As a twenty-five-year-old woman from upstate New York there are often a lot of
misunderstandings about where I came from and its relation to where I am now, in
Eastern Kentucky. Though I can say without a doubt that the life I grew up in and where
I am now being very different, being a “northerner” or “flatlander” is definitely not the
subclass that has affected me the most in my young adulthood.
I grew up in a strict religious home with a large family and this is where my
subclass began. I was homeschooled from an early age and being homeschooled has
had a significant impact on my life for as long as I can remember. By being
homeschooled I was not as good as socializing with other people which included my
siblings, kids my own age and especially larger groups. The misconception was that I
was “different” but in all reality, I was the same as any other child I just had lacked the
experience of socializing through a public school and by being exposed to that type of
life.
I felt that being from this subclass has misunderstandings on both sides. For
example, my family suffered from “ethnocentrism” which was they thought their own
culture, the strictness, religion and homeschool was the superior culture and they
assumed anyone else not practicing this culture to be someone we avoided. So, it was
not just a manner of misunderstanding from people that did not know me or how my
family was but also a misunderstanding that my parents had for the public as well as
information that they taught me and my siblings which led us to feel this same way.
Because of this I had little social interaction and lacked contact with other diverse
families who would help mold who I became. I also realize that unlike other children
because I was homeschooled I lacked confidence and “Due to lack of confidence,
he/she will also not be able to interact with other students who are not home-schooled.”
(Rampur,2010). I lacked confidence to interact with anyone that was outside the circle I
had been introduced to at an early age which was a small circle of siblings, a cousin or
two and some fellow members of the church we attended. This lack of socialization
which led to lack of confidence is something that just built up and made me very quiet
and not at all outspoken. The “Halo Effect” that is brought up in the book is something I
feel definitely existed because of my lack of socialization leading to a bad first
impression it influenced any perceptions that would follow. Also, it continued from one
person to another because as we know teenage kids will talk which led to me closing
my circle around me even more.
