Week Nine, Getting to Know my Mentor

Because, yet again, there was no appointment this week, I decided to interview my mentor for an assignment in another class. I was supposed to identify a person with a different background from myself and interview her, identifying differences in our culture-general framework. I took liberty with the definition of "different" when trying to find someone to interview from a different background, but what I found was interesting. Even though my mentor grew up two states away from me, we had some general differences, which proved to me that everyone is an individual (not that I didn't think so in the first place). Here's what I found:

For this activity, I interviewed a UR student from New Jersey with an English heritage. The student asked not to be identified, but I will refer to her as Jane for this assignment. We found that we had many similarities, but there were some obvious differences as well. I asked many of the suggested questions and expanded some of them to uncover further differences.

The first difference came in the second question of the interview: who makes decisions at home. In my experience, my parents led their kids to be independent in making their own decisions, and when it came to making decisions about the home, it was a group effort. It reflected our democratic environment in that we had to find common ground to come to a consensus and make a decision together. In Jane’s home, her parents made all the decisions and children were an afterthought. She thought this was because of the value of adults in society over children. Her parents did not think that she and her siblings could contribute much or should be able to contribute much to important discussions about “adult” things.

We also differed in what provides security in life. I believed that tight relationships can provide security. Knowing that you have someone to rely on in a hard time is essential to comfort and happiness. For her, money provided ultimate security. She believed that money provided opportunities for her and her family and that things are more regular when you can pay to have them be so. Without a steady stream of money, you cannot know what you will be able to eat next week.

Our expectations of young children were also different. I took the attitude that kids will be kids and they will make mistakes once in a while. People learn from experience and need guidance to become socialized. She believed that children were more expected to follow rules, obey elders, and be nice than any other age group in society. Children are an embodiment of their parents’ success, so they must obey them. It is also expected that children will go to school and achieve.
Along the same lines, she wished that her children could grow up without such high expectations. She wishes she could have had more freedom growing up and hopes to provide that to her children. On the other hand, the main thing I want to provide my children is the message that if there is something they love and they work hard enough at it, they can succeed. I know that when I was young, I loved hockey. Because I was always small however, I tended to be cut from teams and became discouraged. Today, I know I could have played the sport at the college level if I would have believed in myself and followed through with my dreams.

The final big difference happens to be about marriage. When asked who she thinks she should marry, she said that she should marry the person with whom she falls in love. I responded that I should marry the girl with whom I fall in love. Perhaps this difference shows a greater acceptance on her part of diverse sexual orientations. I feel like I am accepting of those things, and perhaps I only answered the girl with whom I fall in love because of the personal preference I have for women. However, Jane is a heterosexual woman, and she still answered person, a gender neutral word. This made me think a bit about my own subconscious beliefs.

We agreed about a lot of issues. We both stressed that individualism is very important in society, as reflected by the fact that you are supposed to move away from your parents at a fairly young age. We also thought that success is defined by happiness, no matter how much money one makes; however, I believed that people with more money can afford to purchase more things that make them happy and thus perhaps that money can buy happiness. She adamantly disagreed with me, arguing that even with increased opportunities, people need to find what moves them and inspires them, something that cannot be found in a store. We also both agreed that marriage is up to the individuals involved. I was surprised by her response to this because she seemed to have to obey her parents a lot more than I did, and I thought maybe they could have input on how proper her marriage might be. However, individualism seems to outweigh the value of respecting elders in this case. With both said that it is important to be self-sufficient at a young age and that you should rely on others in your youth and for love and support in difficult times. Jane also added that you can depend on others to provide opportunities for you through personal connections.