Autobiography

Part 1: Family Background

I was raised by both my parents while growing up. My parents barely finished high school and never went to college so they were not the type of parents who pushed college careers nor did they have any sort of college fund for us to be able to go. They always helped with homework but never pushed us to do better. Now that they see my accomplishments from attending college they are very proud of me and supportive for me to finish. My mom even went back to college after seeing me and my sister do it, and she got an accounting degree at the age of 40. My parents came from poor families and not many college graduates. We often had no spending money or even good running vehicles but they always gave us love and we were happy with all of the small things we had. My parents used the permissive parenting style, at least for me and my sister; they never really used any type of punishments. They would tell us we were grounded from something but the next day we would be doing the things we were grounded from. We were always nurtured and my parents were easy to talk to. My dad taught us many things from riding a bike to driving a car; he never gave up on us and always gave words of wisdom. There were times when were yelled at and even spanked a few times, but the good times always overcame those bad. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother who are all younger than me. Being the oldest of 5 children had its good and bad occasions. Since I was the oldest I always was given first option on things like movies, where to eat and who got to play with what toys. I was also faced with a lot of responsibility being the oldest, I was expected to watch the other kids a lot to make sure they did not get hurt. Some days I felt more like a mother than a child but they looked up to me and listened to me so I felt good. To this day I still look after them and make sure they are doing the right things and doing well in school. I think that the "birth order" material is pretty close to describing all of us. The closest one is about the youngest child, my brother being the only boy and the youngest fits right into the youngest category. My 17 year old sister who is between the youngest and middle children fits into every category, she has something from each "birth order."

Part 2: Physical Development

I am 5 ft. 51/2 inches tall and I weigh about 155 pounds. I think that I am average for my age; I don't consider myself obese or too skinny. Last summer I weighed 215 pounds 6 weeks after having my son, I was very hard on myself about my weight and I started to diet. Since last summer I have dropped to 155 pounds and I am very happy with myself now. As for my appearance I think that I am pretty, I am often told that I am beautiful by both men and women and also my family. My sister's and brother are also very good looking and we have been complimented by people since we were little about our looks. I don't consider myself to be better than other people; instead I often hope that I look as good as other people. I gained a lot of stretch marks and extra skin on my stomach from having children, I often wish to get rid of those things just to be able to wear a bikini, but that is hard to do. Starting last summer