Tonetta

SOCIOLOGICAL PORTRAIT: MILESTONE 1

SOCIOLOGICAL PORTRAIT: MILESTONE 1

When we are born, we carry a huge cloud over our head. It stays with us our entire life until death, we all know it as socialization. Socialization is a term used by sociologist to refer to the lifelong process whereby people are made aware of the behavior that others expect of them as regards the norms, values, and culture of their society. In this paper I will talk about how my life has been affected due to socialization by my gender, race, religion and social class. I will also relate my personal experience to sociological research.
As a child my life was very difficult. I was born to a young African American mother and a Trinidadian father in the heart of Brooklyn New York. My parents were only together for a short period of time before they separated due to my mother’s heavy drinking and drug use. I never experienced the traditional family that Cootzn (1997) spoke of. Even though my mother was part of my primary social group I didn’t learn many positive things from her. My mother wasn’t a bad person, but the circumstances of her environment turn her into a woman I strive my entire life not to be. Throughout my childhood, my mother tried to teach me her values for how a woman should behave. She would tell me that it’s a man’s job to take care of a woman, and all I needed to do was learn how to cook and clean. It was a concept that could never understand because every boyfriend, my mother had excluded my father never took care of her they would lie, steal, and cheat on her. My father on the other hand taught me the complete opposite. He told me to never rely on anyone but myself, be a strong, confident, smart, independent, honest person, and that they're nothing in life I can’t do. He also taught me that I don’t need a