Essay Topic

I am not positive yet to which my essay topic will be. However I am pondering an idea for it now. The topic of the changes of responsibility for teenagers over the years has crossed my mind. In this essay I would talk about how the roles of children and teenagers in families and the amount of effort put into helping the family has decreased from the earlier years of the 1900s. Back in the day the children would have jobs and all of their money would go directly into helping the family with payments, food and other necessities. Usually none of the children’s income would be kept for themselves to use as they wish.

Now a days, a child is greatly encouraged and often times forced to get a job as early in life as they can to pay for their own things and to buy a car, phone, or house of their own. Rarely is the money used for family purpose. A child growing up in today’s society is given more opportunities to do things on their own and for their own benefit. I feel that this topic would be good for an essay because I could portray the roles of teenagers have changed with the more developed society and the technological advances over the last 50 years. These advances have lessened the need for children to work and the more jobs have led to an increase in salaries so families do not rely heavily on the children to help bring in the money.

Dancing Daughters (Hine Part 2)

(pg 177-186)

In this chapter of the book, I came across the concepts of the changes of the perception of women throughout the years, and how they are perceived in today’s society. In the 1800s and before, women of high status were considered angels, while the lower class girls were “another sort of creature, a necessary, though sometimes frightening, outlet for males’ sexual desire”. It also states that the men in this generation also saw two sorts of women; the wealthy and virgin-appearing, and the other “poor and morally loose”. Although I do believe this was true at this point in time, I also feel that in today’s society, this is the perception some people see as well. The women, who are raised in wealthy, loving families, are expected to do a lot with their life. This includes getting a job, having a family, being well off just as the environment they were raised in. The lower class group of women did not have these standards to live up to.

The increase of women taking the low paying more “female” jobs in 1910 had one fourth of all the women in the U.S. employed. These working women were underpaid and expected to live off of the support of their husbands. While this was inevitable back in the early 1900s, in today’s society, women are expected to go out and get a high paying job, many of which males also have a career in and be able to support themselves and also their family with or without a husband or family.

Roles of women in this society have drastically changed over the past 150 years.