Student Question
In "In Search of Our Mothers Gardens," what happens without positive role models?
Quick answer:
Without positive role models, children may lack a proper respect for education, learning, and self-worth. In "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," Alice Walker emphasizes the impact of her mother's influence, attributing her success as a writer to her mother's example, despite her mother's lack of formal education. Walker suggests that role models who embody resilience and value education are crucial for inspiring future generations to overcome challenges and achieve their potential.
The answer to this question can be found by considering the importance that Walker places on the role of her mother in her upbringing, and how she acted as a role model for her, in spite of all of the troubles and disadvantages that she faced as a woman and as an Afro-American. Walker places her success as a writer at the doorstep of her mother, who gave her a drive to engage readers and an appreciation for the transforming power of details. If we look at the poem that Walker cites in this essay, we can see that she managed to achieve this without any formal education herself:
How they knew what we
Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves.
Though such mothers were uneducated and lacked even the most basic literary skills at times, they valued the importance of making education and knowledge available to their children.
The converse then can be clearly seen. Without clear role models who can do what is best for their children and provide them with such an example of life and how to live it in the face of significant setbacks and trials, children would be brought up without a proper respect for education, learning, for others and ultimately, for themselves and what they are capable of.
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