TOEFL® essay: Some people think family is the most important influenece

[Dancingqueen]

Some people think that family is the most important influence on young adults. Other people think that friends are the most important influence on the young adults. Which view do you agree with? Use examples to support your opinion.

We live in a society that is interdependent. We learn to experience emotions like love, care and share just by living in this society. Our family and friends indeed are the most important influence on us. They are our main support groups and sometimes act as an interventionist as well. Both family and friends are quite often responsible for our good or bad. However, family most importantly as well as rarely would think of our bad.

In my view, family comes first in terms of influences on a young adult. Our parents are our first and sometimes our best teachers. In some cases, parents could also be our best friends. Moreover, a father or a mother could be professionally a benchmark as well for a young adult. Young minds are always prone to wrong influences or negative energies. In my view, our family is the support network to which we can retort anytime or anywhere. They educate and direct us in our best interests. Furthermore, young adults are at an age where they need the right direction to channelize their energy and creative potential. A good guidance from someone who is more mature and has seen ups and downs of life is always a better mentor.

Furthermore, it is always important to have friends and sustain this friendship with people of similar likes and dislikes or interests. However, as for me, I am not so confident in relying on friends, as I would be on my family. Friends do provide an outlook and orientation that is certainly different than the family. This outlook can be with the times. There could be no generation gap involved but on certain matters of life, we need help or counseling or even coaching from the right people. These could be our parents or an older sibling who have known us since our birth. For me influence of family outweighs influence of friends in certain ways.

Additionally, sharing my own example here. My mother has always been my best friend. I have had no problems in confiding to her and getting the right answers. This friendship with my mother was developed in my teen years and since I have had no problem. We would often have arguments on issues just like friends do but at the end reach a consensus, just like friends. She even had answers to all sorts of question during my teen years. Her influence on me has been fruitful in turning me into a young, independent and self reliant person.

To conclude, families have stronger and deeper roots in a young adults' life than anything else. They have the right do's and dont's and the right yes and no's. They are indeed our true support systems and for some an inspiration to keep moving.