bodanna

"Borders" by Thomas King considers physical and metaphorical borders in a story about a mother and son trying to travel from Canada to the United States. The main border is not only the physical dividing line between the two countries but also the metaphorical divide between their native heritage and citizenship. Pride is a main idea in the story which is also used in a message to readers.

The story takes place at a time when letters were written to obtain information: "[Laetitia] wrote to someone in Salt Lake City, [about] a month later, she got a big envelope of stuff." (139). It is about a Blackfoot boy and his mother trying to visit his sister in Salt Lake City, Utah. In order for them to get there, they must face some borders. The boys' mother is proud of her Blackfoot heritage and does not recognize the physical border between Canada and the United States. When asked by the border guard about her citizenship, she simply replies: "Blackfoot."(135). They are not pleased with her answer: "But you have to be American or Canadian."(139). The mothers' stubbornness in her pride leads them to remain stranded between the borders for two nights.

The metaphorical border the boy and his mother face is put up by the authorities at the countries dividing lines. Their demands for citizenship prove to be a challenge for a woman who sees no border in her heritage, in fact, it is the American border guard who states, "...we got Blackfeet on the American side and the Canadians got Blackfeet on their side. "(135). She clearly sees no line dividing her people and refuses to let anyone tell her so; she is from the "Blackfoot side."(136). While the boy and his mother are stranded between both countries, a metaphor is sensed as they are stuck between their pride and heritage and the demand for citizenship. The governments of both countries are unable to recognize their identity outside of Canadian or American, until the media get involved.

Each character has pride in the story. The author provides evidence of how strong the mothers' pride is when she speaks to her daughter in Blackfoot on page 133. The daughter, Laetitia, establishes pride when she persists in following her dream to move to Salt Lake City, despite what her mother says. The young boy tells his mother of his sisters wish and Laetitia is unhappy, but she states, "Well, I'm going for sure, now." (141). The young boy adds a lightness to the story, he sees adventure in their situation, and his objective point of view sees that, " Laetitia had a lot of pride, and so did my mother. I figured that someday, I'd have it, too." (140).

The audience for the story is sensed to be Canadian. A slightly negative tone towards Americans is suggested with sentences like: "...my mother did not want us crossing the border looking like Americans."(133), and, "...Coutts, which sounded abrupt and rude, would be on the American side." (134). Despite her refusal to identify herself as anything but Blackfoot, the boys mother still recognizes that she is not on the American side.

"Borders" is meant to make you think about aboriginal peoples identity and the borders they face. The mother in the story is courageous enough to take a stand against authority to preserve her native pride, and she perseveres. She is a strong fictional character created by the author to portray the message that courage is needed to maintain heritage and identity. The characters' tactics in the story would doubtfully work in todays world, but her message remains.

Parenting is a highly debatable topic in our society today. The effects of parenting have substantial influences on child development. We must first go inside the minds of babies to try to understand what is truly perceived by a child. Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley; she proposes theories in her TED talk: "What do babies think?" that suggest babies play a crucial role in the understanding of the adults we become. Alison theorizes that because of humans long term dependency from infancy to early twenties, in which we are protected and provided for, that we are able to learn more and become more knowledgeable. Gopnik believes that children are meant for learning and actually have the minds of brilliant scientists; therefore, babies are the research and development team while adults are the production and marketing team who take the ideas from childhood and put them to use. Gopnik states that instead of thinking of babies as "defective grown ups" that we should actually see that they are "at a different developmental stage of the same species". Gopnik uses a metaphor to present this idea in which children are butterflies and adults are caterpillars. Gopnik says that babies are more conscious than adults; their brains work more like a lantern of ideas rather than a spotlight, as it would in adulthood. Gopnik states that to be a child is "like being in love in Paris for the first time after you’ve had three double espressos.” Gopnik closes with the idea that if we want to be like the butterflies, in which we have an open mind, open learning, creativity, and imagination that we at least some of the time should start thinking like children.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think.html