Unaccepting Parents
My favorite text that I read this week was called My Son the Fanatic which is a play on words just in the title alone. The story is about a father, Parvez, and his son, Ali. Parvez is a cab driver in an English city which allows him to branch out and meet people. He tends to meet prostitutes while driving, who led Parvez to believe Ali is doing drugs. Parvez was deeply wrong on what was going on with Ali, but decided to drown himself in alcohol which led him to beat Ali within the same night.
Once Parvez found out the truth that Ali became very religious in a certain type of Islam religion, which was not the western way like his father wanted Ali to be. Ali decides to grow out a beard, and prays five times a day to really adopt his new religion. While his father is eating pork, and living more of a scandalous life. That was something Parvez enjoyed the most about being in England that he could do as he pleased.
This text is a very different text in many different ways. For example, Parvez acts very freely with his life, and does not weigh out the consequences. Almost like he was a teenager. Whereas Ali is very mature and knows what he wants with his life. There are a few times in the text where Ali is shown to have more authority, and be much more mature than his father.
Lastly, I felt like this text could be tied into our world today. A father and son do not get along due to the child's choices he makes based for his own life. Currently in our world today many teenagers have to deal with harsh consequences for being who they truly want to be. Such as being gay, or not following specific religion protocols, or not being athletic enough. This creates a huge amount of stress on children and leads them into a life without their parents.
This link gives examples on how to deal with tough conversations. Whether it be with a parent, friend, boss, coach, etc. There are many dos, and don’ts on this website that can really benefit someone needing to have a tough conversation.
I like the link you included at the end of your post. I think it's a cute way to tie the reading into our lives somehow. Also, finding out your children think you're a bad person must a tough conversation, I hope I never have it.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting, I agree this was a very interesting text, its almost as if the expected father-son dynamic is flipped around, instead of an impulsive son and a mature father its a mature son and an impulsive father. I agree with Desiree, as children many of us believe that our parents are perfect and have no faults, however as we become adults we see that our parents are far from perfect and seeing that your parent is not actually the good person you thought that they were can be just as hard on the child as it is on the parent.
ReplyDeletethis is jordan stocker
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