In class we talked about patriarchy, I couldn't really relate to it on a personal basis because the household I grew up in was a matriarchy. My father had no power in the house. Everything my mother said was the law of the land. My mother grew up in a small town called Hope, Arkansas, in 1937. She identifies with the South. My father was born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1927. He identified with the South. I don't identify much with the Southern way of thinking or stereotypes because I grew up in Missouri and some people referred to it as "North." However, when I look back on my past, the main thing I can think of that both my parents subscribed to was not valuing education at all. My parents never read a school report, never went to a school assembly, or really invested much in my education. Sometimes, because of our frequent moves, we were not enrolled in schools for months. I remember we moved to a small town in Alabama for a few months, my siblings and I didn't enroll in school until almost the end of the semester. The next school year we were uprooted and taken to another new school. I remember a time when my parents left for a while and we went to live with my grandparents for a while.