My mom is the best mom. She lets my mind go as wild as it can possibly go (in a good way). She is not one of those strict mothers that tell their kid what to do and when to be home , she 100 percent supports me in my ideas and she lets me follow my dreams of becoming a director. She doesn’t ever make me do things, she never pressures me and to add why she doesn’t because whenever she asks me I always help her, and respect her and love my mom. She also does the best potato pancakes ever that she taught me to make it when i was 10 years old.

This a fascinating painting I found at the Carlton Arms Hotel (160 E 25th Street). It’s one of the work of the series called “Ghosts” by Helen Oliver Adelson. Looking at this painting I see a woman. I feel like she used three different ways mixed together to draw this: linear technique (her clothes), anatomy elements on her face, and a human being regular look (her hair, her eyes and her arm, except for fingers). The woman in the painting looks like she has something on her mind by the way her fingers are locked and the crafty look she’s having. I got an impression from her that she is kind of old by looking at her thinned out lips an the cheek bones. The dress that she wears tells us that she lived some time back in 1800’s, and looks like that would be a great panting to hang in a mansion or a palace.

The colors in the painting are not the brightest, sort of mellow. It’s in a way giving me a mood of simplicity yet to see the ghost better by giving it brighter colors and make it look more colorful which helps emphasize the idea of the painting.

I liked the drawing because it is an unusual way to portray ghosts. I also liked the expressions that a viewer like me gets. I would buy this drawing for its originality. I think that the artist did a great job creating not only this one drawing but have a whole series of it.

Mother I’ve grown old slaving away to your every wish – I am my own person. When she expects me to wash the clothes, I wash the clothes; when asked to sew a button or hem a dress, I do without complaint. These things I know are just chores and expressions of tough love but I cannot continue to live this way through ignorance. I understand that she can be difficult on me because she knows the world is not a kind and forgiving place. She may shove me and kick me around but she will always be my mother and love me until the end. It is for this reason she is always so difficult on me – she is protecting me for when people do the same but do not have the love and good intentions behind it.

-a boy named sue

Am I a girl or am I a mold? A being with flesh and blood, but whose mind is mush, ready to to brainwashed into her making? Looking in the mirror, I see a girl with bright eyes and clean cheeks – Mother’s doing, for she always told me to be clean. I pull my skirt passed my knees and follow her rules, afraid of becoming “slut [she knows I am] so bent on becoming. How does she figure who I am too be? Treated like Cinderella, I am no longer a daughter, a sister, a person, but am a girl who is told how to smile and stare, how to wash and to seduce. There are so many wrongs that you are teaching me to prevent, but how will I know to fix the mistakes that life creates? Or is that it, that I will be a girl who never understands a mistake, because I live so calculated, so much like you? I am nothing but a girl, Mother, an adolescent who has yet to blossom into a mature woman, yet I am treated like a mature lover, learning to await her man. These are the things that make me me, yet are these the things that I am? Better yet, Mother, who are you, beneath the lessons and teaching? A woman who knows only to be the one a Baker would allow to squeeze the bread? Or are you more, frightened by the notion that a kitchen is merely a room in the house and not a prison?

Mom don’t understand me at all, she doesn’t care about what I want or what I do, she only sees the girl that she want me to be. Mother always tell me what I should and should not do, I think in her eyes there is only two types of women, a wife or a whore, there just cannot be anyone that doesn’t fall under these two categories. When ever I tried to wear something of new fashion to school, she always think that I was slowly becoming a prostitute in the street yet she never look at what modern people are wearing. Mother is raised as a traditional housewife and she want me to be like her, but I don’t want a boring life she has now, I wanted excitement and adventure and I want to see the different parts of the world; but every time I tried to explain to her my dreams, she just couldn’t accept it. She doesn’t like the idea that I’m going out with boys or play with them or at least not until marriage, but mom, how do you get to know the person you like if you don’t get to know them? Please give me some trust, I’m not going to become a prostitute just because I wear a shorter skirt or talking to wharf-rat boys, I know you want me to have a good life in the future but everyone is different and people have different ways of living, I just cannot be the home girl you want because I’m not you.

“Iron the clothes, sweep the floor, clean your room, stand up straight..” It never ends! When will I ever be able to catch a break? My brother doesn’t have to go through all of this. I know how to do all of the chores but my mother just doesn’t trust me. I wish she would just give me a chance to see that I am capable of doing all of the things she asks me to do on a daily basis. I have morals, mom! Why must you think so negatively of me? I have followed everything you have done my entire life; why would you assume that I will become a slut? You are my example and I wish you would begin to trust me more. I know how to iron, I know how to cook, I know how to be polite and I know how to dress. I keep trying to tell you but you refuse to listen to me; you just go on and on with your rules and directions. If only you took the time to listen to me and get to know the great, well-rounded, responsible daughter you have raised. Then maybe you wouldn’t doubt me in everything that I do. I know you are just trying to do your job but I feel like you have done everything right; all that is left is to just be my mom. I know you mean well and I love you so much but you don’t have to be tough ALL of the time. Just be my mom!

Mother, I just want to be myself, not your puppet. She expects me to wash all the clothes, sew on a button, hem a dress, iron my father’s shirt, sweep a house, and cook food. She wants me to eat properly in front of people and not to sing benna in Sunday school. My mother also teaches me how to smile to different people. Basically, my mother wants me to know everything she knew. But that’s not what I really want. I understand her purpose to teach me everything is to prevent me from getting hurt. She uses her experience to teach me how to have a better life. As a girl, I only want to play with the other kids. I don’t want to know how to do all these chores yet. Here my mother tries to act as a baddy, she prohibits my freedom and my happiness. Because she doesn’t want me to encounter any bad incident. From all of her expectations, I can tell that my mother loves me more than anyone else. Mother I love you too, but this is my life! I want to choose my own way to live. No matter how bad I suffer, I can handle all of it. Mother, do you know that mistake is the most valuable thing in life? I want to experience more mistake, so that I can learn and prevent from doing it again. How can my life be perfect without encounter any failure? Lastly, I am not a slut and I will not become a slut. Trust me mother, one day I will become as tough as you are. But right now I only want to squeeze some breads.

Zhenhua Hong

Mama is always telling me what to do. She tells me how to walk on which day, how to eat, what to eat, how to smile, how to breathe, how to live! Sometimes it can be extremely overbearing; I just want to do things on my own, in my own way. Like what if I wanted to wash the color clothes on Monday and the white clothes on Tuesday?? I wish sometimes that she would  just let me make my own mistakes so that I can learn from them myself, than control every move I make. But I know that she teaches me these things out of a good heart. I know that she loves me and wants me to be the best that I could be. She wants to mold me to a strong independent woman that can take care of and provide for her family. I know she can be a little hard on me sometimes, but I know she is just warning me about the things that I may be blindsided by because of life. My mother teaches me to love myself and to protect myself. Although she can be hard on me, I am grateful for her and the direction she pushes me towards.

Make sure you do this, make sure you do that. Mother is always telling me what to do. It’s like she wants to mold me into being a person who she wants me to be. I dont even do some of the things she blames me of doing. All these directions of how to do things and yet she still believes ill be that type of woman shed been trying to prevent me from becoming, a slut. I know that all she has in mind is my best interest and for me to someday be like her married and with a husband but in all honesty that is not at all what I have in mind yet. I am looking foward to not being under my mothers control any longer but in entirety I want to leave on my own terms. Who cares about what eveyone else thinks? If they believe that I am becoming a slut because my dress is too short then that just reflects off their insecurities. When I leave, it will be on my own terms and the person I decide I want to spend the rest of my life with is going to love me for who aI really am and not this programed person she is trying to create. I think that the real motive behind mothers instructions is so that I wont have to go throught her same experience, she has given me her input on life from what she has experienced and she just wants me to be ready so that when I go out into the world I am ready to find a husband and I wont be lingering around like the slut she believes im bent on becoming.

Looking into Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” through the young girl’s perspective, readers will understand that there are lots of things going on in the narrator’s mind although she doesn’t get the chances and/or opportunities to say much. Throughout the entire poem, “Girl” gives us an insight on a mother daughter relationship and the amount of advice given to the daughter by the mother on what a girl should be doing and how she should be behaving. It gives readers an idea of how a woman is told to live and act, which are necessary to instill in oneself for a daily living.

Looking at it through the young girl’s point of view, I would feel a sense of suffocation and unhappiness. For example, being told not to eat fruits on the streets because flies will follow is really not something to even have to think upon and follow. Why do such minor things have to be highly advised on? All those advises would make me feel like a robot following rules to do chores and trying to find perfection in every little thing that I have to do. It would be tiring and hard to live in a place where I have to keep myself a certain way and if I don’t do something correctly, I would constantly be seen as looking like a “slut”. After all I’m a human and I may have flaws. I can make mistakes and I will learn from those. I’m too young and I wouldn’t want so much burden and responsibilities on myself that I won’t be able to keep up with things. It’s pressurizing. That’s not the life I would want to live where there is no freedom to do the things I would wish to do as a young girl. At this age, I would want to go out and play with other young children and enjoy life. I don’t wish to grow up so fast and lose out on my childhood and innocence. I would want to voice my opinions, question norms, be heard, and not be ignored. Instead of standing there like a statue and having to hear all the things I have to do as a girl, I would love to just have a normal conversation with my mother and more understanding with one another.

Ekramul Islam