At the Crossroads of Tradition and Self

On that sun-drenched afternoon, the Victorian mantra that children and animals should be seen and not heard echoed through my thoughts as I pondered the traditions that ruled the roost. It was a structure born from a Sicilian heritage, where the family was paramount, self-reliance a virtue, and the government a distant afterthought — an ethos romanticized by scenes straight out of ‘The Godfather.’ He was the quintessential alpha, molded by values that saw women as homemakers and men as the unquestioned heads of the household. This was his world, where reliance on self sometimes blurred into the shadows of the mafia’s legacy. These were the ideals he held dear; they shaped his worldview, his expectations. <a href="https://medium.com/@theresilientwriter/at-the-crossroads-of-tradition-and-self-a4ddad8f55e8">Read More</a>