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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Becoming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Optimism, Growth, and Fulfillment
Community, Investment, and Hard Work
Race, Gender, and Politics
Marriage, Parenthood, and Work
Power, Privilege, and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
Michelle’s elementary school, Bryn Mawr, falls “somewhere between a bad school and a good school.” The population, Michelle writes grows “blacker and poorer with each year.” When Michelle is in seventh grade, a newspaper popular with African American readers run an article claiming that the school had in just a few short years become a “run-down slum.” The school principal fights back with a letter, arguing that this is a lie, the only purpose of which is to incite “feelings of “failure.”
Michelle explores a larger cultural shift that is happening in the U.S. as a whole, wherein economic and racial stratification is becoming more apparent. This is due to the fact that the more wealthy, white families, driven by fear of being stuck in a “ghetto” move out of city communities, which only accelerates the draining of resources from those communities.
Themes
Michelle acknowledges the truth in the principal’s statements. There are “feelings of failure everywhere in her neighborhood, in the form of parents and children who are simply unable to get ahead. The word “ghetto” is used like a threat in her neighborhood, and better-off neighbors are leaving for the suburbs in droves.
Michelle demonstrates how entire communities that aren’t invested in can quickly be given up on, deemed unworthy of investment and therefore doomed to be left behind. This echoes the students left behind in Michelle’s second grade class, whose futures seemed uncertain because nobody was invested in their education.
Themes
Michelle’s mother doesn’t buy into these fear tactics. But, she does become heavily involved in Bryn Mawr, raising money for equipment and lobbying for the creation of a multi-grade classroom designed for high-performing students. Michelle becomes a beneficiary of this classroom for her final three years at Bryn Mawr, given special opportunities like field trips, independent work, and dedicated teachers.
This again reinforces how invested parents and teachers can really make a difference in a child’s education and life. Because Michelle’s mother pushes for these special programs, Michelle is able to get more specialized learning opportunities that push her even further ahead.
Themes
Michelle realizes (looking back) that she doesn’t know what her mother might have thought about being a homemaker. Her mother is the caretaker of the home. Her projects consist of cooking for the family, lending a hand at her children’s schools when needed, and improving the house and making it feel new on a tight budget.
Michelle realizes that in her childhood, she did not fully understand everything her mother did and never questioned whether or not she might be happy doing these things. This contemplation is eventually explored in greater depth at the end of this chapter, and in later chapters with regards to Michelle herself.
Themes
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Michelle explains that her mother’s parenting style is an “unflappable Zen neutrality,” not quick to judge and not quick to meddle. She loves her children, but she is pragmatic and doesn’t overmanage them. Her goal, Michelle writes, is to enable them to make responsible decisions, and to handle adult situations with maturity.
Michelle appreciates her mother’s parenting style, acknowledging how it helped her to grow into a fulfilled adult. This style also contains a great deal of optimism, in hoping and believing that her children can make their own decisions and take care of themselves.
Themes
At fourteen, Michelle begins to think of herself as a grown-up. She starts wearing bras, she eats in school with her classmates, she gossips and tries on makeup and clothes at friends’ houses. As Michelle moves around the neighborhood with more independence, she also starts to become “aware of the liabilities of [her] body,” learning to fix her gaze firmly ahead anytime she passes groups of men on the street.
Michelle realizes, even at a relatively young age, some of the sexism that she will have to deal with in the world as a young woman. The additional scrutiny on her body becomes particularly harmful when she (and her fashion choices) are thrust into the national spotlight later in her life.
Themes
Now teenagers, Michelle and Craig get separate rooms in their house, including their own phone extensions. Michelle arranges her first real kiss over the phone, with a boy named Ronell who was a friend of one of Michelle’s classmates. They had decided they liked each other and mutually agreed to meet by her house one day and “give kissing a try.” Michelle had already understood the fun of being around boys by watching Craig’s basketball games.
Again, even at a young age, Michelle is already learning how to take control of her own sense of satisfaction and put herself on the path that will allow her to grow. She’s not shy about exploring new things in the name of self-fulfillment, as when she decides that she wants to give kissing a try with a boy.
Themes
Michelle grows more interested in boys, but never thinks about marriage. She takes the steadiness of her parents’ union for granted, but years later, her mother explains that every spring, she thought about leaving Michelle’s father. Michelle understands, as an adult, that marriage can be difficult and it is “best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.” She wonders what alternate life her mother might have been dreaming of, perhaps on a tropical island, or with a corner office somewhere. But, she notes, each time, her mother made the choice to stay.
While as a teenager she simply assumed that her parents’ marriage was a stable and stagnant thing, later it becomes clear to her that her mother made a lot of sacrifices and compromises both for her marriage and for her kids. However, each spring, her mother also affirmed that these choices and this life were fulfilling to her—another thing that Michelle deems as important.
Themes
