"It was a sin to grow up and be a man."
(Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, p. 31)
As I replayed this short sentence over and over in my head, I wanted to understand how growing up could be considered a transgression. At this point in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, we read a short dialog between a mother and father about becoming an adult. The mother views growing up is a sin while the father sees growing up as nothing but a fact of life. When I first read this sentence I agreed more with the father's opinion but after making some connections and pondering the mother's beliefs, I understand why she felt it unfortunate to grow up. The transformation from child to adult involves one major element--the loss of innocence.
As a child raised in the nineties and early two-thousands, television was a big part of my youth. Nickelodeon and Disney have made me who I am today, and I'm not ashamed. It isn't my growth into adulthood that I want to examine but the transformation of the children who stared in the TV shows and movies I enjoyed. I grew up watching kids like Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin and Miley Cyrus. As children, they were cute, talented and wholesome. Today those names make us think of substance abuse, rebellion and self-destruction. These young adults aren't horrible or vile people but they aren't the innocent kid stars we used to know. What happened? They grew up and were exposed to the world.
The story of these child stars in not unique; we all go through a similar process. Although our experiences are less public, we become exposed to the world and gradually we loose our innocence--some more than others. The mother in Bless Me, Ultima wants nothing more than to keep her son clean and pure. She understands that the transformation from boyhood to manhood involves a loss of purity. Our loss of purity, innocence and our exposure to the world are what define "growing up." It isn't our metamorphosis from young to old that is a sin but the complex process of growing up that leaves us with blemishes.
The story of these child stars in not unique; we all go through a similar process. Although our experiences are less public, we become exposed to the world and gradually we loose our innocence--some more than others. The mother in Bless Me, Ultima wants nothing more than to keep her son clean and pure. She understands that the transformation from boyhood to manhood involves a loss of purity. Our loss of purity, innocence and our exposure to the world are what define "growing up." It isn't our metamorphosis from young to old that is a sin but the complex process of growing up that leaves us with blemishes.
No comments:
Post a Comment