Identify all the different hats (roles) you now wear (play). Make sure you include in your list things like: cook, maid, dishwasher, taxi driver, and other roles they perform within their home setting. Create as long a list as possible. Remember your relationship roles such as son, daughter, aunt, uncle, husband, wife, lover, grandchild, niece, nephew, cousin, friend, enemy, neighbor, client, customer, patient, and so on. Legal roles such as citizen, resident, taxpayer, registered voter, and so on. Occupational roles such as student, teacher, worker, homemaker, colleague, boss, employee, and the like. Vocational roles such as tennis player, knitter, musician, singer, actor, woodworker, gardener, reader, poet, and so on. Now identify those roles that you actively chose for yourself and determine how many were conferred as a result of the circumstances of your birth, gender, culture, marital or parental status or age. When you consider the expanded list, is it any wonder that teenagers are sometimes confused about who they are and who they will be? Write down your personal descriptions of the physical characteristics of the ideal male and the ideal female. Limit them to physical characteristics. Be sure to include height, weight, and physical proportions. Consider such things as hair and eye color, length of hair or hair style, amount of body hair, facial characteristics, and the like. Estimate (realistically) how close you come to the physical ideal that you describ
ed for your own sex. Use a scale from 0 to 10, where 10 indicates that you are the living, breathing ideal. Using the same scale, indicate how closely someone you know, or know of, comes to matching your ideal description of the opposite sex. Write about where you think the origins of these ideals came from, how they are affected by the media and advertising, and the implications these ideals have on body image and self-esteem. Develop some interview questions for a child about sibling relationships. Ask about the frequency of conflict, the nature of conflict, the reasons why children might not get along, and the things the child likes and appreciates about his sibling. Consider any other items that might be relevant. Locate a family with two children of at least middle childhood age. One may be a teenager. Separately interview each of the children, and, if possible, interview a parent. Ask each of the three respondents the same questions. You are looking for the influences of perspective on the perceptions of relationships between brothers and sisters. Write a brief summary of your findings. Describe each interview and then compare across interviews. In class, share your findings with your classmates, and try to develop an overall idea about sibling relationships. Are they similar to or different from your own experiences growing up? Does historical or cultural context make a difference? Do you see any differences between same-sex and different sex pairs of siblings?