Summary Of The Color Or Water By James Mcbride

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The Color or Water is a memoir about a multicultural family. This book is a memoir about James McBride’s life having a white mother. Looking at the family so far with the family life cycle, the family is in the preschool age (Allen & Henderson, 2016). The mother, Ruth is on her second marriage due to her first husband’s death. The family consist of 12 children, 7 where from the first marriage and 4 from the current marriage. This is a stage I believe the family is struggling with. Ruth is raising 12 children and works very hard. During this stage, many of the children are in school and James starts going to school as well. Ruth pushes the children to do good in school and that schooling is of ultimate importance. As James starts school the other children and Ruth have recognized his need of getting to the school bus stop. The older kids try to scare him and Ruth encourages him. …show more content…

James individual development stage at this point is learning self-concept. James begins questioning why his mother does not look like the other mothers. He is learning about himself as well. In the self-concept stage, is when we start to gain a sense of who we are (OER/Lumin). James is also in Erikson’s stage of Initiative vs. Guilt and Industry vs. Inferiority. James is learning from his mother and other siblings and he is also starting school. He starts to develop more skills and knowledge.
Normal developmental tasks for this family is working to ensure everyone’s needs are met. This meaning that the children are in school and that James is getting to school the way that he should. Ruth pushes her children to do well in school and wants them to meet good expectations. James’s norm development would be getting to school and learning about himself. According to Erikson’s stage he should be striving to get to and from school on his own and learning more in