As a person who grew up in a very traditional Mexican family, the values and customs instilled by my parents have shaped how I see and interact with the world. Of the many important values such as the importance of family, religion, and self-respect; the value that is at the forefront of many of my interactions is that of respect for others, especially elders. At a very young age my mother taught me a life lesson about respecting others. The situation that brought about such a lesson was one with my grandmother, who was living with us at the time, who had told me to clean my room, I quickly responded that “I don't want to and you can't make me because you're not my mom”. When my mom returned home for the day, I not only got my TV privileges revoked, but I also had to apologize to my grandmother. At the time, I didn't understand why, but my mother made it a point that I understand the importance and reason for apologizing to my grandmother. She told me that I had to respect others, especially my elders because they were wiser than me and had an …show more content…
Also, being a young social worker in the field in which my peers and clients will most likely be older than me, it will be a value that I personally might have to push the limits on since within this idea of respecting elders is embedded the idea that they are wiser. I can see myself having an internal struggle of trying to keep this idea of respect while trying to debunk this idea that because people are older they are wiser and know more than me. This value is a dual edge sword that helps me to better work with others, but can also limit the quality of my interactions because of this preconceived notion that because they are older they are