A young girl lost.

She sits on the worn picnic table under the old oak tree at night and stares at the family home, she wonders when it all went wrong. Something she did a lot, to think and decompress from her day. It was getting chilly outside the cool night air was blowing on her skin. This home, looked like any other home. A little older, white aluminum siding on the bottom, brown wood siding on the top, like a big square Oreo missing it's bottom. It was home, but not for long. It held so much sadness. In her sixteen years of life she had already seen too much, known too much, and was afraid of what the future would hold. A future for most sixteen year old's that was to hold wonder, the wonder of what they would be, she already knew what she would be, nothing. Now she sits, smoking her cigarette, and wonders what will happen next. Where will her sisters go, will it ever be the same.

The now thirty-four year old women looks back on that sullen sixteen year old girl and says no, nothing will ever be the same, but you live, and you hold on, and you love, and you keep going. The hardest part is over, the pain, the fear, the uncertainty, it goes away, and new doors open, new experiences, and new struggles, but you get through them all, and you keep going. Your sisters have their struggles but they are OK, you wish you could be closer to them, but your life took a different path. A path full of regrets, of things you wish you could go back and change and undo, but you wouldn't be you without them.

I wish I could go back in time, hug that lost sixteen year old girl and tell her everything is going to be OK. I wish I could show her the life she has now, that house, the nightmares, they all go away. I wish I could guide her on her path, help her make decisions that would forever change her future. Remind her how special she is, and how God's plan for her is not yet complete. Life is massive when you are sixteen. Life is short when you are thirty-four. It moves faster, it seems murky, and it is influenced by much more. At sixteen life should be fun and amazing and full of hope, not fear.

So to my sisters I say I'm sorry, for not better guiding you through your paths, for not escaping with you as I dreamed so many nights that I would. To my sixteen year old self, we may not have done the things we thought we might have, but we have done all the things we never dreamed we would have and that past though still haunts us from time to time, it can never hurt us, or change us, or break us. We are strong, we are wise, and we will not be taken down. We ran away in the night, suitcase in hand, we started a new life, and we forgave as the Lord asked us to, just like we used to dream.

Responsibility

Whose responsibility is it?

Recently my daughters cell phone was stolen out of her locker. Now, it was my daughters fault because she didn't latch her locker fully and so it was easily opened and the phone taken, however; the schools first response was, "It's not our responsibility." So it got me thinking to all the times I have heard that phrase. Last year, the kids and I flew home for a vacation, my daughters suite case was damaged, as soon as I said it's broken the first words out of the airline employees mouth was "It's not our responsibility." At the car wash, you know the automatic one on a track that you ride through, the brushes scratched up the side of my car, the first words out of the attendants mouth were "It's not our responsibility." No matter where you go, no matter what you do, there are signs, disclaimers, waivers, that state "It's not our responsibility." Now I know most often it is to stop a potential lawsuit because of someones reckless behavior, however; when is it actually someones responsibility?

As a criminal justice major I have done paper after paper on laws and cases trying to find just exactly whose responsibility is it. We have become a society of it's not my fault. Your child sets fire to the neighbors shed, it's not the child's fault, it's the neighbors for not having his gas locked up. A man abuses his wife, it's not his fault, it's his fathers fault for abusing him as a child. A soldier here in town was shot to death in the street trying to stop a man from wielding a gun in public, it was the gunmans fault for shooting the soilder, however the community blammed the soldier for getting involved. When do we start taking responsibility for our own actions? When do we stand up and say "Oops, my bad, I made a mistake, it was my fault." No matter what your past or present situation, your choices and your actions are your own no matter what your influences.

I have been trying to teach my children responsibility and to be responsible for their actions, however; all they see day in and day out is a world begging the government to bail them out for mistakes they have made. The schools telling them no matter what happens to them on their grounds, they will not protect nor help them, other parents do not control nor discipline their children for their actions no matter how grave those actions are. When are we going to stop this insanity and start taking responsibility for the situations we put ourselves into? When is it going to be someones responsibility?

Stereotypes

Last week while standing in the coffee shop waiting for my two pounds of coffee to be ground for the office, there were two gentlemen waiting in line having a conversation. One gentleman a younger guy, balding what used to be black hair, some glasses, wearing a faded pinkish color button down shirt and jeans sporting a messenger bag, as a matter of fact, we will call him, Mess. The other gentleman an much older man, gray balding, in a tweed gray suit, a little pudgy around the mid-drift area, we'll call him Pappy. So Mess was explaining to Pappy that he had read a study done by some institute overseas about education in America and how this study showed that 90% of students who come from lower class homes didn't fare as well as their middle to upper class counterparts. That families who had more money, had smarter students than those of lower income families based on the amount of words heard in the home. That a home with a higher income level used more vocabulary words and the child heard more of a variety of words than a lower income home. So a child from a higher income family was at an advantage for reading, spelling, and writing, because of this higher vocabulary home environment than a lower income child.
That actually really floored me. As a lower income family, I wasn't able to be a stay at home mom, which is one of the other things suggested by this man, however the "vocabulary" in my home isn't much different from the vocabulary of a higher income family. Also, as a savvy mom, I read all the books that said to read to your babies while in the womb, especially poetry, because the repeat words and structure of poetry will help them when they get older. I played classical music while they slept, because Mozart makes babies smarter. I read while they were in the womb, while they were infants and well into the toddler years. While holding my daughter and feeding her a bottle, or while nursing my son, I pulled out a book and read it to them, in the hopes that language would be no problem for either one of them.
Now, how many people actually do that regardless of income?
So, with that being said, both of my children have needed help in the reading & spelling department. My 14 year old daughter can't spell to save her life and struggled with reading, my 6 yr old son, didn't speak for the first two years of his life and had to go into speech therapy to get him to talk. He also struggles with reading though he is doing better than my daughter did.

My point in all this? I think that the stereotype of a lower income family being unable to do for their children as well as a higher income family can is ludicrous, and that children develop differently no matter how they are raised. No matter what you do! How many successful children have we seen come out of poverty? How many who didn't have the love of either parent or support grow up to be successful, smart, prosperous adults? And how many higher income children have we seen grow up to be delinquents? I think these studies need to stop, and that schools shouldn't base their teachings upon them. They should not be taken into consideration when it comes to funding or lesson plans. Children will learn as they want, as their hearts and desires will take them, no matter what the parents will is.

I have tried to force my children into being something they were not. Now, we are taking a step back and allowing them to learn it the best way they can. No child is cookie cutter, no study is ever going to determine or be able to group them into a class when it comes to education. We just need to love and support our children the best way we know how. :)