was able to come up with lessons that both his mother and father had taught him. The most interesting thing about Stephen’s interview was his difference in background compared to the rest of the people I interviewed. To sum it up, when asked what aspect of his upbringing stuck out to him the most, he replied, “Staying alive.”