ARGUMENTATION/PERSUASION - Essay Example

Dear Mom, I got back to the well before dinner last evening and had ample time to settle down. Mom, I am so sorry that my weekend at home was a catastrophe. There was heartache all around and nothing has been settled. On second thought, perhaps I made a mistake in trying to explain my point of view in person: many words were said on both sides which may better have been left unsaid. This is such an emotionally loaded issue, that time and distance may make it easier for us to discuss matters with our minds and not just our hearts.

That is why I am writing this letter. I hope I will be better able to express my stand, without exploding into an emotional outburst, as I did on Saturday. I am aware that you and Dad have been very ambivalent in your attitude towards Suman/Sumathi from the start. I see that you, in particular, find it difficult to accept an Indian as my husband/wife, and as your son/daughter-in-law. But do remember that the ethnic profile of my class at High School, and even more in College, has been anything but limited to WASPs!

I am totally comfortable with Suman’s/Sumathi’s Indianness: particularly as he/she is a third generation Indian American, whose favorite dinner is sirloin steak (you know mine is Chinese take-away!). He/she has made maybe a dozen trips to India and I think I am more familiar with Indian culture (thanks to my course in South Asian studies) than he/she is. Believe me, Mom, Suman/Sumathi is as American as you or Dad. Tell Dad that I have always been particularly impressed by his refusal to submit to jingoism at any level: even in the wake of 9/11.

Mom, as far as financial security goes, you know that, as an IT post-graduate, with a placement offer from Cisco in my pocket, I don’t have to worry about getting married immediately after my graduation. You are aware that Suman/Sumathi is a consultant at Goldman Sachs, and takes pride in being financially independent. Anyway, financial security is not at the top of my priority list: after all, I am your son/daughter! Mom, do you remember how you would regale Jeff and me with tales of those early years of marriage, and how you set up a household on Dad’s shoestring budget?

You said love made it an adventure! Which brings me to the core of the issue: Mom, I am deeply in love with Suman/Sumathi. There is nobody else I want to spend every day of the rest of my life with. I want to love and cherish him/her; I want to have children with him/her; I want to grow old with him/her. What more can I say to convince you that getting married is the right thing for me? Mom, I have thanked my lucky stars a million times for the fortune of belonging to a close-knit family, where love and unconditional acceptance were a part of the very air we breathed: especially when I see the broken homes of a sizable majority of my friends.

My idea of love and family has been inculcated in me by you and Dad. In this scenario, can I go wrong in my instincts when I choose my partner? Mom, I am sorry if I have caused you heartache. Believe me, I know that you and Dad are hesitating to accept Suman/Sumathi only because you love me so much that you don’t want me to get hurt. I love you for your concern, and know that we will always be there for each other. But I am equally confident in my love for Suman/Sumathi. You and Dad are the ones who taught me to respect every individual, regardless of ethnicity, religion or class; you gave me the gift of independence; you taught me the meaning of love.

Mom, now I ask you to trust me to test my wings and learn to fly on my own. And please, could you not learn to love Suman/Sumathi for my sake? Do write at the earliest. I love you and Dad and Jeff very, very much. With much love,