When I think of the American Dream, my mind immediately goes back to my senior year in high school, sitting in my literature class reading Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The idea of the American Dream in the play is economic success. Willy Loman, the main character, lived with his wife in a seemingly perfect home in the suburbs. He strove for success in his job, but also for the success of his two sons. His American Dream was a traditional one: buy a comfortable home, achieve success in the workplace, and raise children who would follow his path. The ending to the play speaks to just how fragile this dream is. Loman’s sons have no direction and fail in finding success, while he himself loses everything and dies in a tragic, possibly suicidal, accident.

The American Dream enticed immigrants to come to America, find a steady job, purchase a home, and live a comfortable life with their families. They would achieve success that they could never have in their home countries.

Today it is very different. Many young people today share Miller’s pessimistic outlook on the American Dream. They choose to establish a career long before they decide to settle down. When interviewed by U.S. News and World Report for its October 2016 issue, millennials said that while they don’t think often about the American Dream, they locate their own idea of success in achieving “a satisfying career.”

I grew up in a large Catholic family, complete with 20 aunts and uncles and more than 50 cousins. Family has always been a large part of my life. My siblings and I have always gotten along perfectly, a few fights and teasing now and then — who doesn’t! — but all things considered, it feels as if we were friends even before we were siblings.

My parents were a somewhat different story. While I loved both of them more than anything, I was always closer with my mom. When my parents began having children, my mom quit her job in order to take care of us. We all spent quality time with her throughout our childhood, but since I was the youngest, it eventually became just her and me. After years of spending every day with her, my mom and I became best friends … in a way. You could always find us together. From going to the grocery story, to sitting in bed late at night watching Real Housewives and laughing hysterically together. This relationship with my mom and the rest of my family was the beginning of what I now consider my American Dream. When I look at the closeness I have with my family and compare it to others who are nowhere near it, I realize just how important it is to me to maintain that relationship.

“This relationship with my mom and the rest of my family was the beginning of what I now consider my American Dream.”
– Samantha Barnes (BA,’20)

The event that solidified my American Dream, my life with my family, was my mom’s diagnosis. When I was in the seventh grade, we learned that she had frontotemporal dementia. I can still remember so clearly the day my parents first told us. We were sitting in the car in a store parking lot full of snow, and I was crying at my dad’s words: “She eventually won’t be able to speak.” I didn’t truly understand the gravity of this until much later.

A few years down the road, when I was the only child left in the house, my dad and I were the only people really to understand the transformation she was in the process of undergoing. Even a year after her diagnosis, she was still as quick-witted as ever and lived life as normally as she could with her future looming over her head. By my junior year, we needed someone outside of the family to help when my dad and I weren’t there. You could see the dementia overtaking her. She would become agitated, unable to finish sentences, and couldn’t use utensils to eat. I spent much of my time outside of school with her, helping to calm her down and take a nap if she was feeling especially irritated that day or helping to feed her and give her medicine. Those days truly showed me how much I value my family.

In just a couple of years, my mom had turned into a new person. I had to take care of her in ways that, as her daughter, I would never have imagined. I had an entirely new appreciation for the family I loved. I bonded more with my dad, who understood exactly what I was going through, and we became each other’s confidants. I felt as if I was repaying my mother for all of her love and the work she put into raising us. I enjoyed my childhood so much because of her and gained a new appreciation for all she did for us.

It was at this exact point that my American Dream crystallized. With my mom’s diagnosis, and the subsequent events, I understood the importance of my family and saw how, even through the most difficult times, we were able to stay together and remain strong.

The original American Dream, as Miller indicated, was to come to America, land a well-paying job, buy a house, and have one’s children partake in one’s success. More recently, young people have fastened this Dream almost exclusively to the idea of a career. At this point in my life, my version of the Dream differs. For me, it is staying close with my family. Success is to maintain the closeness we share and continue to stay strong together.

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Samantha “Sammi” Barnes is a first-year psychology major in the Honors Program from Hinckley, Illinois. Her essay won first place in the American Dream Reconsidered Essay Competition, sponsored by the Montesquieu Forum.