While growing up, I had to do a lot of face-work to impress my friends who were in a higher social class. Face-work refers to pretentious actions taken to conceal embarrassment (“Module 14”, n.d.). However, it affected my personality, self-esteem, and courage. I became a victim of the generalized other because I used other people as a standard for my behavior and having to set my friends as the acceptable standard. I found it to be unbearable especially concerning my thought processes (“Module 14”, n.d.). My family started up at a low social class working up to a higher social class. My concern to social class classification influenced my childhood up to a point I believed that they were very necessary and normal in life.
Social stratification in the US is still practiced as it affects the lives of both the high class and low-class individuals in society (Shaggylocks, 2011). The system robs the confidence of lower class in trying to compete favorably and hardens the hearts of those in the higher social classes making them cold to the problems of others. My upbringing and the countless incidences of belittling in the society directly affect my ability to compete favorably for job opportunities and indirectly my family who should be receiving my help.
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Education has opened many opportunities and enabled many people to move up the social hierarchy. Presently, meaningful education creates ways for accessing jobs and privilege to rewrite the narrative. My experience as a child and grew up to my current status has empowered me to understand the circumstances under which my family lived, and I am better prepared, psychologically, to help the situation (“Module 14”, n.d).
Overall, I have witnessed intergenerational mobility in my family as I grew up. My parents had to struggle to make a living, and through savings and hard work, they placed me into an education system. Thus, they moved from the lower class to middle class where life was bearable, and association with children of this class got easier.
References
Module 14. (n.d). The Self and Socialization through the Life Course.
Shaggylocks (2011). Social Class in America (1957). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUgDbCZLPpY
