What Is The American Dream

2 Pages 569 Words

What is the American Dream?


It is my opinion that the American Dream can be slightly different for each person but that there are many commonalities between people’s dreams within the American culture. I feel that though our schooling and upbringings, we are influenced as to what the ideal of life is within this culture should be. I feel that television, magazines, and the many other forms of media condition us to believe in a similar structure of how life should be lived.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that each family should live in a cookie cutter track home surrounded by neighbor’s houses that are nearly identical to their own. Ideally, there would be a white picket fence surrounding the house and a dog in the back yard. There are two to three children, at least one boy and one girl, who go to school every day and do there home work. The husband leaves for work early in the mourning and does not return until late at night because he must be the breadwinner and take care of his family. He would typically work in some kind of office and would be wearing a suit and tie. He would be the disciplinarian while the wife is the sensitive and more loving figure of the family.
The next part of the dream that I have in my head is now a little confusing. In the past, wives were supposed to stay home and cook breakfast, clean house, take care of the kids, and cook dinner. Now in days, with so many women in the job market, it is hard for me to generalize what the American dream is in regards to the responsibilities of the wife. I would still say that the ideal is still to have the stay at home mom and the breadwinning dad. My conclusion is largely based on the fact that if the man makes enough money at his job, the wife usually still stays home to fill the traditional roles of the stay home wife and mother.
Another aspect of the American Dream is that an individual family should be nuclear, that is, living sep...