week 6- boys and girls

 “What question (or questions) does the author want me to think about?” Questions are far more important in literature than concrete answers.

There was no real moral, or point to this story. It was not a story to teach you a lesson, or something to be learned from. In this story the author was just telling us how she grew up and the views she had throughout her childhood on being a girl. I think what the author wanted me to think about while reading this is my own childhood. Whether you're a boy or a girl, when you're little, it isn't so much about your gender as it about what is good and what is bad in the world. What do I genuinely like? When you're little, there is no judgement about what you like or don't like. It isn't until you begin getting older that people start expecting for you to act in a certain way. You are only then negatively judged if your actions do not coincide with what is expected of your gender (for her generation). I think she wanted us to think about the way that kids are raised. What expectations do we have right from the get-go when we find out that a baby is a girl or boy? Do we set ourselves up for failure when we create these expectations in our minds? How would we feel as a parent or sibling if that baby did not grow up to meet those expectations? If we pressure them enough, will they change? What does she think of me if we are both girls, but I have chosen to life my life a little bit more traditionally than she? Does my daughter think highly of me or does she think that my purpose is unimportant or less than that of her father?

Those are all things that I think could cross a person's mind while reading this story. If you are trying to think of things in different characters point of view, you could come up with many many more questions to ask yourself. As a little boy, how did Laird see his sister when she was still stronger than him, and how does he see her now that he is bigger, and stronger as his mother said that he one day would be? 

When there is no moral to the story, no lesson to be learned, just a glimpse of some memories from the childhood of a person, I feel like there is a wide range of ideas to be taken from the story. Whereas if it were a fairy-tale, there would be a moral, a single lesson that you should have learned by reading it. Not this story, from this story you can walk away with many questions to think about.