After interviewing my mother and sister I didn’t notice a lot of structural differences between their upbringings. Both my mom and sister grew up in two parent households that were financially stable and provided some opportunities for extracurricular activities. It seems that replicating the same environment that my mother grew up in was very important to her as she attributes her upbringing and family dynamics a larger part to her success in adulthood. My mother felt that her childhood experiences were critical to the opportunities she received as she got older and did her best to make sure that my siblings and would be able to have the same opportunities or more If we wanted them.

My conservation with my sister demonstrated that she was grateful for the hard work both of my parents executed to provide for our family and would like to aim for a similar or better experience to provide for her future children. However, she mentioned that she felt our mother could have been less strict and gave us more independence or freedom.

This portion of the interview made me think about our class reading from Hamilton’s book Parenting to a Degree. Judging by my sister’s responses and her reflection about how she grew up, I believe my sister presents characteristics of both the professional helicopter and a the paramedic parenting style. My sister is very focused on the benefits and strengths of networking and gaining professional experience; however, she would also like to prioritize establishing wealth and independence within her family with her husband. She has demonstrated this behavior throughout my time in college by helping me and other Emory students build connections with various people in different industries and plans to do the same with her own children.