Every second, five children are born into this world. These are five living, breathing children who begin to grow and mature the moment they breathe Earth's air. They begin by learning the essentials, talking, walking and sleeping, however, by the time they reach the age of five or six, these children begin to understand the world for what it truly is. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, this theme of growing up and understanding the world is present throughout the novel. The book shows that how a child grows up has a lot to do with the parental figures in life and how harsh or kind their upbringing was. Furthermore, To Kill a Mockingbird also shows that the type of society, or neighborhood one lives in, influences how children will think about others and how they behave. For example, if the characters in the novel had developed in a city instead of a country, they would have been completely changed characters by the end of the book. It's not just the type of neighborhood a child grows up in that influences how he or she will behave later in life, but it's also the major events that happen during his or her childhood. Major childhood milestones and things that directly impact a child's life also impact how a child will grow up. It's because everything and everyone around a child influences how they grow up, that parents need to be careful about how much they expose their children to the world. For starters, a child's different parental figures influence not only how a child behaves, but also how he or she dresses and thinks. This is demonstrated in the novel with the characters Atticus, Aunt Alexandra, and Calpurnia, and how each of their different parenting ways affects the children Jem and Scout... middle of paper... the world, because everything they are exposed to will play into an important role in what they will become when they grow up. First, parents or parental figures in a child's life play the most important role in influencing the behavior and actions of a growing child. Furthermore, it is also the childhood environment, in which the child grows up, and the type of neighborhood in which he wanders that influences the child. If it is a rough neighborhood and the child is exposed to more dangerous realities than in a quieter neighborhood, this affects how a child will mature. Ultimately, it is all the major events and the lessons learned from them that help a child become an adult. Therefore, growing up is a great journey that is influenced by various things and at various points in time. Works Cited Lee, Harper. To kill a thrush. New York: Grand Central, Pub. 2010. Print