книги / Striving For Happiness. I Am a Part of All that I Have Met

In the USA many old people go to Florida when they retire and live in large parks. Often these parks are for old people only. Neither children nor pets can live there.

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.In what parts of the world are nuclear families mostly common? And extended families?

2.Does the type of the family depend on tradition, religion, geography, education?

3.What are advantages and disadvantages of these two kinds of family? For children, old people, young people?

Read the dialogues and speak about your family relationships using the expressions from them.

Family Relationships

(Interview with 16-year-old daughter Helen)

Interviewer: How do you get on with your parents?

Helen: I think I get on with them very well really. We don't always see eye to eye on some things, like boyfriends - they don't always approve of them-but on the whole they're very understanding. If I had a personal problem, I think I could confide in them, and if I was ever in trouble I know I could rely on them to help me.

Interviewer: How strict are your parents?

Helen: Well, my Dad's quite strict about staying out late at night, but I can usually get round him. If I'm nice to him, he lets me come home a bit later. My Mum's always telling me to tidy up my bedroom and put things away after I use them, and I have to do some of the housework. But if I compare them with other parents I know, they aren't very strict.

Interviewer: And who are you most like in your family?

Helen: Oh, I think I take after my mother. Everybody says we're both very independent and strong-willed. I like to have my own way a lot of the time, but I'm not spoilt. I don't always get my own way. And my parents always tell me off if I do anything wrong.

(Interview with 17-year old son David)

Interviewer: How do you get on with your parents?

David: I look up to them because I know they've worked hard to bring us up properly. Interviewer: How strict are your parents?

David: They can be very strict at times. I told my Dad I wanted a motorbike, but he said it was out of the question - it was too dangerous. My mother is strict about keeping things tidy. I can't get out of doing the washing up and things like that, unless I'm very busy.

Interviewer: How do you get on with your sister?

David: I never agree with what she says, so we are, always arguing. We've never been very close, but I get on all right with her. I think I'm much closer to my mother.

(Interview with mother)

Interviewer: What's it like being a parent?

Mother: Bringing up children is very difficult. You always worry about them. You have to be very patient and put up with a lot —like noise and even criticism. And you can't always get through to them —sometimes they just won't listen. But the advantages of being a parent outweigh the disadvantages. The main thing is to enjoy your children while they are young, because they grow up so quickly nowadays.

Interviewer: How strict are you with your children?

Mother: I suppose I'm reasonably strict. They can't do what they like and get away with it and I tell them off when they do something wrong.

Interviewer: And what is the secret of being a good parent?

Mother: I think you have to give them confidence and let them know you love them. And you have to set a good example through your own behaviour, otherwise they won't look up to you.

Interviewer: And what do you want for your children in the future?

Mother: I want them to be happy, and I want them to look back on their childhood as a very happy time in their lives.

Relationships In A Family

Read the following extracts and speak about your relations with your parents when you were a child.

1. I don’t remember very much about my childhood, actually. My wife is always asking me: "When you were a boy, did you use to..." and I reply: "I don't know, I can't remember." We didn't use to talk very much, we weren't very close, or if we were, we didn't show it. I remember I used to have my hair cut every Friday. My father and I would go together. I had the shortest hair in the school. When they'd finished cutting it, they’d bum the ends with a sort of candle. Oh, I’ll never forget that smell.

2.I got on very well with my mother. I used to tell her everything - or nearly everything - and she'd talk to me very openly too. Sometimes she'd say to me: "Don't go to school today. Stay with me." And we'd go out shopping or something like that. It's a wonder I had any education at all, the number of days I missed from school.

3.I have very fond memories of my childhood. To me it represented security. We used to do a lot together as a family. I remember walks, and picnics, and going for rides on a Sunday afternoon. Every Friday, when my father came home from work, he had a treat for each of us. My mother used to say he was spoiling us, but why not? It didn't do us any harm.

4. Three times I have attempted to commit a suiside. It was not that I wanted to die, but to get them to take notice of me. Well, I mean, I want my parents to re­ spect my personality, to acknowledge my rights and to share my sufferings and difficulties.

5. I'm happy to have my parents. We do a lot together as a family. We enjoy walks ans picnics, and going to exhibitions or concert halls. I owe all that I can do and know to my parents. I never hesitate to tell mum and dad my secrets, and they are always ready and willing to help me with their advice or cautions.

6.I don't remember a day in my life when my busy parents could spare me a minute of their precious time. Well, they give me pocket money every time I ask, but it's nothing compared with what I really need. Sometimes I think they regret that they have me at all. Whenever I try to get them to talk to me, they find hundreds of reasons not to do it. I feci very lonely.

7.When my mum is busy doing the housework, the washing and cleaning and all that stuff, I'm always happy to help her. Though she has loads of different things to do in a day she still finds time to ask about my schoolwork. We have a common hobby, too. It's playing the guitar and writing songs. We have common friends, too. I love my mum because she understands me.

Read the verses composed by teenagers in which they speak about their attitude to and love for their parents. Then express your warm feelings to your parents in the form o f a poem, a letter, a song, ifpossible.

My Dad

Gary Sharpe (aged 15)

My Dad and I go out together,

We watch the football despite the weather.

We shout and cheer and both agree

That Tottenham are the best to see.

I feel my Dad is getting old.

He's fat and bald and feels the cold.

And when he dances it’s such a giggle,

His feet don’t move but he gives a wiggle.

I don't much like his taste in clothes.

He's hardly with it as fashion goes.

But somehow I feel he is my mate.

In fact I think my Dad is great.

My Mum

Kim Voller (aged 14)

My Mum has dyed auburn her hair,

It's hard to believe she once was fair.

She has her hair set every Sunday,

But it's always flat again by Monday.

She is always washing, ironing, cleaning

Until the house is really gleaming.

She gets up at five - that's her rule -

And gets us all up for work and school.

I shout at her and make her blue.

But I still love her, that is true.

I love her with all my heart

And I hope that we will never part.

READING

Read the stories aboutfamily matters.

The Quirin's Secret

After Nancy Springer

Back when the world was young and full of wonders, just for joy a boy named Ann went up the mountain one day. In the heathery meadow above his village he found

a lapwing's nest and crouched to look at seven freckled, pointed eggs. There amid the eggs lay the quirin.

It was a stone no bigger than the lapwing's eggs, round on top and flat underneath and so shimmery that Arin knew it was magical. It glimmered all colours and no colour that anyone could name. He picked it up and couldn't feel it in his hand. It was the quirin, the sooth stone. Laid on the head of anyone who was sleeping, it would make that person tell secrets.

Arin held the quirin in his hand, and his heart beat like bird's wings. Now he would learn the truth. He would prove what he'd often dreamed, that he wasn't just a cowherd's son; he was a king's son! Or a knight's son at least. His parents had found him on the mountain when he was a baby, perhaps. He lived in a leaky hut by mistake. Magic came to those in need, didn't it? The quirin had come to him because he needed to find his father the king.

He slipped the quirin into his pocket, where it lay hot and weightless like an angel's feather. He walked carefully down the mountain, feeling the magic glimmering with ever}’ step. Tonight he would learn the truth and tomorrow he would journey over the mountain and far away to where the golden cities waited.

"Arin, gather kindling," his mother called to him.

"Arin, bring the cows up from the water," his father told him. "Arin, find me clay to play with," his little sister begged him.

Arin did what they asked without complaining. It was only for one more day.

There wasn't quite enough to-eat at supper. Arin shared without complaining. It was only for one more day.

The hut was too small for beds. When day turned to night Arin unrolled his sleeping mat like the others and lay on dirty floor with his sister on one side, his parents on the other. It was only for one more day. Besides, tonight he wouldn't sleep. Tonight he would find out the name of his father the king. Then he'd never sleep on the floor again.

In his pocket he could feel the quirin's heat.

He lay awake and waited. He heard his sister's breathing soften as she slept. The village voices hushed, but insects were talking. Up in the mountain pines, an owl spoke like a ghost. The night was dark, dark. Somewhere far away wolves sang.

When Arin heard the wolves, he knew it was the bottom of night, when sleepers lie deepest in their dreams. Careful to make no sound, he sat up and pulled the quirin from his pocket.

It gave forth a whisper of pearly light, lying like a baby moon of all colours and no colour in his hand. By its glow mother looked young, silky, her hair parted into two smooth dark wings. He laid the quirin between those wings and sat by her, listening for her secret.

Her mouth moved. She spoke in her sleep.

"I love him more than anyone," she whispered, "and worry about him more than anyone. He is my son, Arin. Today he was content, but why does he so often seem unhappy? He is a fine arrow of a boy who will be able to do anything. Why does he look beyond the mountain and sigh?"

She fell silent. Arin waited a little longer - perhaps she would say again that she loved him. But then he reminded himself that he had a journey to plan. It must be that his mother didn't know the name of his father the king. Carefully he lifted the quirin from her forehead.

By the stone's magical light, his father looked handsome, hair curled back from his brow like a tawny crown. Arin placed the quirin under the rim of that crown, on his father's forehead. He knelt, listening for his father's secret.

Without opening his eyes, his father spoke. "That boy of mine, Arin, he's dreaming again. He tends cows, he's dreaming of horses. He finds clay, he's dreaming of gold. I'm his

father; I wish I could make him happy, but I can't. He has to learn for himself that happiness is in his hand."

Arin's father stopped speaking. Arin knelt, waiting a long time, wanting to hear again the wistful way his father had his name, wanting his father to whisper more of the secret of happiness, wanting his father - but wait, wasn't he a king's son after all? Was he going to have to herd cows and gather kindling the rest of his life?

At such a thought he wanted to fling the quirin out the door. If this was the truth, he didn't want to hear it.

But he had to lift the quirin carefully so as not to awaken his father. And when he held it in his hand once more, he couldn't throw it away. It shimmered so much like an angel's wing. In its light his little sister's face looked as wise as that of a saint.

He laid the quirin gently on her forehead.

She opened her soft mouth and said, "Today the sky was as blue as Daddy's eyes, and the heather bloomed and Mommy wore some in her hair, and Arin brought me clay, and I am so happy."

She smiled in her sleep but said nothing more. Arin waited awhile longer, then lifted the quirin from her forehead and slipped it into his pocket. He lay down and stared into the darkness.

He hadn't noticed the sky as blue as his father's eyes or heather in his mother's hair. He lay thinking until a pearly glow took away the darkness. His mother stirred, yawned, sat up, and smiled at him "Good morning, sleepyhead." He hadn't slept. Yet he smiled back at her.

"It looks like a fine day." He nodded.

"Let your father sleep a little longer. Go for water, Arin."

He got up, took the buckets, and started toward the river. But when he got outside, he stopped and looked around at the clay-tawny, sky-blue, heather-green world shimmering with dew.

Only for one more day? No. All days. Every day.

Wing beats sounded. Against the sky Arin saw a bird's white breast and crown of feathers. It flew within his arm's reach, landed on the ground at his feet, folded its glossy wings, and looked up at him.

He knew what it wanted. Magic is meant for those in need.

"Here, lapwing." He pulled the quirin from his pocket, crouched down, and offered it in his open hand. The lapwing called out one wild note, took the stone in its beak, and flew. In a moment it was gone over the mountaintop.

Arin stood looking after it for a long time. But even though the quirin was gone, he still held happiness in his hand. His heart beat like angel wings with gladness that he wouldn't have to leave his family. It would be a good day for tending cows and finding some more clay, the best red clay, for his sister. He breathed deeply, loving the scent of heather in the air. The sky was as blue as his father's kind eyes, the air as soft as his mother's smile.

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.Why wasn't Arin satisfied with the life in his family?

2.What did he dream of?

3.What did he learn with the help of his stone?

4.What did he understand and what made him happy?

5.What are the family values? What makes a family a real family?

6.Say if you ever had small but meaningful things in your life that made you quite

happy - a toy, perhaps, or a token.

7.Have you wished to be bom into a different reality?

8.If you had a magic stone of some sort, what would you like to ask for?

Images O fLoss

After Jean McCord

I left the orphanage at seventeen. A married couple had asked for a girl to help out around the house. As I was the oldest girl at Good Hope, I got the chance to start a life of my own.

I don't think I was quite what the Fergusons had in mind. I was a big person with straight hair, weak eyes, and a manner that was shy, and bold at the same time.

They lived almost in the country. They had more than ten acres of land in a small town where Mr Ferguson taught high school and Mrs Ferguson worked in a hat store. I settled in a small downstairs room they gave me, and I was very happy with it. But I didn't completely unpack my suitcase for a long time because I expected to be sent back to the orphanage.

My job with the Fergusons was simple enough; I was to clean, cook, and do the dishes. The rest of the time was my own. If I wanted to do anything else around the place, that was my business, they said.

After I had been there a month, I had worked hard and well enough to surprise them completely. The orphanage had trained me well. Mr Ferguson said one evening as he sat at the table and I was gathering up the dishes, "Alice, we've decided you are well worth more than your room and board. We're going to give you five dollars a week, starting tomorrow."

I was taken by surprise and could only mumble something and turn away from him. But as I washed the dishes, I felt terrible. I wanted to throw all the dishes on the floor and run into the front room where they were sitting and shout at them, "I don't want your money. Take it back! Oh, please don't do this to me!" Were they so blind they couldn't see anything that went on inside my brain? Of course they couldn't. No one ever does; but I didn't know that then.

Ever since I could remember, I'd been told that I had no parents. So I had imagined my own parents. My father, I'd decided, was a famous lawyer. And my mother had been a wonderful movie star who had given up everything to marry my father and to have me. And my status as a lonely child living in a country orphanage? Very simple! I had been stolen by kidnapers, held for an enormous ransom, and even though my loving parents had paid millions of dollars to get me back, I had been transported across the country and abandoned. So here I was. It was a fiction that helped me to sleep happily nearly every night of my life.

In the month that I'd been living with the Fergusons, I became to realize that my dreams had changed. The movie-star mother and the famous father had gone into the back of my mind, and the Fergusons had taken their place. That was why I was so hurt when Mr Ferguson offered me money. I thought about it for some days and then decided that maybe this was a way to tell me how much they thought of me.

When guests came to the Fergusons, Mrs. Ferguson would say, "Alice is a real treas­ ure! We are very lucky to have her." I was so happy to hear it. There was only one trouble I had. It was their dog King, he didn't like me from the moment I arrived there. I had made one or two small tries at friendship giving his food from my hand. Though he accepted it, I felt that he hated and feared me. I understood the whole thing only much later. Poor King! He was worried that I could replace him in the hearts of his owners.

The Fergusons talked a lot about their future. I listened to them and felt almost a part of their conversation.

"In about two years," Mr. Ferguson would say, "we'll sell the house, take the money and old King, and go to Alaska." He looked so excited, jumping up from his chair and dancing with his wife, King barking madly and running around them. I would smile and

smile. For we were all going to Alaska. We were going to start a new life, pioneers in a new land where there was freedom and opportunity for all. Alaska itself was almost too much for my practical imagination. I could think only of Eskimos and a polar bear jumping around here and there. I could only see us as a family, living on a farm or ranch, growing cabbages as big as washtubs.

Meanwhile, I made myself work all the time for the Fergusons. I began getting up so early that I had time to make breakfast, feed the chickens and the cat. I wasn't spending any of my money. Each week I took the five-dollar bill they gave me, and put it inside my shabby suitcase. "Some day," I thought, "the suitcase will be completely filled, and I'll give it all back to them, saying 'Please, I want you to take this, for I don't really need it.' "

Sometimes I saw Mrs. Ferguson looking at me rather strangely. Once she said, "Alice, don't you want to go into town and buy yourself some nice new clothes?"

"No, Ma'am!" I almost shouted at her. I couldn't think of touching any of my hidden money. And what did new clothes mean to me, coming from an orphanage where we were given a few new things only once a year?

It was about a week later that Mrs. Ferguson knocked politely and came into my little room with a bundle of clothes. "Alice, my dear," she said, "I hope you won't take this in the wrong way. But there are some things of Mr. Ferguson's that might fit you, and they would be all right to wear in the house." There were six shirts and two pairs of pants, and of course, I was glad to have them. I was used to second-hand clothes. So I thanked her, and wore them every day from then on. I had no need for any other kind of clothes, for I never went into town. There was nobody I knew and nothing that I needed.

There was one dreadful thing that happened late in the summer, after which I wept every night for a week. It was a Sunday afternoon and the Fergusons had guests. I went into the kitchen and heard them discussing me. I knew I should leave, but I held my breath and waited for Mrs Ferguson to say some nice things, such as "Alice is a real jewel. We are so lucky to have her."

One of the guests asked, "But what about her schooling? Doesn't she want to go back and finish? Perhaps go on to college?"

Mrs. Ferguson said with an icy laugh, "I'm afraid Alice doesn't have the mental equipment for college."

I felt a terrible pain. What did she mean, "mental equipment"? I ran into my room, feeling like a thief in this house for the first time. I didn't go for my work then, but left the house quietly, and walked all the rest of the day, thinking about those overheard words. How could Mrs. Ferguson say that I didn't have the mental equipment? I had never had any trouble making good grades in school.

The next day my eyes were swollen, and I sniffed constantly. Mrs. Ferguson said, with concern, "Aren't you feeling well, Alice?"

I answered, "I think I'm catching a cold." Mr and Mrs Ferguson were always nice to me after that. Every few months she gave me some more of his shirts. Night after night I heard them discussing Alaska, while I was working in the kitchen. After all the work was done, I would go into my room, take out my suitcase, and count my money. Having been with the Fergusons for almost two years, I had already about five hundred dollars. It was for me more money than there was in the whole world.

Once, as I was working outside the house, the Fergusons called me inside.

"We'd like to talk to you, Alice," said Mr Ferguson. "Sit down. As you know, we've been talking for a long time of going to Alaska." I smiled and nodded my head. "I have a new job in Vancouver, British Columbia, and my wife and I are moving there in two weeks. In the spring, if all goes well, we'll be ready to leave for Alaska with the good weather. So the question is, what do you want to do now? You'll have to find another job, somewhere to live, as we're going to sell this house. We'll give you the best references. Maybe we'll help you to find a new place before we leave, if you want us to."

I had that terrible pain inside once more. "Alaska?" I tried to speak. "I'm not...

Alaska?" But it was clear I wasn't going and clear that they had never thought of my going there with them. Where had I got such a wild idea? It was my crazy imagination again. There was nothing I could do or say.

That night I did not count my money. I laid my old suitcase on the bed. Very slowly and carefully I began to put my things next to the money, my dresses and socks I had brought from the orphanage. I left the shirts and pants Mrs Ferguson had given me in the closet. I knew I wouldn’t need them. I was ready to leave.

Mrs Ferguson had got me her job in the hat store, so they drove me into town. We said goodbye, shook hands, and wished good luck to each other. The Fergusons went out of my life, taking King with them. I was left with only the memory of two good years and a shabby leather suitcase with my old clothes and a package of five-dollar bills.

I worked in the hat store for a year, but it was boring. The next year I went to high school. School seemed easy enough, and I graduated with honours. But it meant very little since there was no one in the auditorium to clap sincerely for me when I received my diploma. I got three postcards from the Fergusons in two years, saying they were still preparing to leave for Alaska. In return, I wrote them long letters, telling them what I was doing.

After I finished high school, I went back to the hat shop for the summer, and then I entered the state university. The memory of the words "doesn't have the mental equip­ ment" had stayed in my brain for ever. My years in college passed very quickly, and I was ready for another graduation. The words that Mrs Ferguson had said so long ago had been proved completely wrong.

Before graduation day, I carefully and correctly sent an invitation to the Fergusons. According to their last postcard, they were still living in Vancouver, waiting for the spring weather to go to Alaska.

It was graduation day when I received their answer. My heart was beating heavily when I was opening the envelope. The letter said, "Wishing you the very best of luck, The Fergusons and King." With the little note was an elegant lace handkerchief.

So why did I start crying bitterly? Why did I go through the graduation ceremony with a ton of ice in my chest? And why, when the formal procedure was over, did I walk down to the bridge across the river that led to the ocean where Alaska lay? I don't know. I don't know either why I walked to the middle of that bridge and dropped that handkerchief. It fell down and landed on the dark waters and looked like the sail of a ship. I thought of Alaska and Eskimos and King playing happily, and the Fergusons always young and beautiful, and the handkerchief that looked like a sailboat waiting to move off to Alaska, and myself, Alice, wanting to leave the orphanage but not knowing how. I thought of how the Fergusons were always polite but more friendly with King than with me.

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.Who is the narrator of the story?

2.Where was she brought up?

3.How does she describe herself?

4.When and why did she leave the orphanage?

5.What were the girl's duties about the house?

6.Did the girl know anything about her parents? What legend did she make up?

7.How and why did her dreams change?

8.Did the Fergusons understand what was happening to Alice?

9.What did Alice do after the Fergusons had left?

10.What was her progress in studies?

11.Why did she write long letters to the Fergusons?

12.Why did she throw the handkerchief sent to her by the Fergusons?

13.Would she be able to have her own family as she hadn't had the example of

family relations in her life?

DISCUSSION

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.Who has more responsibilities in the family: the father or the mother?

2.What makes a family unique?

3.Do children unite husband and wife or separate them?

4.Is it easy to be an ideal parent?

5.Is it easy to be an ideal child?