Socioautobiography
Socs 185
2/13/2011
Looking back on my life I wondered why growing up I was only attracted to African Americans. Being raised in a historically traditional all white family with no mixed relationships to account for; you would assume my childhood and adult life would run concurrent with the norm. Yet as an adult, I have always only been attracted to woman of the opposite race, and dated with the same standard. At what point in my childhood did I notice that pattern start forming? (TCO 3, 7 week 6)
I grew up in a single parent household with little money. I remember thinking as a child that I wish I was like every other family who had the cool clothes, shoes and the best toys. I wished that we owned a washer machine so that we could wash our clothes in the privacy of our home, instead of walking the two blocks to the Laundromat with dirty laundry slung over our shoulders. I wished I had a father so that I could be a child instead of the implied role by friends and family that I was the man of the house. That’s a big deal to a child who just wanted play with his GI Joes and tease his little sister. When teasing did occur, I was told that I was the man of the house and should not treat my sister that way. I remember struggling for most of my young childhood, moving from place to place and living off welfare, no man or money in sight, just my mother and the government cheese in our belly. Life did not really change until I was a teenager. My mother graduated from college and got a decent paying job. We finally had some money to help us be self-sufficient with minimal government support. We moved into an apartment when I went into the 7th grade; the apartment was subsidized home on the outskirts of Wethersfield Ct. The area was really considered the inner city; gangs ruled the streets with violence and controlled drug houses on every corner. (TCO 4, 6 week 2)
My childhood is not unique in that many people could relate and probably have similar...
