The older I grow the more I see the influence of my family on my life. I didn't always see it. It was up to our parents to see that we had our education in a town that hadn't yet realized what racial prejudice was but actually knew and practiced it on occasion.
Interpretation
Family greatly influences our lives, often in ways we may not immediately recognize.
Katherine Dunham reflects on the profound impact that family has on an individual's life. As she grows older, she recognizes the unseen influences that her family imparted, particularly in shaping her education and understanding of societal issues, including racial prejudice that existed in her community, despite it not being openly acknowledged.
In practice
During a family gathering, you might reflect on how your upbringing shaped your values.
So many dancers paint. I used to paint. I started again recently. While I was dancing, I was very busy with my career. Start something else that makes use of your creative ability because if you don't you will die inside as a person.
If you dance, you dance because you have to. Every dancer hurts, you know.
I used to want the words 'She tried' on my tombstone. Now I want 'She did it.'
I'm not a great man to my children. I'm just 'Pop.' The more involved I am with my kids, it keeps my head flat on top.
A Mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually VACCINATES her daughter against low self-esteem.
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
When I go back to the core of my childhood, my cousin Lucy seems always to be in the peripheral vision of my memories. She is off to one side, always off to one side, with a book, with a scheme or a project or an enterprise.
I'd been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents' tragedy
I don't feel like I'm a perfect mom, and then there are times at work where I feel like maybe I wasn't perfect here because of constraints on my time. But having the sum of both of those things going on in my life makes me a better mom at the end of the day, and I think gives me really important perspectives in the workplace as well.
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