A person’s family and peers tend to have the biggest influence on the person they become later in life. Howard Gardner’s quote explains how the impact a person’s family has on them differs from the impact a person’s peers has on them. Each person I have gotten to know throughout my life has taught me something new about myself and about society as a whole. When it comes to my life my family and peers have greatly shaped the person I am today and different experiences with different people have led me to figure out the person I want to become. The characteristics between the relationship I have with my family and the relationship I have with my peers differ greatly and each relationship has influenced me in very different ways.
My family has one of the biggest impacts on my life and my relationship with them has taught me a lot that shaped how I behave now and will shape how I am as a parent in the future. Growing up I have only ever really interacted with my immediate family that consists of my dad, mom, two sisters, grandma and grandpa. My mom has always had an authoritarian parenting style whereas my dad has always had an authoritative parenting style. Having parents with different parenting styles has always been difficult to grow up with because whatever my mom says goes and my dad cannot really change that. The way I have been raised really influences my life because it has taught me how I would and would not want to raise my own kids. In my family chores were really important to do in order to earn privileges, if I disobeyed a rule stuff I liked immediately got taken away for a while, and manners were the most important thing to use. Luckily, the way my parents raised me set me up to be good with customer service at my job and taught me that rules really do matter and life is not all about breaking them all. The way Gardner explains parents matter when it comes to learning how to work with authority figures is very true in my life because having an authoritarian mom teaches you a kind of obedience for people that I could not have learned from a permissive mom. It has made me realize the type of parenting style I want to have with my own kids, which is going to be authoritative, so I do not make the mistakes my mom has made with me. Family is forever and even though I had a very strict childhood my family will always be important to me.
Different from my relationship with my family, my relationship with my peers has characteristics that have influenced me in ways that shape who I am in the present. I have had many different experiences throughout my life with many different peers and each experience has contributed into me being the person I am today. Some experiences have been great and created memories that I will remember forever, and others have been extremely difficult, rough times that have built a strength in me to not be vulnerable to things like that again. In regard to Gardner’s quote having peers has pushed me down a road to want to see how popular I can become and made me realize having a couple true friends is better than having a bunch of fake friends. High school was the biggest learning lesson for me because I always wanted to be popular and made all the wrong friends to get there. I would put myself in situations I did not enjoy, became friends with people I could not truly bond with and let myself be a pushover to many people. Now that I am older popularity does not matter and I truly know what kind of people I want to have in my life whether it is for romantic reasons or just to have a friendship with. I have a better understanding of what a true friendship should be like and what kind of influence I want the friends I make to have on me. I also know when it is time to let a peer go because they are not having a very good impact on my life and guiding me down a path I do not want to go on. Friends can become family and some of the friends I have made are people that will be in my life forever.
Family and peers will always have a great impact on my life and teach me things no one else will whether it is for my present life or how I live in the future. Ranging from growing up with the parents I have to getting to know the peers that have come and gone in my life has all shaped me into the person I am today. Each person I have met and each experience I have gone through has taught me something different about myself and the world around me. Some people have taught me traits that will really benefit me throughout my life whereas others have caused me to make mistakes that I know I cannot repeat. Life is just one big learning process and it is important I continue to learn from its ups and downs and pass down to others the lessons it has taught me.
