Since I just had to write an introductory essay for my Child Psych online class, I figured that I would just copy-and-paste that :) enjoy.
Already, upon reading the first assignment, I am excited to take this class. Why? It’s simple: the first assignment we have is to write about one of my favorite topics – myself! I will begin with a quick and brief snapshot of my current life situation.
My name is Emily Martinez, I am a 22 year old mother of two amazing little boys. I had my first son, Vinny, 4 years ago at the age of 18. My second son, Leo Jr., was born just 3 months ago. One important thing to note about myself is that I hate following rules that I feel do not apply to myself, hence the reason why I chose to have children young. I do not fit in the cookie cutter mold of young, irresponsible parenting (I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen Teen Mom). Contrary to “popular opinion”, I was not a delinquent when I had my children. In fact, I was an honor student in Cathedral High School and had a history of winning a lot of academic competitions and scholarships. I feel that my strong rooting in education is largely responsible for the mother I am today.
I live in Astoria, right across from LaGuardia Airport. For some of you who are not familiar with this area, it is basically like a suburb in the city. I moved here with my son and my amazing boyfriend almost a year ago, and we were lucky to be able to have another child in the midst of that. My boyfriend is the foundation of my sanity. Although I have to clean, cook and do everything for him, his support is amazing. He is my cheerleading squad and fan club, and without his motivation and assistance, I don’t think I would’ve been able to achieve any of my major goals.
I consider moving out to be one of my most significant accomplishments, considering my parent’s apartment was unfit to raise a child to my standards. On that list of accomplishments is getting an A in the DL Statistics course this summer. I cried multiple times a week in fear of receiving less than an A, but with a lot of hard work, I got what I deserved and I am very proud of myself. I feel like the only thing that keeps me from these goals is life. Circumstances happen which sometimes hinder my progress but I always try to keep in mind that I am blessed to have the family I do – it gives me the motivation to go on.
During my free time (which is nearly non-existent as a parent of two boys), I work from home as an insurance adjuster. I also love to watch Law and Order SVU on Netflix and the Jersey Shore (it is my guilty pleasure). I am interviewing for a position at the Apple Store next week, which is something that also means a lot to me considering I am in love with their products and would love the opportunity to learn more.
My motivation for college is pretty self-explanatory: two kids and a strong desire to learn. I took this class particularly to make me an even better parent. I feel like a lot of parenting is learning, about yourself and your children. It is a growing experience. In order to be an effective parent you have to admit that you, too, can make mistakes and show your children that they are also allowed to make mistakes. As far as a topic I am looking forward to learning about this semester, I can’t really choose from the syllabus (it all seems so interesting…) but I can say that I look forward to learning things especially specific to my children, topics that concern early childhood.
I hope to one day provide a life for my children that my parents were unable to provide for me, both in a nurturing way and financially. Although I love them dearly, I felt like my parents only cared about what was superficial, and because of their young age, focused on themselves and their relationship instead of my brother and me. There is one thing that I have to give them credit for. Their “terrible” parenting taught me exactly what not to do in order to be a great parent. So in essence, their mistakes actually helped me out in the long run, no matter how stressful or hard my upbringing was.
On another note, I consider myself to be very hard working and determined. I have a lot of skills and I attribute that to my love of learning. My passion is simple; it is to become the best person I can be. A lot of the things I explore and find interest in have to do with self-improvement. I love to dabble in different interests to make myself the most diverse and knowledgeable person. This will unfortunately be my downfall. Due to my varied interests, I find it hard to choose what life path I should walk upon, and I find it hard to balance my values of providing an overabundance of money and doing what I actually enjoy. Part of me thinks that I will succeed and enjoy whatever I do because of my large amount of interests and part of me feels like I may make the wrong decision based on vanity and financial appeal.
I feel that names are very important and that people develop personalities to suit their names. The meaning of Emily, “To Strive Or Excel Or Rival/industrious”, definitely applies to my personality seeing that I am a person of varied interests and excellent in all that I pursue. I have to thank my mother for this. She picked my name out from the TV Guide when she was pregnant with me. It also happens to be, coincidentally, the English/American variant of my grandmother’s name, Amelia.
Now with all the bragging I’ve done, I’m sure I should probably point out some of my flaws. The truth is, I don’t have any – just kidding. I know I have some minor things I need to work on and when those are worked on, others will come up. Confidence is what enables me to ignore my ego and make these changes. The list of negative attributes will always be long and is always changing so to point them out would be irrelevant. What I will admit is that I am a flawed person: sometimes I yell and scream, sometimes I break things, sometimes I cry but I always apologize.
All in all, I think this will be an interesting course where I will get to learn more about myself and my kids, and also “meet” other students who share the same interests as I do as far as psychology is concerned. The only thing that was unaddressed in this essay was my nice deed of the day. I drove my boss’ 25 year old son to his job yesterday because it was raining, and got to know a lot about someone very similar to myself. I know that that little tidbit was randomly thrown into the conclusion of this essay, but I couldn’t find a way to tie it in, sorry! With that said, this essay structure is much like myself: long and complicated, with varied topics and something small and random thrown in the middle of it all.
