TOW #10- "On Being an Only Child" by Geoff Dyer

My TOW for this week is a memoir essay by Geoff Dyer. This essay is about Dyer's life as an only child, and how it has impacted him. He discussed how as a child, he was often spoiled. He was an only child, and so he got all of his parents and relative's attention. However, his parents were obsessed with saving money, because they had grown up in the Depression, and that's what they were used to. Everything was done to save money and cut down on spending. Most possessions were hand-made, they took longer routes on trips to avoid tolls, and didn't spend much on holidays or birthdays. One example is, "I remember wishing that we could be in a hurry, just once. Being in a hurry looked like fun. It wasn’t just driving; everything we did was done slowly. I was always waiting. My parents kept telling me that patience was a virtue. I have, as a consequence, turned into a raging inferno of impatience"(Dyer para 6). Dyer was so used to a slow-paced life that he longer for something faster, believing it would make his life more interesting. He mentions how this affected him later in life, he became a person who liked a bit of a fast-paced lifestyle, he became a splurger, and lacked patience. But, it also allowed him to be more adaptable, since Dyer was often used to living off of necessity rather than want. He used a structure of cause and effect, retelling events of his childhood, and then connecting them to how he became who he is today. His purpose was to explain the effect a person's childhood can have on their life. He very successfully fulfilled this purpose by providing several examples from his own life. Dyer connected his childhood experiences to the way he lives his life now, fulfilling the purpose of emphasizing the significance a childhood has on a person later in life.