Autobiographical Transformation as a Child to an Adult Essay

Autobiographical Transformation as a Child to an Adult - Essay Example My transformation as a child to an adult was in a Toronto suburb as an only son in a family of eight. What made me grow up differently from my siblings was that I always had a carefree and, sometimes, quite reckless mindset towards life. While my seven sisters were either doing their homework or doing house chores, there I was, running up and down my neighborhood searching for stray dogs to terrorize and play football with the neighborhood children. My father, who had waited patiently for a son until I was born, always referred to me as a waste of life, although my mother always defended me. My father was adamant that I was the family’s hope but, at nine, you rarely see yourself as anyone’s hope, so our relationship was a mess. In the summer of 1996, I arrived home from school to a rude shock. My father, finally fed up, had made a decision of leaving my mother and marrying his black mistress who already had his son. When my mother refused to grant him custody of any of us, he seemed quite relieved. I could tell this because, by then, I had begun looking at people and observing their facial expressions. My father could not bear to look at us, but I always knew my mother’s housewife routine had gotten to him. This is an autobiographical paper that discussing the people, places, events, and experiences that have influenced my culture, social class, gender, religion and sexual orientation. Race Growing up as a child, my neighborhood, was predominantly white. However, some of my friends were not white; for example, my best friend’s family had emigrated from Papua New Guinea. My feelings towards racial minorities were non-existent during my childhood, as I even went to my friend’s house for dinner and â€Å"homework†. As I became older, however, I began to have a different outlook towards other races, especially African Canadians. While my attitude was not racist, I had a hard time convincing myself that not all black people were like the woman who took my father away from my mother. I met her once during a school trip to the zoo, as she clung to my father’s arm and I was afraid of talking my black friends after that. However, when I joined high school, my attitude took another turn when I met a black girl who had emigrated from Tanzania. I was amazed at how different she was from what I had envisioned black women to be growing up, and watching my mother struggle as a single mum. When I met my father’s new partner at the zoo, she had sneered at me, which had given me the impression that this was a â€Å"black thing†. However, with Aisha, she had the most loving face I had ever seen. Going to college saw me meet more black people and my attitude by then had changed to one of inclusiveness. This was brought on by my comprehension that we were all after the same things in life. Social Class When I was growing up in a middle-class suburb, my interaction with lower class citizens was lim ited to the mall and school. I remember I always had a â€Å"keep away† attitude towards them. This was informed by an incident where my sister was robbed and almost raped coming from her boyfriend’s house across the rail tracks. I remember my mother being livid that her boyfriend had not even had the courtesy to come and explain the situation. From that day, she forbids us from mixing with those â€Å"uncivilized folk†. When I was ten, my friends and I came up against a gang of youth from the ghetto as we scurried after a stray dog. While they did not beat us as they took our clothes and the little money we had, I still remember their â€Å"rich kids† taunts. I did not consider myself a rich kid at that point since my parents had to take care of eight siblings, so I began to wonder what these rich kids could have done to deserve this kind of treatment. When I joined High School, I came to the realization that the rich kids were not very different from us .