Effect of Family Situation

Let us begin with the second point first. Some years ago, when my parents decided to emigrate back to Greece for a temporary period, it was very obvious to me that parental authority in the family was not to be questioned. Having read about the stages of human development in the literature, I realize that adolescence is an especially vulnerable stage because it is at this point in life when an individual is trying to perfect the skills of making abstract judgments and of constructing key transpersonal relationships.

However, the family genogram does not capture the fact that my immediate family spent what would have been my high school years running a restaurant and that I was basically a dropout during that period. My only access to education was the reading that I did on my own, and it was not until I turned 18 that I was able to we returned to this country that I was able to get a high-school diploma (GED) and plan for college. What I did not have access to in Greece was the normal course of friendships that most people get in school. As the genogram shows, it would have been physically possible for m

. . .
create a physically and emotionally stable living environment for my family. As for the benefits of being a firstborn son, perhaps I should simply say that sons experience certain benefits that daughters (and wives) do not in Greek families. There is one feature of my relationship with my father in particular that I have begun to notice only recently but that has actually been present all my life. That is the tendency of my father to refer to me (i.e., not my younger sister) when he is discussing his children. The shape that this has taken most recently may seem very innocuous: Friend: "How are your kids doing?" Father: "Pete's finishing his degree now for good." I should like to be able to say that Greek parents do not think of their children only in terms of their sons. I would also like to say that this kind of answer has something to do with the fact that my sister is married and has a family of her own, including a daughter 22 years old. However, the fact is that it is rather common for Greek parents, especially fathers, to build their hopes for the future around sons and grandsons. This is not to say that sisters and daughters and wives are not loved in Greek families. But it seems that once a noteworthy situation has in
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Father Pete's, daughters wives, family genogram, benefits firstborn son, genogram capture, firstborn son, greek parents, benefits firstborn, greek families, aunts uncles, panos family, sister father,
Approximate Word count = 1296
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Effect of Family Situation