Discussion of Mother Interview
Because I know my mother very well, because we are close and because I spent the first 21 years of my life living with her, it was very difficult for me to interview her and not want to add things to her responses. She would answer the question and I wanted so badly to say, “What about this?” or “But you didn’t’ mention anything about that!” However, it was her interview and I wanted to honor her inclusions/deletions in the interview, so I didn’t say anything. I thought there might have been things she omitted intentionally, because either she didn’t feel they were important enough or because of her humble nature.
The text that most my mom’s interview calls to mind is Katherine Sohn’s Whistlin’ and Crowin’ Women in Appalachia. Like the women in Sohn’s study, my mother was a nontraditional student who went back to college later in life, having been married and with children (her children were already grown, I had actually graduated college before my mom began). It seems that the response from the women in the study match my mom’s response to the interview. She talked about how her self-esteem rose after her graduation. Also, the categories in which she grouped her reading also reminded me of the women from the study.
One thing from my mother’s interview, which might seem minor, is that she mentioned being left-handed probably played a part in her writing education. I am also left-handed, and I don’t think that played a part in my writing whatsoever. I think being left-handed was somewhat of a stigma when my mother was a student. I remember my 1st and 2nd grade teachers commenting about my left-handedness, but I didn’t learn differently from other kids, and my handwriting was just as good or better than my classmates. I think it is interesting that my mother mentioned this. Perhaps during her education, she did have to learn differently, or perhaps her teachers treated her differently because she wrote with her left hand. She has very nice handwriting, so I cannot say that it effected her negatively. I just thought it was interesting that she mentioned it.
