Equal Opportunity?

         America is the land of the free, home of the brave and the land of equal opportunity; but is equal opportunity really equal? Everyone may be able to do the same things in theory, but everything costs money, and not everyone has money for those specific opportunities. Some people may argue that there are scholarships and programs to help those who do not have the finances for specific opportunities such as college. The problem with these is that not everyone qualifies for those financial aids because there is only a certain amount of money other people can afford to give out from their own budgets.

            A good example of this situation is in Toni Cade Bambara’s essay, “The Lesson”. Miss Moore who has a formal education likes to take Sylvia and her friends on field trips to show them other types of living. On one trip she took Sylvia and a few other girls out to a toy store in a rich white neighborhood. They found out that the toys there were very expensive and all of the girls could not wrap their minds around spending that much money on a single toy. At the end of the trip Sugar says, “Equal chance to peruse happiness means and equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” She is explaining that equal, is not always so equal. There are many factors that go into the term equal, but a large contributor is whether or not the person has the finances for those opportunities. This is why equal opportunity is not always as equal as it is perceived to be.

What is Marriage?

Homosexuality has been a discussion for conflict for decades. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but since we (Americans) live in a democratic nation, there are rules that everyone must abide by. One of the main rules that everyone questions is, whether or not homosexuality should be legalized in all fifty states? Who is entitled to make this type of decision? Also, when making a decision of this kind there are obviously going to be some bias opinions. Such as, if a couple is homosexual, they will likely vote to make it gay marriage legal. As compared to a very conservative heterosexual family would likely vote to keep marriage between one woman and one man.

             I have never been for, or against homosexual marriage mostly because I feel that this problem has never affected me directly. There are some things that I do disagree with when it comes to homosexual rights, or lack thereof. In Evan Wolfson’s argument “What is Marriage?” he points out numerous reasons that make homosexual marriage seem unfair. If a couple is in a homosexual relationship but their state that they are living in does not permit marriage, there are huge downsides that the government will not recognize. One of the big ones that made me think was, “Health: unlike spouses, unmarried partners are usually not considered next of kin for the purpose of hospital visitation and emergency medical decisions.” I believe that if you are close enough to someone, you should have the right to be with them. This is only one of many differences a homosexual versus a heterosexual marriage has. It really opened my eyes to all of the differences that exist today.

The Model Family

           Where do we get the idea of the model family? Most people would agree that the model family is a mom, dad, two kids, and a dog all living in a moderate size house. This is further enhanced by Stephanie Coontz in her essay “What we really Miss About the 1950’s” Coontz gives statistics that directly relate to why we look up to the 1950’s such as, “…when the average 30-year-old man could buy a median-priced home on only 15-18 percent of his salary.” This is in contrast to today’s world and economy, a lot of Americans are struggling to provide, because their salary is not adequate enough.

                On the other hand, Coontz explains some of the realities of what the 1950’s was actually like. The fact that “…tripling nonmarital birth rates between 1940 and 1957.” This is a huge number of people who were eager to see loved ones come back from the war. Another startling fact the Coontz brings up is that “…high school graduation rates were lower in the 1950’s than they are today…” The main difference between then and now is that people did not necessarily need a good education to earn a decent paying job. There were construction jobs, as well as steel factories that would provide good wages for a hard works job.

                In some aspects the 1950’s were a glorious decade, but in other instances they were no better than any other decade. Each decade has something that goes wrong, and Americans learn from their mistakes and make corrections for the future. This is what the 1950’s did; they took the mistakes from past decades and made the best of them. This is why Americans look up to the 1950’s as the ideal model family.