Category: Daughter

Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’ can be read as an allegory of female performance and the final revolt in a world of men who have been responsible for all the disasters and wars of the twentieth century. According to this poem, the women of this time are subdued and oppressed by male priorities. Also, ‘Daddy’ can be considered a poem about the daughter’s relationship with a father.

Plath conveys his paradoxical feelings for the man she worships throughout her youth, but his malicious influence after his death. “I used to pray to recover” and “at twenty I tried to die and respond “(line 14, 63-64). Throughout the poem, Plath uses simple language to delay his father’s evil spirits.

The male character poem such as father, statue, teacher, gestapo officer, husband and vampire are created as protagonists and oppressive. The father appears as a powerful, strong and restrictive figure, something like a god. The female character is limited and unable to lead a full life for the sexist society where she is. The father is compared to the Nazis who assume the responsibilities of the massacre, (I thought every German was you) and the female character is represented as the victim (I think he might well be a Jew). Then, comparing his father with the Nazis, what she puts on the same stage as they means that at the same time she also puts women and judges on the same stage, who are raped and exploited.

When Plath said that ‘Every woman adores a fascist, the boot in the face, the brute, the brute heart of a brute like you’ is using irony by representing the stereotype of most women who are and likes abusive men, thus showing inequality between men and women. This irony was justifying that violence was something natural.

“Daddy” describes that the real power of the men is to make women give in to the dominant ideology, making their additional part of the natural order of the world. It is usually visible in sado-masochistic images which make women to be responsible for their own additional role.

Women are made for wise people to guide you (You stand on the blackboard, dad). While women are emotional and commit suicide when they feel lonely and depressed, men are more rational. . However, the female character is observing these unfair relationships, and sees her father figure as the devil (A cleft in the chin instead of your foot / But no less a demon for that).

The poem is full of the sense of suffocation felt by the female character towards her father and husband. The poem ‘Daddy’ criticizes the male aggression and depicts men being responsible for all the social injustices. The narrator depicts the discrimination of women but at the end of the poem she points out that females break free of these constraints.

The relationship with her father is complicated, confusing, and ambiguous. Plath wants to be close to his father since he has some affection for him. However, the negative aspects of their relationship seem to almost consume how good there is. Plath calls his father for ‘Daddy’ instead of father, since this word gave it a touch of affection and closeness to the relationship of the two of them. Plath shows that she wants to connect with her dad when she says she has a picture of him and later says “At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you” (53-54). ‘By establishing a parallel between Hitler and the Jews and she and her father, she implies that her relationship with her father is oppressive and cruel.’

In the poem the father was compared to Hitler and the Jews, this definitely shows how much Plath respects and fears his father. Even with all that fear and respect that her father supposedly has, she writes on the last line, “daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.” This shows that all this time she was forced to keep that respect and that fear which she really didn’t have.

“Ordinary father-daughter love had a charge to it that generally was both permitted and indulged. There was just something so beautiful about the big father complementing the tiny girl. Bigness and tininess together at last—yet the bigness would never hurt the tininess! It respected it. In a world in which big always crushes tiny, you wanted to cry at the beauty of big being kind of and worshipful of and being humbled by tiny. You couldn’t help but think of your own father as you saw your little girl with hers.’ – Meg Wolitzer. This famous quote is certainly not the case for Harper Lee’s Bob Ewell and Shakespeare’s Shylock, but rather the opposite. Harper Lee’s novel and Shakespeare’s play both display very complicated father/daughter relationships. In both the novel To Kill A Mockingbird and the play The Merchant Of Venice, secondary characters such as Bob Ewell and Shylock both had serious issues with their daughters. Also, Bob Ewell, handled the situation in a rather reckless manner compared to Shylock who took a more passive aggressive path.

Firstly, Shylock and Bob Ewell both had very similar issues with their daughters. For example, Shylock’s daughter running away with her father’s money, accompanied by a Christian, whom he forbid his daughter to marry. Adding on, Bob Ewell beating his daughter for making a move on Tom Robinson a black male, which Bob didn’t like simply because of his race. To emphasize, both fathers prejudged the young men based on their religion or race. “She reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count. She says, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’ (Lee 197) This quote from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, comes from the trial part of the story, where Bob was proven guilty for the beating of his daughter. In this short abstract from Harper Lees: To Kill A Mockingbird, it demonstrates and shows that Bob Ewell’s daughter never got raped by Tom Robinson but she was the one who initiated contact. According to Tom Robinson, once her father saw them, he came storming in out of anger, and beat his daughter up afterwards. It also shows that Bob Ewell has raped his daughter, according to Tom Robinson, she claimed “what her papa do to her don’t count” when she says she’s never kissed a grown man before. That is to say, this proves that Bob Ewell had beaten and raped his daughter. “My daughter! O my ducats! O my Christian Ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stolen by my daughter! Justice! find the girl! She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats!” (Shakespeare.II. VIII.) This line comes from Shakespeare’s play, where Shylock was heard screaming, revealing the problems with his daughter Jessica. “Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed to be my father’s child! But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo, If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, Become a Christian and thy loving wife”.(A II. s iii) In this abstract from Shakespeare’s play: The Merchant Of Venice, we can see how Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, feels about her dad and their relationship. She follows through with her plan to betray her dad and run away with his money alongside the Christian man she plans to marry: Lorenzo. This demonstrates very well the similar problems between the two fathers in both stories. Though, In Shylock’s case, his daughter not only betrays him by robbing him of his money, but betrays her and her father’s religious values as well.

Secondly, although both fathers had similar problems and causes for those problems, they handled them in very different ways. In Bob Ewell’s case, he had a very aggressive approach compared to Shylock who was rather very passive aggressive. Bob Ewell after having seen his daughter with Tom Robinson, went and beat her up. He also had raped her according to what Tom Robinson’s testimony. “She reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count. She says, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’ (Lee 197) This quote from the novel proofs how Bob Ewell sexually assaulted/assaults his daughter. Together with “Would you write your name for us? Clearly now, so the jury can see you do it”(Lee 179). Also proving that all the evidence points towards Bob Ewell for the beating and rape of his daughter. Important to realize, that he was very aggressive and not very smart in the act. After the trial, Bob Ewell, out of rage towards Atticus, who ruined his plans and provided evidence to show that he was a liar and a madman, whom only got away with the crime for the simple fact of racial purposes and issues, decided to go after Atticus’s children. He followed them home and was planning on hurting them. Luckily, the children got away, but Bob Ewell had run out of luck. He was killed by Boo Radley, the neighbor of the Finch’s family. As to realize that, because of Bob Ewells

foolish, poorly calculated measures and the way he went about the problems with his daughter, he had it all coming. However, in Shylocks case, after his daughter ran away with a christian man and her father’s money, Shylock went around screaming like a mad man:“My daughter! O my ducats! O my Christian Ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stolen by my daughter! Justice! find the girl! She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats!” (Shakespeare.II. VIII.) Despite being very angry and sad, Shylock did not inflict any sort of physical damage to his daughter. Instead, he disowned her and from there, there was no coming back to a point where their relationship would ever be healthy again. Unlike Bob, Shylock was smarter and made overall better decisions when it came to his daughter and the way he handled the situation. He did not harm her or do anything illegal, he decided to let it go, but he wished justice upon her and had a more “mental” approach to the situation. As we can see, Although similar problems, very different outcomes, simply because of the different values and character the two fathers shared.

To sum up, the novel and the play both displayed a very interesting and similar father and daughter relationship. In the novel To kill a mockingbird and the play by Shakespeare:The merchant of Venice, both Dad’s in both stories shared the same problems regarding their daughters, but had a lot of differences regarding the way they went on about them. One of those different decisions end up being fatal in Bob’s case.

Boundaries are critical and they create space without creating distance. When your daughters turn 12 here are dos and don’ts.

Stay involved

Daughters really thrive at knowing they can rely on their father to always be there for her. Consistent level and demeanor go along way especially when they get to adolescence when her life is falling apart. Her dad’s steady guidance and calm objective goes a long way. Proximity doesn’t equal presence stay woke! And make time for her.

Date her

Love covers a multitude of sins and mistakes and at this age she is bound to make a lot of mistakes. The only two thing you can do about love as her dad is show her by showing interest in a certain hobby of hers or tell her you love her. Being loved and celebrated by her daddy makes her not hungry at male attention.

Be her dad

This goes a long way in making her realize how needed she is and this builds and boost herself confidence .You should make it a healthy self-confidence by focusing on her inner qualities which also develops a strong self-esteem.

Respect

Your daughter will only follow your rules and guidelines only if she respects you. When she is young she might adhere to the rules because of your authoritative nature but after she is grown it’s only her respect that can make her follow your guidelines.

Speaking the truth

You are needed to speak the truth in her life. we live in a world where most of the things she hears are not true say from culture, politics advertisement and ideologies that aim at influencing her decisions even when not true. You should teach your daughter the absolute truth so that no one can get her twisted around.

Be transparent

Call a spade a spade and ensure you acknowledge when you make a mistake and be quick to apologize. She expects you to be perfect but when such a thing happens she learns to respect you and trust you more.

DONTS

Don’t check her out during puberty

So much about being her dad should be you fighting the shame she faces from the world. Avoiding her questions about her changes instills a sense of shame. Don’t try to joke about her experience in any way because it is humiliating and she least expects that from her dad. Acknowledge when you do not have the answer and assure her to do research.

Don’t drop the princess title

She remains a princess even though she could be growing old the withdrawal of your attention may negatively impact her emotions. Let her be the doll until she decides otherwise by herself. You can maybe develop a better pet name as she grows up but dropping her title could wreck your boat.

Don’t threaten her boyfriend

This could backfire on you drastically. You taught her to love and it is part of being a person. This may cause her to engage in relationship without your knowledge which might not be good for your princess but attacking her suitor pushes her away and may make her chaotic in future relationships. Respect can be best earned by a father who respects her daughter’s choices

Don’t say its girl’s stuff

Turning away from her interests is a way of saying there is something inherently wrong with her tea a party or her dress up. It’s best to get in the game even when it’s girly stuff regardless of how pinky and sparkly it might be. It shows her interests and ideas are valid and she is an important asset in your life.

In the sonnet To a Girl Venturing out from Home is that the sonnet portrays the mother showing her young little girl to ride a bike. The differentiation is clear: the title of the sonnet recommends that her little girl is mature enough to venture out from home, concentrating on the past,when she was a kid. The pressure between the mother and girl travels every which way as,progresses,taking the crowd into the activity, the inclination for reflection and response. The mother’s affection for her kid gets through, the symbolism is solid, figuring out how to adapt to a similar youngster as a grown-up is even more a test.

Linda Pastan was brought up in New York City however has lived the greater part of her life in Potomac, Maryland, a suburb of Washington,DC. Linda Pastan is the creator of twelve verse assortments, including Insomnia:poems. She moved on from Radcliffe School and got a Mama from Brandeis College. She is known for composing short sonnets that address subjects like family life, home life, parenthood, the female experience, maturing, passing, misfortune and the dread of misfortune, just as delicacy of life and connections. Two of her assortments of sonnets were designated for the National Book Grant and one for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

The speaker feels that her little girl is growing up quick and wildly, through the absence of accentuation, and the persistent utilization of enjambment all through the sonnet. The speaker is the mother, thinking back to when the little girl is figuring out how to ride a bicycle. The bike turns into the point of convergence as a similitude forever – life is with all the potential risks that includes. At the point when the opportunity arrives for the little girl to leave the family home it’s constantly a wrench for the mother at some point or another the kid must be liberated, relinquished them to become what they have become-free grown-ups. Growing up is a hazardous business yet the writer sets the youth shouting with giggling against the mother who thinks the girl is progressively brittle with separation. The strain between the defensive guardians who fears for the most noticeably awful and the percolating, vivacious, free youth who couldn’t mind less, surfaces. The tone of mellow bitterness as the girl rides away, similar to a hank, reminiscent of a sad farewell. The sonnet speaks to the excursion of a youth blamelessness to grown-up autonomy as observed through the eyes of a restless mother. It’s a casual, free refrain sonnet with no severe normal rhyme or meter in English, this is one lengthened sentence with brief accentuation, occasionally to create a stop-start musicality, an impression of the learning procedure of the little girl on the bicycle.

There are four abstract procedures for To a Girl Venturing out from Home, incorporates enjambment,metaphor,repetition, and metaphor. For instance, these words pumping,flapping, shouting, etc keep up the feeling of the bicycle exercise happening now,in ongoing, regardless of being a memory. The bike exercise is an analogy forever’s excursion and stretched out all through the sonnet. Reiteration strengthens a thought siphoning, siphoning, recommends that the little girl is flooding ahead with extraordinary vitality, average of a youngster. The utilization of a likeness in the last three lines with fluttering behind you like a hank waving farewell. The tone of the sonnet is tragic and sorrowful the mother feels abandoned by her little girl however incapable to stop her ‘ I ran to make up for lost time’, and through the sonnet shows how she feels her little girl is fearless and solid, yet will consistently be her daughter. The sonnet utilizes brutal words: ‘ Thud…crash…screaming’ which have the impacts of making the little girl expanding opportunity appears to be a negative thing. The mother anticipates the most exceedingly awful, and maybe over-defensive. They additionally power the peruse to delay at urgent minutes offering accentuation to words, for example, ‘flimsy… separation… siphoning… shouting’. This makes us center around the mother’s emotions instead of the daughter’s-this is on the grounds that it is a monologue and spoken from the point of view of the mother. The speaker diminishes this second in a melancholy manner, pinpointing it as one of the occasions her little girl had ventured out from home. The sonnet talks on a subject of kids becoming more established and becoming separated from their folks, and how the guardians see this change. Despite the fact that the first run through riding a bicycle is energizing for a youngster, to a parent, it could appear as an initial phase in letting the kid grow up and, thus, develop autonomous. The speaker recalls this time as a second wherein she lost her little girl, regardless of whether she was just going down the road.

The expression a ‘bended way’ speaks to life by it being cheerful, eccentric, and perilous. The entire sonnet depends on a mother’s impression of when her little girl had ventured out from home. In any case, the home that the mother depicts is certifiably not a psychical spot, however an inclination. The house is the connection between the mother and her little girl. Pastan’s, ‘To a Girl Venturing out from Home,’ depends on a solitary speaker, word decision, flashbacks, and sentence structure to portray the mother’s tragic reflection, so as to make a home that is characterized by this current family’s relationship.

According to the World Health Organisation, the natural sex ratio at birth is considered to be 1.05. This means that on average there are 105 males for every 100 females born. China and India are immensely exceeding this rate. The CIA’s World Factbook exposes the harsh reality of China’s sex ratio at birth averaging to be a staggering 1.19, and India’s 1.08, however population levels between the ages of 0 and 14 have a ratio of 1.12, suggesting the practise of female infanticide is often occurring. Son preference is highly present in these two countries and has resulted in skewed sex ratios. It has been researched that parents favouring baby boys in China has stemmed from the Confucian tradition which has imbedded ideologies of the roles and importance of females and males in Chinese society for more than 2000 years. Not only has China’s cultural traditions enforced son preference, but despite governments attempts to better the population with the One-Child Policy, it has further encouraged the families to abort if the one child is not a boy. Son preference is again reinforced with parents concerns for old age support; the now failed rural pension programs in China has concreted the minds of many parents to rely on sons in their old age. India’s son preference, like China, originates from deep rooted culture. The Caste system in which allows females to be raped and the expensive payment of dowries are two of the most prominent reasons of why Indian parents go to the extremes to have a son and not a daughter. Sex selective abortions are seen as the lesser of two evils by Indian mothers considering the suffering women endure in India. Skewed sex ratios resulting from male preference have delivered major issues and social implications in both China and India. The trafficking industry has emerged from the lack of wives in China and India. An increase in young unmarried men has contributed to higher crime rates in both countries. Studies have shown increased trafficked sex workers has increased STI counts in particular HIV and AIDS in China and India. Lastly young men have been provided with the strenuous task of supporting the growing population.

The Confucian tradition, the One-Child Policy and the unsuccessful pension are all contributing factors for the male preference of children in China. Confucianism is characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy in which establish the social values and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese society. The authors of the academic article Sex Preference, Fertility, and Family Planning in China, Arnold and Zhaoxiang argue that the traditional society in China is strictly patriarchal, while it is believed that the family line is carried on solely by descendants on the male side, moreover only the male offspring belong to the clan community. Furthermore, the tradition suggests that men can provide old-age security, the provision of labour, and the performance of ancestral rites. The authors continue to state that the patriarchal Confucian customs constituted the foundation of male supremacy. The 2000-year-old Chinese Confucian status of women in that they bring little value to the birth family is reflective of their current status today. The persistence of son preference in China demonstrates the difficulty of overcoming deeply rooted Confucian traditions. The next contributing reason to the preference of male children is the implementation of the One-Child Policy. The essential idea of policy was to benefit the population by decreasing it, however the implementation of such a policy in China, where there is already a strong son preference, enhances it. The constriction of only one child puts pressure on the family for that child to be a male contributing to the number of sex selective abortions and female infanticides. “Constrained by a limited number of potential heirs, parents with son preference could resort to extreme measures to ensure having a male heir and therefore distort the sex ratio in newborn babies.” Li states that patterns of births indicate parents in rural China are reluctant to complete their childbearing without having at least one son. The author also states that sex-selective induced abortion became common in rural communities after the One-Child Policy was introduced. While son preference is in part cultural value, economic incentives is a large component of the preference, especially in rural areas of China. The economic value sons provide to parents manifests itself through the traditional expectation that sons care for their parents in old age. This is an important motivation for having a son, to secure a viable source of support. Despite failure of the Rural Old-Age Pension Program, through its short-lived use, Ebenstein, and Leung present that, “51% of respondents to a fertility survey in Hubei province identified the primary motivation for a son as the desire for old-age support.” The authors also indicate that “the results presented suggest that pension program availability is associated with a negative change in the sex ratio (fewer missing girls).” China’s male preference has originated from the Confucian tradition, enhanced by the One-Child Policy and further enriched by the absence of an adequate pension program in China’s poor rural areas.

India’s son preference is largely based upon the cultural influences of the caste system, financial influences of the dowry and ethical considerations of the female children. The Caste system is an extremely oppressive way in which India’s social hierarchy is based upon today, despite efforts from the government to ban caste discrimination. Individuals in the lowest caste (Dalit) are mistreated, especially women. On average “six Dalit women are raped a day.” Azaera states that if a woman is raped by someone of a higher caste, they are ostracised by the police and upper-caste members, however if they are raped by someone from their own caste, they are shunned by their own community. Male preference is strong among the Dalit caste, as a fellow mother of the Dalit caste explains, “Bringing up a girl is difficult, in a poor family ensuring her safety and protection is difficult once she’s about 15 to 16 years old.” Even though the traditional payment from the bride’s family to the husbands, known as a dowry, has been illegal in India since 1961, it is still occurring in India’s current society. Kavya Sukumar, author of Dowries are illegal in India. But families — including mine — still expect them, reveals that in 2015 less than 10,000 cases of dowry were reported in India, in a country with nearly 10 million weddings a year. For impoverished families a dowry is impossible, however with a son the family would receive the dowry, clearly resulting in a male preference for a child. A prominent reason poverty-stricken, low caste mothers in India have practiced sex selective abortions and male preference is simply to end the life of the child before a lifetime of suffering, consequently of the unethical treatment of women in India. Kavya Sukumar exhibits that nearly 21 women are killed every day by their husbands or in-laws because their families could not meet the dowry demands. Indian women are also regularly beaten if they continue to birth girls “The in-laws were blaming and torturing the mother for only delivering girls.” Laxmipriya Biswas a mother and villager emphasise that it is a curse to be born as a woman, “There is no sympathy for women either within the family or outside in society, they have to suffer everywhere.” Women and child development minister, Pramila Mallick illustrates the reason for male preference due to the suffering of females, “A house where the mother is unable to meet and fulfil the needs and wants of a child is such a place where the mother kills her child.” The preference of sons in India is largely based upon the caste system for low caste families, the illegal dowry is constantly used, putting a financial burden on having daughters and the suffering of women reinforce the decision to have sons.

The male preference in China and India has led to skewed sex ratios, which in turn has developed into major human rights and social issues in these countries. One of the most prominent issue is the trafficking of women for wives and sex workers from countries near the borders of China and India. The lack of females has resulted in the many poor young men having to buy wives as a cheaper alternative than impressing women from their own country. The trafficking industry and the treatment of women as objects is reiterated through worker at Pacific Links Foundation Shelter, Mimi Yu’s statement, “The demands for brides and prostitutes is so high that victims are not only abducted from the region near the southern border anymore, but from all parts of Vietnam” , later referring to the trade as definitely growing. Furthermore, escaped women have been rejected from their homes after returning, due to a profound lack of understanding and the assumption of a better life “Another reason why 60% of all arrested traffickers in Vietnam are former victims themselves.” The surplus of poor, young, unmarried men has increased the number of sex workers across China and India, moreover the HIV prevalence among the sex workers. In China, “poor migrant males moving from rural areas to urban areas in search of better jobs will engage in high risk sexual behaviours that place them at risk for HIV infection.” India is the third largest HIV epidemic in the world , like China it is largely a result of the skewed sex ratios. For men in both countries, “the immediate costs of paying a sex worker are less than the long-term investments necessary to find a bride.” The prevention of HIV in China and India is difficult as the stigma and discrimination against sex workers restrict their access to healthcare, making this an ongoing social issue. Another issue increased by skewed sex ratios is the levels of crimes in both countries. A writer for THE HINDU Business Line, Charan Singh presents a study made in 2000 suggesting that murder rates in India are correlated with female to male ratios, where levels murders are committed when there are a larger proportion of females. It is further argued that “young unmarried men are the main perpetrators of crime worldwide and commit more than two thirds of violent and property-related crimes in China” Lastly, the dependence of parents on their sons for financial support puts stress on young men to provide for the ageing population in both China and India. The population is described as a particularly widowed ageing population, with the majority of elders being female, however the youth being majority of men. It is discussed that “Indian women have historically not owned assets due to the nation’s patriarchal inheritance” in which assets and property have gone to the men in the family. Therefore, it is likely that these widowers will be depending on their sons or grandsons for financial security. Many young men will not have the resources and time to provide for both their elders and the needs of their wives and children and in turn will never start a family because of this.

My daughter is biologically mine and my wife’s (we contributed the sperm and the egg). Yet my daughter is a mix of our traits and her own unique traits. Describe four mechanisms that would describe my daughter’s uniqueness.

Mutations account for genetic variation in offspring. Somatic mutations are alterations in DNA that occur after conception. Somatic mutations can occur in any of the cells of the body except the germ cells (sperm and egg) and therefore are not passed on to children. Somatic mutations occur because of environmental factors such as ultraviolet radiation from the sun or can occur if an error is made as DNA copies itself during cell division. Somatic mutations can lead to disease and even cancer. Hereditary mutations are inherited from a parent and are in every body cell of the offspring. These germline mutations are present in every body cell of the offspring due to the mutation happening in the parent’s egg or sperm cells (germ cells). If the fertilized egg cell made from the unification of the sperm and egg receives mutated DNA from either of the parents, the child will have the mutation in each of his or her cells.

Independent Assortment is the random lineup of homologous chromosomes during metaphase I of meiosis. The random lineup of homologous chromosomes in the middle of the cell leads to different outcomes during the separation of homologous chromosomes going into anaphase I. The trait for brown hair could be from the father and the trait for blond hair could come from the mother, but it is up to chance which daughter cell receives the respective hair color. After meiosis occurs, each haploid cell contains a mixture of genes from the organism’s mother and father which leads to genetic variation from the parents.

Fertilization creates genetic diversity by allowing each parent to randomly contribute a unique set of genes to a zygote. Each sperm and egg created by the parents are individually unique. While fertilization is not part of meiosis, it depends on meiosis to create haploid gametes. The fertilized cell restores the diploid number. But the fertilized cell is what makes fertilization have such a significant impact on genetic variation. There are thousands of sperm capable of fertilizing the egg, each different, but the sperm that fertilizes the egg first is the one that is expressed in the offspring. These vast combinations of egg and sperm during fertilization create unique fertilized eggs.

Crossing over is the exchange of chromosome segments between nonsister chromatids in meiosis. Crossing over creates new combinations of genes in the gametes that are not found in either parent, contributing to genetic diversity. Crossing over occurs between prophase I and metaphase I and two homologous chromosome non-sister chromatids pair up with each other and exchange different segments of genetic material to form two recombinant chromosome sister chromatids. This exchange of genetic material would lead to the daughter cell having completely unique genetic material from either of the parents, which would explain your daughter’s uniqueness.

The death of a child is a life-altering event for parents, leading to grief that is individual, intense, and long-lasting. The grief experienced by parents following the death of their child can affect their relationships, and how they sometimes see it, their role within society. Parents can find grief isolating, due to society’s lack of understanding of their grief experience. Parenthood is the phase in human life that seizes the stages of obtaining freedom from the family of origin, and creating loving relationships while having and raising children. The death of a child is hurtful, and children are the bigger part of life. Losing a child is something that few really comprehend. The death of a loved one – family member, friend, child, and infant – is an unavoidable process that all people will experience at some point in life, whether you’re ready or not, and when it happens, it will change everything. Followed by death then comes the process of grieving, which is dealing and coping with the loss of the loved one. This can be very difficult and will be one of the hardest times that you will go through after a loss.

God blessed my wife with her first little girl, and in a blink of an eye, she was gone. My beautiful daughter came into the world one day April 16, 2019, and passed away the same day. Months way before, my wife gained so much more weight than she did when she was pregnant with our two little boys. She constantly told the doctors that something was wrong, yet the doctors just kept brushing it off and saying that this was just a part of pregnancy and it was all in her head. She always made it to all her appointments and was told the same thing over and over. Months down the road, everything seemed to remain the same, she was gaining more weight and swelling had suddenly occurred in her feet, but the doctors kept saying the same thing as they were at the beginning of her pregnancy.

On April 16, 2019, at approximately 4:20 in the morning right, when I was about to leave for work, my wife woke up in excruciating pain. Immediately I called her stepmom, so she can take my wife to the hospital and I can get the boys dressed. When I made it to the hospital, which was right at 4:58 a.m., my wife’s stepmom and she were still waiting in the lobby to be seen. By this time, it’s been quite some time, about an hour and twenty-five minutes, and my wife still has not been seen by a doctor. Somewhere in between the long waiting time my wife started bleeding and wasn’t sure what was going on. The doctors finally rushed her to a room so that they can check the baby’s heartbeat. While they hooked her up to the machines, I can see my wife in so much pain and I knew she just wanted the pain to stop. Meanwhile, the doctors could not get a hold of her OB-GYN, and during the wait, one of the nurses told us the doctor was in the hospital, but when I got a hold of him to figure out what was taking so long, he was unaware of everything and wasn’t even at the hospital. While waiting for my wife’s doctor, the results came back, and it was heartbreaking. The doctor finally got there and quickly did an emergency C-section. Her doctor then told me that my wife is bleeding, and she is at risk of having a seizure and stroke, and she and our baby might not make it. I felt that the doctors were lost and time was not on our side, but in all reality, my wife should have been rushed into emergency surgery as soon as we got there. Because of the doctor’s malpractice, that was the result of my wife and I lost our child. She went weeks of not being heard from the doctors which was also another result of our daughter’s death. Literally the same day her doctor said she had preeclampsia.

Researchers have labeled the death of a child as one of the most tragic events a parent must endure. In a study by the Medical Malpractice Center in the United States, which dealt with the loss of children, “there are between 15,000 and 19,000 medical malpractice with doctors every year” (Weatherspoon, 24). From what I researched, “Birth-related medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, hospital, or other medical staff acts negligently and causes one of the following: injury to the mother or child, wrongful birth, and wrongful pregnancy. Although rare, sometimes a doctor’s medical malpractice causes either the mother or infant, or both, to be injured prior to or during the birth of the baby. Some examples of malpractice that can cause birth-related injuries or death include: negligently failing to control excessive maternal blood loss post-delivery, and negligently failing to monitor the baby’s oxygen intake pre-and-post-delivery” (Boeschen, 1).

A wise woman told me that grief may seem to last for a lifetime, but it’s only for a season. It’s the one common human experience we all have at one time or another. But we don’t expect it to be the death of our child. Suddenly, without warning, it hit me. I felt guilty after the death of my daughter because I constantly wondered what I could have done differently and were all the signs there for me to know something like this could happen. I thought to myself, could this have been because of something wrong I have done in the past and now it come to hunt me in the future? In the month in a half following my daughter’s death, I felt that no matter how endless my loss or how profound my pain was, the world just doesn’t stop for one family who went through what my wife and I had to go through. I remember thinking how can I ever be happy again? Will God ever bless my wife and me with another little girl? I felt my wife’s pain and I knew the pain she was going through was visible to others, and I would be thinking that this grief that we were feeling would last forever. I was just going through it because I just lost a child. My wife and I weren’t eating for days, so family and friends brought over food for moral support. My wife and I were told that we need to try going to grief and loss therapy and maybe try writing in a journal. With all these thoughts and emotions going through my head, I felt that the suffering of our loss was taking a toll on us and everyone around us. No parent should go through or have this type of unbelievable loss that my wife and I just faced. I’m a big believer that a parent should not bury their child, a child should bury their parents. For most parents, like myself, I feel that I have fulfilled my life and my children are my legacy.

It’s been about a month in a half since my beautiful little girl left this earth, and sometimes I’m still in disbelief. But the work of healing has brought relief to my heart. I now feel a joyful connection with the sweet poem of her memories that I wrote for my daughter. I learned that healing doesn’t mean you’ll never feel sadness, but you’ll be able to have memories without hopelessness. My wife and I have been using a journal, and my journal became my security blanket, so I can empty all my sorrows, while my tears hit the paper of my journal and all my emotions can be at rest. We were going to therapy to get away from everything and everyone, and in doing so, I especially began to form a new relationship with my child, it was as if she was right there in my arms. I felt it was as if she was there the first day she came into the world. As weeks went on, I’d read back over the journal entries and I perceived that I’d overcome this obstacle and that I’d survived another day, another week, another month, and everything was back on track. I now look at my daughter’s death and look at her newborn pictures and I still wish for the life she could have had. With her death, I’ve learned how to live with her loss and not lose myself because of it. I’ve been going to therapy and doing my journals and realized that both were a big part of helping me through this roller coaster.

My wife and I cherish every moment together and try not to let the death of our daughter keep us from not interacting with our two boys. Just recently we discovered that we are good at art, we created beautiful shadow boxes, a quilt, photo collages, and memorial videos, and memorized my wife’s car in memory of our daughter. What we went through has helped my wife and I talk about how we are feeling, and we pray together when times get hard for us, especially when we see little babies in the store, but overall this incident has brought us much closer together than we’ve ever been before.

My daughter’s loss taught me to love harder and appreciate life, and it is too short to waste. It taught me to reach out to others and begin sharing my story in hopes it could reassure other parents who have gone through the same experience my wife and I just faced that there is life after a loss of a child. As days and weeks go by, I’ve learned a parent’s love will never diminish; my love for my daughter will forever remain in my heart and will never leave my side just as if she was still alive. My wife and I will always be her parents, and she will never be forgotten. She will always know that she is my wife’s and my legacy, and as parents, our love for her will never die, no matter what.

In closing, the death of my child was a terrible loss that almost destroyed my family, but with the love and support from our family and friends we were able to bear through this rough patch, but after the death and loss of my daughter my wife and I were able to have the grief we needed. Because death is such a major part of life, only those who experienced it firsthand can truly know what it’s like when dealing with a loss of a child. The death of my child changed how I feel about life and how I view society. Overall, the malpractices of the doctor are what I believe are the main result of my daughter’s death. If the doctors took the time and listen to my wife and weren’t assuming that the weight gain and the swelling around her feet were from her being pregnant, our daughter would still be here today. Even though my wife and I are going through this tragedy, we are going through it together by making sure we are grieving and taking it one day at a time. I make sure that whatever we are feeling, we let it out in our journals and continue going to therapy together. Learning how to grieve is the most important part after going through a loss of a child. Find what works for you and your family and never let death come in between one another and change who you are. You will never forget your child’s death. You may feel that you will never get over the death and loss of your child, but you will overcome the challenges that come along with a loss.