Imitation of "Girl"

Eli Pardue
4/22/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Wake up at 6:45 every weekday; Go to school on time; don’t forget your lunch; get good grades; do your extracurriculars; excel at sports, because remember, you have to get into a good college if you want to be a doctor! Finish your homework; bring it to me when you are done, because you need to be good at science if you want to be a doctor! Come outside for a bit; work on the garden; prune the shrubs, weed the garden; remember the get the by the root; be sure that shovel is far enough away from your foot; you don’t want to loose a toe. Be home before eleven, or face the consequences!; school comes before friends; work does too. Be sure to do the yard work before you do the dishes or sweep the living room because its important for a boy to do the manly work before the traditional woman’s work because he needs to get a sense of what it is to be a man physically, although I would never tell you that.

Parental guidance differs quite a bit between sexes. Fathers tend to reinforce practical skills and duties, while mothers are more focused on personality and life style. Fathers are ‘manly’ with their sons. In other words, they try to make sure that they will have the qualities of men that they grew up with, and have the qualities of men that they have themselves. Mothers are the same way with daughters, but I do not wish to speak of their relationships, as I have not observed or experienced a mother-daughter relationship.