Knowing Tara Westover

A 21st century woman is well-read, a confident human who knows her rights and the kind of life she looks forward to. To some, this comes easy as a natural result but to some, a whole story of the struggle to reach that pedestal follows.

The story of Tara Westover, the author of Educated, the famous doctor holder memoirist has a long history of staying in a world that kept her unaware of the word she now claims to be happy in.

Introduction to Tara Westover

Tara was raised in a Mormon survivalist home in rural Idaho. Her dad had very non-mainstream views about the government. He believed doomsday was coming, and that the family should interact with the health and education systems as little as possible. This led to her and her siblings being homeschooled, namesake because their fate was already defined by their gender and none of that required formal education according to their parents. If Tara was going to get an education, she would have to fight for it.

When the author of the book, Educated, Tara Westover, was seven years old, she enjoyed her life on the family farm in rural Idaho. She remembers fondly the days spent playing out in nature, with the wind blowing through her hair like a warm breath from the nearby mountains. She was a happy child, her naive mind not completely unaware of the ideologies that surrounded her, she knew her family was different.

She was really committed to her family which is visible when she decided not to leave with her grandmother uninformed to pursue school, as her family being worried scared her. Her mother impressed her with the capabilities she possessed as a midwife and healer. She was also a religious fanatic, not absolutely like her father but she had beliefs that were tough to move out of regarding modesty, behavior, restrictions.

Interests and Hobbies

Altogether she was all webbed in the closed thinking of Mormon households but still in the confusion of if this is the right way. Tara was not actually very intrigued by the books as a child when her mother left teaching them, she also just flipped pages until her brother Tyler convinced her to take a long shot and try it for once, maybe it open up your horizons and you can see beyond idaho.

Other than all these complexities Tara used to find peace in performing arts like dancing and singing. The former had to stop due to it being immodest for a girl and the latter bought the whole family a lot of fame, for some time.

Although as mentioned before Tara had her doubts about the family but she had built her own rigidity till the time she got old and built an acceptance level which will not be accepted and should not be accepted the world outside. For instance her acceptance for her brother Shawn’s violent endeavours on her and other ladies he went out with and her fear of the modern medicines even in extreme situations of pain and suffering even .

Achievements

She achieved a doctorate at 27 quick into the future. But it wasn’t easy as it can be said for any normal household. She along with her two more siblings had managed to achieved this feat after much they left behind, especially Tara, being a female. She was forever outcast from the family, deemed to be demonic and danger for the family, first because she unconventionally educated herself, second, she won’t stop complaining about the violence of her brother Shawn. She took the hard way and payed the price to attain what she has.

As she mentions in her book, Educated, she was set free by education, not only from the physical presence of her family members who pulled her in the life she left behind but also because education had rid her of all the ideologies and disturbing thoughts as well.