The Other Wes Moore; One Name, Two Fates

Book by: Wes Moore
Chapters 4-6 Blog

 

Who was to blame for the other Wes Moore’s upbringing?

“The Other Wes Moore” does a really good job in providing us with excitement and anticipation. A story like this, where there is an intricate description of the characters’ lives from their childhoods to their adulthoods, gives you so much space to think about how things unfolded and, at the same time, how they could have happened differently. Moreover, I have to say that the elements that contributed to such contrasting lives between the two Wes Moore-s are quite absorbing.

A term that we commonly used during our group’s discussion for the fourth to sixth chapters was “blame”. Who was to blame for the other Wes Moore’s upbringing?

Like I mentioned in my first essay for “The Other Wes Moore”, it was overwhelming to read about the situations that the main characters’ mothers found themselves in, so being able to grasp that side of the story truly allowed me to bring a different perspective in conversations around their sons’ upbringings. Many of my peers considered the other Wes Moore’s mother, Mary, responsible for her son’s ruinous life experience; her working early morning to late at night – implying her absence throughout Wes’ life stages – was one of the negative factors my classmates brought up in our talks.

While I think that her presence in his life could have had a positive impact, I believe it is actually their life circumstances who were to blame more than anyone or anything else. Just like most mothers in the world, I think that Wes’s mother did the best she could. It would be unfair to erase her sacrifices when her options were so limited; it was either more time with her son or bringing food to their table. No in-between. In their mother-son conversations, as narrated by the author, Mary was constantly using her own struggles as examples for her son to learn from. That might not always be an adequate way to teach a young child, but it was her way of trying.

Additionally, a contrast between the main characters’ mothers was another discussion in examining their responsibility in the Wes Moore-s’ upbringings. In my opinion, comparing Mary to the author’s mother would be improper. The author’s mother had a strong support system behind her with her parents and other family members helping her raise her children, whereas the other Wes’s mother was vastly disadvantaged, and the little support she had came from individuals that were unstable and caught up in the same situations as Wes.

With that being said, I think that we are sometimes quick to judge women and to question their motherhood. Wes’s mother was once a teenager who had to drop out of college, raise her children at such a young age without their father in the picture, and give up all her dreams to work full-time so she could feed her family. Therefore, I would not put Mary’s capabilities as a mother in the equation when knowing that her surroundings set her up for failure, which ultimately reflected on her son’s journey as well.