How Far is it to the Land We Left So in English class today I had my laptop open and was thinking I should start my blog post, so I searched "childhood socialization" into to google to get some ideas but nothing really stuck out. Than my teacher pulled up a poem on the projector and my attention was directed back towards class. The poem (linked above and copied below) is by Palestine-American women, Naomi Shihab Nye.
On the first day of his life
the baby opens his eyes
and gets tired doing even that
He cries when they place a cap on his head.
Too much, too much!
Later the whole world will touch him
and he won't even flinch
After we read the poem out loud, I realized what Nye was insinuating. The poem is reflecting on concepts I suggested in a previous post (fourth one I think). The first theme we noticed in class was that the demands of society desensitize humans. When the baby was first born he was vulnerable to something as simple as opening his eyes and a cap being placed on his head. But the second stanza shows that as he grew up he became so use to the norms and standards society inflicts he can no longer be hurt. The other theme we noted was conformity. Generally when babies are first born the hospital hat they are given is meant to identify their sex, blue for boys and pink for girls. Right out of the womb, this child is told WHO they are.
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