When reading a short story, poem, or even novel the author often attempts to provide the audience with some type of personal connection to a variety of components to the reading. An author may select very personable, hardworking, and unselfish characters to allow the audience to connect in some way with the main or subordinate characters; or the author may elect to provide a common type of setting to provide the readers an additional way to connect to the literature. Mona Simpson’s short story entitled “Coins” (Scheckner & Boyes 2008) is a story which provides many opportunities for the reader to make some type of personal connection by providing a story of an untraditional family setting. Simpson’s story provided a few important lessons that people need to keep in mind as they go about their daily lives. The short story sheds light to what should be important in a person’s life; what should be a priority, the lessons taught to children through hard work and love. After reading Simpson’s “Coins” I was face to face with the lessons that the story presented, forcing me to take a look at my priorities and family, thus allowing me a moment to reflect on what I truly cherish in my life, which is the love for my family and the importance of teaching my children the qualities of hard work in order to appreciate all that we have. The story of Lola, the housekeeper/nanny, was one that I was easy to make personal connections to and provided me with an analysis of how easy it is truly is to lose sight on the priorities in my life. Much like the parents in the story, I have, at times, allowed the outside world negatively impact my place in my child’s life. I have too often placed work as a priority over my family, keeping long and unusual hours, and depending on others to pick up my slack and duties with my child. My particular situation is not one that a nanny is taking on this role; rather my wife has stepped up and has
References: Scheckner, P., & Boyes, M. C. (Eds.). (2008) The way we work. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.