The
following questions should help provide some further ideas for
discussion about Conversations
with Teddy.
• How would you describe your role and the way you act in the following
groups?
o In your family
o In your school
o With your friends
o In your community
• Do
you act differently or the same in each of these groups? In what
ways? Do
you ever worry
that if someone in one of those groups saw your behavior
or heard you speak in another group, he or she might not like you anymore?
•
Have you ever tried to "pass" as someone different from who
you really are? For example, have you ever tried to make people
think you were
wealthier, smarter, or more experienced than you really are/were?
•
Can you remember when you first had an understanding of your family's economic
situation? How old were you? Did a family member use any particular words
to describe your status, such as "poor," "working class," "middle
class," "comfortable," or "rich"? Were
there material things that you wanted but were told your family
couldn't
afford? What
kinds of things? Or, were you always given everything you asked
for? Did you ever feel envy or awkwardness about money around
your peers?
Did you
ever feel superior to other children because of what you had?
•
Respond to the following excerpt: "I was not a wanted child .
. . I was supposed to be reassured that my birth was part of
God's plan, but
when the troubles and misery of the years to come struck and
I witnessed my mother's struggle to take care of this unplanned, unwanted
child-of
me-knowing this story only made me feel like a burden who should
never have been born."
