Response #1 10/10/12

Dear Mattie,

       I can relate to all the stress that you felt as you were growing up. I'm not the eldest child in the family, but i feel I take on a big portion of the responsibility. You are always talking about how you see yourself being an everyday housewife. It's probably the most relevant when you said you "stared at my hands - red, crackled, old woman’s hands - and saw what was in store for me... doing everything that fell on the eldest in a family of four girls, a dead mother, and a pissant brother who took off’” (pg23). You share a similar characteristic with me, as in we both feel it is our responsibility to run and control the family while our parents are incapable of doing so. Although, your case is a little more severe, with your mother dead and all. My mother just has a disease that makes ordinary things pretty difficult, so I help her do most of it. Even though your situation might require your help more than mine, we still hold some amount of responsibility. But your views contradict mine, in the way that you don't seem to thrilled to have that power, that control. It's almost like you see it as an obligation. And in some cases you don't have faith in yourself, like when you said that you "are nowhere near as capable as my mother was," (pg13). Then again, your father doesn't really help to support any of your dreams. That must be a real downer, if the one parental figure you have doesn't support you, even for the slightest idea of working at a hotel. I remember you said “It wasn't the idea of strange men that bothered Pa. That was just an excuse. He knew all the hotel people, knew most of them ran respectable places. It was the idea of someone else leaving him,” (pg24). Even though you don't think your Pa respects your ideas, i think he is just trying to be a protective father. This addresses an idea that is pretty important to me, which is being a good and responsible parent. He is just trying to do what he thinks is best for you, like a responsible parent should do. But then I agree with your views. You are practically capable of living on your own, so getting a job at the hotel or going to New York City would be a great idea. But your point of view kind of clouds what other people are trying to tell you, like how even though it is a great idea to go to college, sometimes you are needed at home to do housework in order to help your family. Some things are more important than others, and something that's really important is taking care of your family as if you were the mother, or if you were a parent.

Sincerely, Josh