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Central Michigan University

Parent/Grand-parent Interview

Kelsea Vaillancourt
HDF 308 TR 2PM
Inst. Bruce Covey
2/22/16

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Being a parent can be the most rewarding, yet difficult job of all. One must, in a sense,
put their own life aside in order to focus on raising a new life. Many people thrive as parents, and
will say that it has been the most rewarding and most meaningful thing they have ever done or
will do. Others, however, struggle to different degrees of severity. Many people believe that they
are just not cut out to be a parent or to raise a child, so they dont try as hard as it is crucial to do.
Some relationships and marriages may suffer after those involved become parents. It can be
difficult to keep a relationship thriving when both parties must shift their main focus and
attention to a child that has come into their lives.
Those who thrive at parenting have many different styles and techniques to raise their
children. Some parents are more strict or authoritarian while others may be more passive or
permissive. There are many parenting styles that fall in the middle of the spectrum as well.
Different parenting styles can have a great effect on the child as they grow into an adult. Parents
that are too strict may lead their children to be rebellious, and parents that are too lax can
lead their children into having behavioral problems as they grow older. For this interview, I have
asked my mother and maternal grandmother questions to find out what kind of parents they were,
and what factors influenced their parenting styles. They had many similar answers, which was
not surprising, but they did have some different answers to the questions provided which did
come as a surprise. Doing this interview has really shown me how parenting styles change and
remain constant in different aspects over time.
My grandmother, Bessie Price, was born in 1934 in South Carolina. She was raised by
very strict parents, as many were at the time when she was growing up. She became a parent at
age 22 for the first time. She had three children, my mother being the youngest. My grandmother
said that the older two siblings were treated much differently and she was much stricter with

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them than she was with my mother. She believes that she fell on the parenting spectrum as an
authoritative parent. She let her children do things and learn to grow up on their own, but was
also strict when it came to safety and things like schoolwork. She used grounding as her most
prominent form of discipline for her children. If one of her children really stepped out of line,
however, she often gave them a spanking and sometimes even used the dreaded belt. She
acknowledged that it is unacceptable to use those discipline methods today and that she would do
it differently if she were raising children in more modern times.
My grandmothers greatest value that she held as a parent and the things that she saw as
most important were the safety of her children, and their potential for success. She always gave
them a curfew and made sure to know where they were at all times. She didnt allow them to do
things that could be a threat to their health or safety. She also made sure that her children put a
lot of importance and focus on their schoolwork as she wanted them to be able to be successful
adults. She pushed the idea of college onto my mother and her siblings as well. She saw it as a
very important deciding factor on their future success as adults and parents themselves.
When asked what the biggest influence was on her parenting style, my grandmother
quickly said that it was definitely not her own parents. While she loved her parents dearly, she
thrived to be a better parent for her own children, as she knew that her own were too strict for her
liking, my parents could be very scary sometimes, I didnt want to scare my children. She was
very much influenced by her friends and the media. At the time of her raising children, there
were many magazines and articles about parenting. She admitted to following them a little too
closely so she wouldnt have to come up with parenting ideas all on her own. Her friends also
had children very young, as it was much more acceptable and widespread at the time. She told
me that her and her friends would have dinner parties and discuss things that theyve done with

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their children and how they handle different situations to give each other parenting advice and
support. While she was fairly religious, she did not make it a point to let her religion influence
her parenting. She wanted her children to grow up religious as well, but left it out of the ways
that she raised and disciplined them.
When asked about family traditions, my grandmother could not recall any other than the
celebration of birthdays and religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter. She and her
husband did not have a lot of money while raising their children, and after his death in his early
thirties, she became a single mother with a much smaller income to raise her children with.
While they didnt get to do many things that required money, they enjoyed simply spending time
together. During the time of her parenting, there were plenty of social events taking place, such
as the Vietnam War, civil rights protests, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and
President John F. Kennedy. She said that the war had an impact on her parenting because her
brother was fighting in it while she was trying to raise her children. She admitted to letting her
emotions and fears for her brother come before her children on some occasions. When he came
back alive, however, she was able to put her attention back onto raising them. My grandmother
was always open-minded, so the civil rights protests that were taking place at the time did not
have a negative influence on her parenting. She did not push racist beliefs onto her children as
she was not racist herself. She did, however, try not to let her kids know too much about the
protests and why they were happening to shelter them from the cruelness of the world.
During this time period, parents were expected to take life more seriously following
World War II. It was also a time of gaining more independence as well. My grandmother said
that she felt pressure to be a stay-at-home mom and a trophy wife, but she wanted to work to
save for her childrens college funds. When her husband died, she had to fill the role of a single

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mother raising three children, which was incredibly difficult for her. Her own parents tried to
convince her to be more strict and overpowering of her children. She did what she could to
please her parents, without becoming like them.
Some of the biggest challenges that she faced being a parent were the stigmas and beliefs
that she thought she had to follow. Finding her own way and style of parenting was difficult for
her when society and those around her were trying to tell her what was the right and wrong way
to do everything. She found discipline very difficult at first, but quickly became accustomed to it
and she was not afraid to give her children a spanking. When I asked her how it is different being
a grandparent than a parent, she laughed. She said that I would never believe how much easier
being a grandparent is than it was raising her own children. She likes that she doesnt have to
follow rules to be a great grandparent. She gets to do fun things and spoil her grandchildren
without having to worry about messing up or having to discipline us.
My mother, Lori Perez, was born in Michigan in 1962. She had her first child, my sister,
at age 27, and me at age 33. Times were much different when she first became a parent.
Expectations of her were also different because she had children at a later age than my
grandmother did. My mother said that she felt like she was expected to be more mature and
know what to do more than younger mothers simply because of her age. She was taken aback by
this because even though she was almost 30 with her first child, she still had no parenting
experience whatsoever and was learning with each new day.
My mother was an authoritative parent. She had rules and standards for my sister and I,
but never hovered or was too protective of us. She didnt necessarily want to be our friend, but
she didnt want to become our enemy either, so she always kept hold of a civil parenting style

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but still had rules and regulations for us to follow. She said that she valued our safety and health
as her first priority as well. She would take off work or even leave early in a heartbeat if either of
her children needed to go to a doctor for any reason. She really wanted us to grow up healthy and
be able to live normal lives. She valued education greatly as well. She was semi-strict with our
grades and academic performance, and would reinforce it by giving us a small amount of money
for every A we received. She pushed us both to go to college, no matter where that may be. My
sister earned a degree at a community college and I chose CMU. My mother takes a lot of pride
in our success as adults.
My mothers greatest influence on her parenting style was her family. She said that when
she first had my sister, she always went to her brother or my grandmother for advice. She had a
best friend who had a child only two weeks after her, so they shared ideals and advice as they
were both going through motherhood for the first time together. She claims that she would have
never been able to figure out parenthood if it werent for the advice she received from other
people. She did not rely on media or religion as an influence for her parenting style. My mother
also established a few family traditions. We have a tradition that we try to do every Sunday.
Every week, when my grandma gets out of church, we go over to her house and have brunch as a
family. Also, about once a year or so, my mother will invite other family members over to have a
game night so we can bond. These traditions are very important to her.
While my sister and I were still young, the tragedy of 9/11 struck the country. I was five
years old at the time and my sister was eleven. This was the first major tragedy my mother had
experienced as a parent. She claims that it was the scariest thing that shes ever had to come to
terms with: that her children can potentially be in danger no matter where we go. She became
slightly more protective after the attack, as did most of the country. She got my sister a cell-

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phone when she had originally planned to only let her get one when she turned thirteen. She
would walk us up to the school building for a while rather than just dropping us off at the front.
She no longer let my sister go to the movies without a parent accompanying her and her friends.
The event of 9/11 turned my mother into more of an authoritarian parent for a few years. In her
words, I was scared. I would rather have had you guys be annoyed with me for being too
protective than to ever let anything happen to you.
There are apparently plenty of expectations for being a parent, too many expectations,
especially for a new mother. This was the first response I got from my mother when asked what
the expectations were for her as a mother. She said that her own mother held a lot of expectations
and often tried to give too much advice. She also said that society had a big impact on the way
she tried to raise her children. Society expected her to be the picture-perfect mom, whatever
that is. She told me that she was stressed out for a very long time and didnt know if she was
doing anything right as a parent. Just like my grandmother, even though she was religious, she
did not look to her religion for advice on childrearing.
The hardest part of parenting, according to my mother, is the constant worrying about her
childrens safety. She told me that she stays awake all night and cant fall asleep if she doesnt
know where we are and that were safe. Even at twenty years old, when Im at home, I always
have to let her know where Im going and who Im going with. Shes always been very worried
about us and would not know what to do with herself if anything happened to us. She said that
she is very much looking forward to being a grandparent and hopes that either my sister or I
eventually decide to have kids so she can spoil them. She said that she wants the fun part of
having children without having to change diapers or ground them. This is very similar to what
my grandmother said about being a grandparent.

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I noticed plenty of similarities between my grandmothers and mothers answers to the

interview questions. They both are religious and attend church, but neither of them wanted to
incorporate their religion into their childrearing. This is something that has rubbed off on me as
well and a belief that I will hold when I have children. Their main priority, as is the main priority
of many parents, is the safety and health of their children. They each said that they would do
anything to protect their children and keep them safe. Also, they both had the same views on
being a grandparent, how it will be more fun and less demanding than actually raising the child.
These similarities are views that my grandmother had passed on to my mother to carry on to her
children. It is interesting to see how parenting styles can be passed on from generation to
generation.
They did not differ in many areas. However, my grandmother could not recall any
specific traditions that she held with her family while my mother was very excited to discuss the
traditions that she came up with for family bonding. My mother also never used physical
violence as a form of punishment. This, I believe is because of the fact that it is socially
unacceptable now, unlike when my grandmother was raising children. My mother was affected
more by societys standards for being a parent than my grandmother was.
This interview was very insightful and I learned plenty of interesting things from both my
mother and my grandmother. It is intriguing to see the certain traits and trends in parenting that
have been passed down from my grandmother to my mother, and the ones that my mother
decided to leave behind. I have begun to think about things that I hadnt been prepared for. I am
now considering what type of parent I will be and what parenting styles and ideals that I will
adopt from my mother and grandmother.