Carmelo: response 13

Natalia:

I think when Marjanes mother finds out she is living with eight men she was a bit shocked and probably her imagination start turning. I dont see it as a surprise because if i found my daughter living with eight men i would think something was going on, but after finding out they were all gay her mother wasnt too worried but still felt Marjane needed a better household. I think Marjanes lifestyle is changing as she gets more mature, first she was young and praised punk until she became one and saw that they weren't what they seemed to be and most of it was it just show. She dropped that look to be more herself, with an easier lifestyle. It was not until it took a complete 180 and she started hanging out with Anarchists that she started to do weed and kept going on trips every so often. I feel the reasons for her life changes were highly based on having somewhere there for her far away from her family and she was still finding her self and these transitions and experiences she went to really sculpted the person she is today.
I guess you can say my parents have not really seen me mature or grow up really, i keep a lot from them but the things i have shown them they seem to be proud of me and how i turned out, but the major flaw she keep insisting i change is my lack of doing something, which to them consists of waking up at 6am and cleaning my room, but the fact that i want to go to college really makes them proud, even if its for the arts, for them as long as i am doing something i love and can make a living off of it they are happy. My parents both came to America around the age 10 from Sicily, my mother did not go back to school and my father graduate eighth grade only so for me and my sister to graduate high school was important, but i am the first to actually want to go to college and persuade in something i love doing.

Carmelo:

Marjane would clearly have a different outlook on life if she stayed in Iran. Her childhood girlfriends show that, if she hung out with them, that she would have tried to look westernized but not have the ideas as westernized women have, like smoking, drinking and pre-martial intercourse. She would have been limited to the amount of education she was able to get, if she was allowed education. Even with all of these obstacles i think she would have still tried to be open minded about things and the see the good in it all like she did when she was a child.
I think if i was sent out in the world at the of 14 i would probably not make it because at the age i was too dependent on my parents for everything, money, food, clothes, i dont think i would not have the mind set or the emotion endurance to go through what Marjane went through.