The Age of Independence

The question of when do young adults become independent is a very interesting and difficult question. In my opinion, it completely depends on the individual. For instance, there are boys and girls across the world, sometimes as young as 5 years old or even younger, that become responsible for one or more members of their family. There are young children, especially in poorer countries such as countries in Africa who have sick or dead parents and therefore the responsibility of parenting the other members of the family fall into their hands. In this case, these children are independent at this young age because they are forced to work, provide food, clothing, and shelter for their family. However, more typical in the United States, there are some 30 year olds that still are not independent. It is very common for teenagers to believe that they are ready to be independent before they actually are. However, I think once they enter college and realize how difficult it is to provide food for themselves and keep their dorm and clothes clean and tidy, they realize they are not as mature and independent as they thought they were. I, personally, believe I will be perfectly fine on my own in college. However, deep down I know that it will be extremely difficult to not have dinner ready at the table every night at 6 p.m and not having my mom to help me wash my clothes. I agree with Sal's post that true independence comes when an individual is forced to provide for themselves completely by themselves without the help of their family's money. Once someone has to provide for a wife or husband and a family of their own, it truly marks independence.

Men and Violence

As we have been discussing a lot lately in class, I wanted to talk about violence and males. It really is astonishing if you think about nearly all of the violence cases in the past 30 years or so, and consider how many of them have been committed by females? How many school shootings have occurred because 3 female students woke up that morning and decided that they wanted to kill innocent classmates? The answer is very few. As Sal mentioned in class, one example of a girl who was involved in a school shooting (which the plan was actually constructed with male students), the girl surrendered herself to the police without going through with the plan. The question is why? Why do males commit so many more acts of violence then females? There are many reasons, but in my opinion the main reason is because of our society and how we portray men. Men and all males for that matter are seen as strong, fearless, courageous. Therefore, when their masculinity are questioned, as many school shootings begin, males feel they need to prove themselves. Unfortunately, they do this in violent ways that harm and often kill other people. If society portrayed women as tough and strong, would the amount of women who commit acts of violence increase?

Bowling for Columbine

Last week we watched Bowling for Columbine. Knowing that it was a Michael Moore film, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I've seen Fahrenheit 911, and was not a big fan of his very  pushy and direct ways and extremely liberal attitude. However, I think through personal experience and through taking sociology I have learned to consider both sides of an argument, and I actually ended up enjoying most of Bowling for Columbine. Although Moore makes many tricky editing moves to get his point across, he does make many valid points. I think one of the strongest parts of the movie was interviewing a few kids from Michigan and asking them about guns they owned and had used before. One boy said that he was number two on the suspicious students list at his school, and was actually disappointed that he wasn't number one. By interviewing many different people, it showed that many people are far too laid back about the issue of fire arms. I think that this comfort may be one of the biggest causes of gun misuse and violence. This comfort goes along with how easily available guns are in the United States. As young children, you are taught to stay away from guns and that they are horrible things. However, as you get older, you begin to watch movies where the hero uses guns and play video games that include you actually killing people. These occurrences in the media along with the easily obtainable guns in the United States, in my opinion, are the leading reasons for why gun violence, especially among teens, is so large. Moore did a good job at showing both of these issues that lead to gun violence and many other reasons as well.