I have recently been reading a book called, The House of the Spirits. At first glance of the cover and reading the introduction to it, I knew it was going to be one of those books where I have to take my time and read slow. Really understand and remember what its saying and keeping that in mind for future events that happen in the book. Once I actually got into it though, I started to relate to it and related the characters in the book to people in my life. At the end, I actually didn’t hate the book, and that’s a lot knowing that I don’t read at all unless I’m assigned to read a book in school. The House of the Spirits was a book about a few generations of a family and all of their successes, struggles, and everything everyone went through over a lot of years. It went into topics like the treatment of women, political power, social classes, and the importance of family. And I feel as though the biggest topic was the importance of family that I greatly related to and liked.
In The House of the Spirits there was a huge issue with the importance of family. Esteban Trueba was an angry man and didn’t care about a single other person until his 90’s when his granddaughter came around. The author showed the effect of not caring for your family and how they will grow up to resent you. Out of his whole family, only one person liked him. All of his family either hated him and just dealt with it, or they left. Esteban regrets all of this immensely at the end of his life.
I’m writing this to the people who believe that family doesn’t have to be blood and that blood isn’t always family. For example, My Mom works at Town topic and has been there for 8 years and has had the same minimum wage ever since. Last Christmas my boss gave her 1,000 as a present to go towards my brother’s college tuition because he said he sees her as family. Also because me and my brother worked there for 3 years. This proves that family can go beyond a bloodline.
VIDEO: http://www.actforyouth.net/adolescence/demographics/family.cfm
My purpose of this letter is to bring light to this issue, I want parents to reflect on how they are to their kids. Sure they can provide for them financially and give them food and a place to sleep. But if they don’t treat them right then they won’t appreciate everything they do and that’s not fair to either party. In The House of the Spirits, Esteban Trueba was a very rich man for most of his life but the people he wanted to be loved by thought very lowly of him because of how he treated them. Esteban did give them everything they wanted but, he treated them like servants and if they disagreed with him they were the devil basically.
This book will make you miss your mom and acknowledge what she’s done for you your whole life. I feel like I’m missing a connection with some family members and I will regret not restoring them. This book made me feel like I need to talk to my family much more and connect with them. Just like Esteban and Clara this book made me realize how important having a good connection to your family actually is.
