Quote:
Originally Posted by graciegirl
The only thing we can do...is to be a good example of who we are. We can make our background a plus or a minus, it lies with us today. It is foolish and unrealistic and unhelpful to blame our ethnicity, or race, or gender or the social status we were born into, or the amount of money our families had or did not have on whether we personally are making a success of the life we are given. There are still some roadblocks in this country , but NOTHING that hard work and sacrifice and good management of time and money can't overcome if we are given an able body and mind.
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Gracie, I agree and I don't agree at the same time. We can be good examples to our kids, grandkids and their peers, but what kind of examples do inner city kids have? The ones who are successful are either drug dealers or professional athletes. Even if they have hard-working fathers as examples (which few do), I can only imagine how hard it would be to follow those fathers' examples when the kid dealing is making thousands every week. Tis a hard culture to beat.
I'm watching my daughter turn into a wonderful young woman. For awhile, I was afraid peers and today's slacker society would win out. Too many kids today really do believe they are entitled to all the things we worked hard to get but don't seem to understand they need to work for these things. So, if a child has the examples, it has the chance to succeed and even thrive. But what do we do with child whose examples are truly nothing but an anathema to the middle-class of this country? They don't see that hard work does have rewards; they don't see that things need to be earned and not everything can be received now. Heck, some of them can't even see that the pro athlete from their hood worked from childhood to excel -- that it wasn't just something handed to them because of talent.