Looking for Work VS What We Really Miss About the 1950s

In Gary Soto's essay" Looking for Work" I found interesting. It was as if someone had wrote a story about my thoughts as a child. Maby because of the way I grew up but I always felt like the poor white girl. There was always someone who had bigger and better things than I did. I remember watching television programs wishing our family could be more like them. Wondering why we didn't have such nice things. I often found my self doing odd jobs around the neighborhood to earn enough money to walk down to the store and buy a candy bar.



In Stephanie Coontz essay "What We Really Miss About the 1950's" I found really hard to follow. One minute it was talking about nostalgia the next about happy marriages. I fell I relate better to stories than a bunch of information thrown at me. However there was much I learned. I was unaware that many families lived togather to save money. I am not sure I could handle living with relatives. It was enough growing up in a home with 3 sisters and one bathroom.



When looking at "Gary Soto's Looking for Work" in an interpretive/rhetorical way. We all think the grass is greener on the other side. We always think and sometimes feel that he or she has it better than me. Poor me. In the essay "David King, has a closet filled with toys and a bear-shaped cookie jar. like the ones on television." I think that often times we take the things we have for granted and are always wanting more.



I think that times are so different today than in the 1950s. I have a hard time comparing family's today vs family's then. I have seen some of the television shows such as Leave it to Beaver portraying a perfect family which is the only thing I could compare my family to. We are far from perfect. Our schedule changes on a daily basis. For one I don't walk around the house in a dress and pearls. Most days I am lucky to get dressed for the day at all. Children don't entertain themselves as well as they probably did then. They have to many video games and such. We rarely sit down to dinner at the same time. Most the time it has been a good day if I even manage to make dinner. Times have changed so much. But one thing remains the same the love of the family.