I am not here to argue about gay marriage or straight marriage or anything like that. My agenda in writing this blog is to do one thing and one thing only: I want to rescue family in order to improve lives and society overall. I aim to do so by collecting the experiences of myself and others, along with researching and reporting on numerous sources, to show that families who have time to spend with each other are stronger and more resilient and that our current society does everything it can to prevent this strength and resiliency. My hope is that the information generated in this blog will be used to establish better policies on work, family and education in order to bring the family unit back together.
Families in the United States are overburdened and strained due to policies and practices in our country that put industry before people, leading to poor interfamilial relationships, child and teen behavior and social mores. Let me begin by telling my story.
I grew up in a family with poor economic means. With a high school diploma and a GED respectively, my mother earned minimum wage and my father relied on social security due to an injury that left him paralyzed at the age of 23. Before that, he worked as an assistant manager at a grocery store. My mother and father had three children, all of us born before my father's accident.
As my siblings and I were growing up, we had a tough time. Making ends meet was difficult, and being in a family with limited income is very awkward for children and teens who live in an extremely materialistic society. We grew up in lower income neighborhoods where many of our former neighbors went on to engage in numerous criminal activities, drop out of high school, and/or otherwise fall into a perpetuating cycle of generational poverty.
My brother, sister, and I have proven to be exceptions to the rule. I have a PhD. My brother has a master's degree. My sister has a bachelor's degree. My brother and I are solidly middle class, and my sister would be if she were not a single mother to two small children. We succeeded. Some may say it is because we tried harder or that my parents believed in education. The latter is true, and the former is probably partially true. But I'm not sure how much of a role these played alone. I think the root of this situation is that my siblings and I always had a parent or close family member present when we were growing up--especially during the summer breaks.
My father could not find employment due to his disability. Because my sister was still an infant when my father had his accident, my parents decided that he would stay home with my sister, brother, and I after my father recovered because my parents could not afford child care. Therefore, we always had a parent present to check our homework, to cook us lunch, to read us stories, and to otherwise spend time with us. When one of our parents were distracted by one thing, the other parent was always there to care for us, so their lessons to us always took. Friends, television, and other outside distractions were not our closest companions. Our parents were. And I believe this made all the difference.
NOW YOU SHARE? DO YOU HAVE A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE OR UPBRINGING? Post a comment and tell your story.
