The haves and the have-nots...

After a conversation with my mother, it stimulated my mind and fingers to want to write. We spoke about how difficult it was for her to raise her three children and also do enriching things, such as dance class, a tutor for my brother who needed one and whatever else would be cultivating for a child's overall development. We spoke and spoke and she began crying. She began to discuss how she felt like we deserved so much more and how hard it was for her. I felt her pain and I told her that it is not her fault she sacrificed all she could, and we knew that. I am feeling some of what she felt, as I am a parent too. It is hard especially if you are doing it on your own. What makes being a parent even harder is the framework of our society. If you have a child it is almost impossible to pay rent, buy food, pay for childcare, pay for extracurricular activities, pay for clothes and that is just the bills surrounding the child, we won't even delve into the others. But really why is everything for our children so expensive? I think about summer camp, the really great camps are so expensive that I would have to live on the camp site if I wanted my child to go there. What about if your child needs extra help in a certain subject, if you live in an area where the schools aren't that great(this isn't hard to find as the schools in many American cities fail our children, especially in poor neighborhoods) how do you get the help your child needs. To even put your child in a course at many of these learning centers, once again you would be living at the site. I've seen some programs where they give out loans so that you can help your child do better in school. Is that not the craziest and saddest thing you've ever heard about.

In America it is realities such as poor neighborhoods + poor people + poor opportunities + poor education = poverty, that allow the gap between the haves and the have-nots to continually flourish. Why is it because you live in an area that is not well-to-do, you and your children suffer. It's not right. I think about many single parents that I know, including myself and how difficult it is to raise children who are equipped to deal with college and the work world. I am thankful that I am able to put my child in a catholic school, but if I had more than one child, forget about it... Why do I have to pay for a child's education, shouldn't it be a right for every child to have an equal education? As I see it America is not only telling the children, if you live in a certain area, you loose, but it also tells the parents of these children you have no money-you failed your child and you loose. When is this going to end?

Speak on it