Identity is Shaped by Family by

Identity is Shaped by Family

MsLe — 2019-01-30 15:45:49 UTC

Reflection: Write a short reflective personal narrative of a childhood experience that had an impact on your identity

Vienna

2019-01-30 18:53:43 UTC

This isn't too much about my family, but whatever. It was a sunny day, and I was walking home from school, ironically taking a different route than normal. I walked down the street and towards the crosswalk by the General Store, (at least some of you must know where that is, especially you skippers ;)) there was a lot of traffic from some construction down the street, and cars were backed up onto the crosswalk. I had to cross the street to go home, so I crept behind a truck and an SUV, looked quickly (but not thoroughly enough) and sprinted across the street as fast as my stubby little legs could carry me. I was almost at the other side when I saw a car coming towards me out of the corner of my eye. It hit me. And I hit the concrete like a bag of wet sand. I fell on my back, and my backpack saved me from getting whiplash. The was a little hard thing that you could use to hang your backpack up, and my neck was resting right on it. I had always hated that thing, it was so uncomfortable, but it saved me some pain, so it was worth it. The I got up slowly and shook my arms and legs, checking myself over and seeing if anything was broken. Oddly enough, there was a scratch on the inside of my left ankle. It didn't actually hurt, being hit. I think I backed out for maybe a second. I crossed the rest of the street and down and started walking down my road. The woman in the passenger seat got out and walked towards me, I kept walking, flashing a quick thumbs up to a man in a pick-up truck who was rolling down his window. The older woman walked up to me and said, "Hey, wait. Stay here, I'm calling an ambulance.
"She looked flustered. "Hello, that's alright. I'm fine, I'm not hurt. I should actually go home, I'm already late."
"Where do you live?" I point down the street." Just down there. I have to go now. Goodbye. I'm fine!" I sprinted down the street, I was terrified that she was chasing me, which she wasn't. I ran home and burst in the front door, I was shaking. I gave my dad a hug and said "I'm going upstairs." I bolted up the stairs and into my room, leaving the door open. The room was dark and the curtains were closed to keep the room colder. I grabbed the teddy bear on my bad and gave it a hug. "I just got hit by a car." I whispered under my breath. I composed myself and went downstairs again. By this time there was a post going around on Facebook, people were calling around, asking where everybody's kids were. My parents suspected nothing. Firetrucks went up and down our street, because everyone thought that I was hurt and lying in a ditch somewhere. This lady came to the door and asked if I had been hit by a car. I lied. Dinnertime rolled around, it was perogies. They're now dubbed 'disaster food'. I didn't want to eat, and I said I wasn't hungry. My dad looked up at me and said "Was it you? Were you hit by a car?" I nodded and then burst into tears. Later that night I was supposed to go take pictures for dance, and I already had all my makeup done. I had already taken one picture for one dance, and while I was sitting in the car, waiting for my parents to finish an errand, I sunk down lower into my seat in my costume, hiding my face, terrified that someone would recognise me and that I would get in trouble (that was the whole reason I didn't tell my parents, I was afraid that they would be mad). The called off all the searches, and I went to the hospital, the police met us there, asking for a statement, I gave it to them. I ended up with a minor concussion and didn't go to the rest of the photo shoots that were planned for the day. Today, I'm still terrified of crossing that street without somebody with me. This shaped me by teaching me to be more cautious, and that it's best to tell the truth right away.

Sam

2019-02-04 20:36:57 UTC

when i was younger one of our family friends marina would always take care of me. i would go over to her house when my parents were at work or doing something else. marina always was kind and a good friend. the one thing about marina is that she is terrified of spiders. if there was a spider in the house we would go into a different room and wait for her husband mike to get home. no wounder i'm scared of spiders so much, marina was an important person in my life because i spent so much time with her. i haven't seen marina in years and i have noticed that my fear of spiders has gone down.

Lucy

2019-02-04 20:37:30 UTC

When I was young, I was fascinated by grownups. I was tired of being a kid from the moment I was born. I wanted to be an adult, you know, go to work, be independent, all that jazz. But, I never knew what I was going to be. My dad always said I'd follow the family tradition of being a teacher, mom thought I'd be an actor, I claimed I was going to be a Muppet. But, then my mom broke her back. It was pretty serious. So serious that a specialist was needed, and there was a specialist who could perform the surgery in Chicago. So, my mom and dad went to Chicago for a month or so, and my brother and I were passed around to a few friends houses. Jackson's for two weeks, Mia's for one week, etc. I was young, and I got tired of not having my mother so I made a firm decision. When I grew up, I was going to be a doctor, and my mom wouldn't leave me anymore. From then on, medicine became an obsession. The specifications of what kind of doctor changes every week, and has been since I was young. For the majority of my childhood, I thought I was going to be a paediatric neurologist, now I'm not so sure. But, the point of the story is that my family has really changed my identity, by giving me an interest in medicine.

Sarah

2019-02-04 20:41:40 UTC

Living in a family of six you can imagine how that can have an impact on someone. Growing up I've always been surrounded by people, big family and all, so
i believe that has shaped me into a very social person. I've always been someone who makes friends pretty easy and I find that I'm very confident. I think because I'm always with people I had to learn to be myself and comfortable in my skin no matter what the situation.

Sofie

2019-02-04 20:57:30 UTC

As a little kid, I traveled a lot. I think I had been to 15 countries before I turned seven. My mom and I went to Argentina, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, and so many more amazing places. Those experiences have totally shaped me as a person and I'm super grateful. But never once did we stay in a touristy resort, a nice hotel, or even go to a nice restaurant. Instead, we went to places with "character". Little towns on the edge of volcanoes, lodges you have to hike 7 hours through knee deep mud to get to... For example, I have a picture of 2 year old me in Nicaragua. In it I'm having a bath in a big plastic bucket. You can see me through a jagged chunk of plastic that's broken off, and the whole thing is stained and gross. My childhood :) This style of travel meant that while other tourists went nice restaurants, we went to the closest tiny, crappy, grocery store and loaded up. I have really clear memories of chasing my mom down the rice isle in some shack in southern Chile. She was a very fast walker and I was always scared of getting lost in grocery stores. It happened a couple of times - I would feel the panic set in, and start to run around. Once, I really couldn't find her. I had to ask the 5 foot tall (which seemed tall at the time) Peruvian shop owner to help me find my mommy. I'm still a bit scared of grocery stores

Noah

2019-02-04 21:00:46 UTC

when i was in grade 5 i had a psychopath for a teacher. She would yell at all the students for the most stupid reasons and she would bring them to tears. She had a terrible rule that everybody hated, which was that you were not allowed to keep your water bottle on your desk because it annoyed her when it fell on the ground. When a poor unsuspecting soul would accidentally drop their water bottle on the ground she would whip her head around at the speed of light the second it hit the ground. After this happened that person would know that they were about to meet satin, she(satin) would proceed to yell at them and insult them until they were about to break and then she would just resume teaching as if nothing had happened. After the first incident we were all terrified of her and we whispered behind her back about how much we hated her. One terrible day i became the object of her rage. That day was the end of my childhood. I went home one day and told my mom about her water rule and she wanted no part in it. My mom told me to put my bottle on my desk and if my teacher bothered me about it i should tell her to talk to my mom. So i put it on my desk and then it fell, she walked over to my desk like a lion about to pounce on their unsuspecting prey. when she got to my desk she started yelling and i told her my mom wanted me to stay hydrated and she responded with: this is not your MOTHERS CLASSROOM! it is MINE! your mother does not tell you what to do in MY class i tell you what to do and how to DO IT! SO GO PUT YOUR BOTTLE IN THE BIN( there was a bin across the room that we were supposed to keep our bottles in). I shamefully walked over to the bin placed my bottle in it and returned to my desk and cried. This changed me because i am now terrified of teachers getting mad at me so i do everything they ask me. I think this is why i am such a good student and why everyone thinks i am a teachers pet.

Rudy

2019-02-04 21:17:54 UTC

My identity has mostly been shaped by my mom. She gave me no sympathy whatsoever. Fall out of a tree your fault, Get sick who cares, cut yourself to bad. I got no sympathy because if I got hurt or sick it was partly my fault so I had to live with the consequences. So that's why I don't give any sympathy because its partly your fault.

Henry

2019-02-21 22:14:33 UTC

My life has been heavily influenced by music. My dad would always play music around me as a kid. I kinda went through trial and error with different genres of music. One day I asked what he was playing in the car, it was Soundgarden. He have me his Apple Music library and I downloaded what I wanted. I downloaded Judas Priest just because it was there. I never really listened to metal before, I mainly knew it as fast guitar and screaming/yelling, I still don’t like that type of metal. Judas Priest was just singing and nice guitar riffs and solos, very 80s. That was my gateway into metal, I later got interested into Tool when we were taking a family trip to Hawaii. My dad and uncle both love Tool and blasted it on the sound system. These were the events
That got me interested into music, I took up guitar, then drums and got into bass just to play Tool. Now I create songs, I really have my early exposure to music to thank.