-
The American Dream for
- Apr 7, 2009 at 1:08 PM
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- Comments (1) Total Views (182) Everyone can see this journal post.
those born into Poverty....
I have been learning a lot lately about politics and life in other countries, I use to wonder why other countries hated Americans but I don't any more cause I have come to realize that they think that we are all about money and power and you know why that is....because in this country if you have money you can practically buy whatever you want, even the government officials!
I have also come to see that if you are foreign in this country that the government offers you more than if you were born here. If you don't believe me then go to your neighborhood gas station or corner mart, who owns it? Go to the office that you apply for Government benefits and your see.
I have also come to the realization that the American Dream is really all about CREDIT! Being in debt! Because if you want anything in this life you have to have credit to get it. And if your poor, well too bad You can't have anything! No car on credit, no new or used house on credit and even if you get a house through that program that builds homes for the poor, welll you have to follow their rules and restrictions and make house payments and if you get behind....well no more house for you!
A lot of you probably dont know but I grew up poor in America, Yes I did. I lived in government housing projects. My mother worked for a so called great organization...The Salvation Army ( boy could I tell you stories about that place), where they paid her $3.35 or less per hour. My father, well I never knew him, He was one of those men that tried to get the American Dream but never could, so he decided to help himself to it, by taking it and running from the cops he jumped off a bridge and hit his head on the rocks and was a vegetable for years, my mom signed him over to my Grandmother (his mom) because she had 4 little ones to take care of and could not give him the care he needed, they never divorced, so I never had to deal with that. My mom did see my dad once when I was 3 and she was afraid, I'm not really sure why, but I was only 8 months when he got injured.
My life was not easy at all, I was shy and clingy. I was awkward so I didn't have too many friends as a child. I remember being in elementary school and not having any friends, I would sit alone on the playground and no one wanted me on their team in gym, it was a sad horrible feeling for me. Even the friends that I had known in my neighborhood wouldn't really have anything to do with me at school, so most of my friends I had were younger than me.
I don't remember getting any new clothes, maybe a few times, but most the time I wore hand me downs from my sisters or my cousins.I remember fighting with my brother and sisters over food! I remember our house getting messy. I remember kids always running in and out of our house, I remember us making our own haunted house's, that was fun and I think they were as good if not better than the ones we have to pay to go see. I remember my mom and our neighbor sitting on the porch while all us kids would play games and run and laugh and just have a good time. I remember us washing our hair in the rain.
MY mom never drove much less owned a car. We never bought new furniture, people gave it to us, we never had to buy appliances like a refridgerator or stove til we left the gov. housing, we did have to buy a washer and dryer though, rent-to-own which cost my mom way more than it was worth and by the time she got it paid off it would break down. I remember going to the grocery store with $20.00 and bringing home 4 bags of groceries that barely lasted the week but you take $20.00 to the store these days and your only have one bag (3 items) now.
I remember receiving a letter from Social Security that we were getting a raise in our benefits because the beneficiary (my father) was deceast. I always wondered...Is that the normal way to notify a wife with children that her husband and father of her children died? Well I was the only one that cried. The letter came with a check so we went to McDonalds, which was a big deal for us to go to and then we went to the dairy crest and was allowed any ice cream we wanted. I still greive for my father, not knowing him or never meeting him or his family members has left me with an emptiness inside. I have tried searching for him but have had no luck but I hope one day to meet someone from his side of the family maybe then I'll know why I have aneurysm's.
Well I dropped out of school and became a statistic, teenage pregnancy but I quit because I was into my second pregnancy and on bed rest because of bleeding, someone was suppose to come to my house and tutor me through the 11th grade but they were going to the wrong house and when I finally got a hold of someone they said they didn't have time for me, so I just quit and got my GED, thats how you get treated in America!
I went to college, community college, but only for 8 months because my teenage marriage was falling apart and I had 3 children to care for, which I ended up not doing such a good job of. Honestly I wonder why I had so many children, what was wrong with me? Well the answer I have figured out after all these painful years is....I was lonely....I always felt lonely and was very depressed and had no self worth.
Then I finally got my head together and got a job that was ok pay but it was a job. I swore I was not going to struggle like my mom and that the 2 kids I had would not grow up like me and that I wouldm't screw up their life the way I did my oldest 4. I got my drivers license at 24 and bought my first car (used) then paid it off in 2 or 3 years and had built up my credit (The American Dream) enough to buy a brand new car, which I ended up totalling! I had to file bankruptcy because I had got so much credit that I couldn't keep up with it all and paying for a car that I didn't have cause the insurance payment hadn't arrived on time...Please.
Well by then my health was going down hill too and I met a guy that I really had no intentions of getting emotionally involved with because I was all about my 2 children, my mom and my oldest 4 trying to get us all back together and living the American Dream! But He wouldn't give up on his pursuit and I fell for him, he had an energy about him that brought me alive. He made me feel whole, like whatever I had felt like I was missing in my life didn't matter after I met him. He didn't have much to offer (as in the American Dream) physically but he gave me love, love that I had never known could exist from someone that was a stranger, I always thought that kind of love only came from a mother to her child, but NO he was giving me his soul and I gave into him and we had a baby, not entending to and not to fill a lost, she was made through a connection, one shared between him and I that really I cannot find the words to describe.
Becoming pregnant was not a good thing for me though. I was already in bad health, which wasn't surprising, cause like my mother that never went to the Dr. and if she did she had to be really sick, I was the same way, I always put my kids first and me last, I would go without food so they could eat and I would do my best not to let them know that we didn't have enough, even though now I don't do that anymore. I'm not going to give my children false expectations that she will have this and that when she grows up, that she can get credit and have the American Dream! She will know that whatever she has in her life now someone worked hard to get it and that that's the only way she will get any where in this country is by struggling and fighting for it all her life. In this country people nor family are not important....Money is! So if you want anything you have to get the money and then your be somebody, but don't have no children cause in this country unless you have the money your children don't really matter.
If and when I leave this earth My children should know that there is NO American Dream! There is only their dream and if they want that dream they are going to have to fight for it because they were born in a country that claims it is a free country but that is not true, if you are on any government help like we are now cause of my illness, you will live in poverty, the United States Of America believes you should live like that. And if you are fortunate to be poorer than that and receive food stamps well you better not let anyone know that you are cause you will be put down for that too, in the grocery line people will judge you for what you buy because their taxes are paying for that food, Well wake up!!! Your taxes should pay for that food, we're talking about children, children that need to eat...OMG! get over yourself, I wish I had foodstamps to feed my children, we struggle every week to keep food in the fridge and the pantry, and the government says that I making $2440.00 a month is enough to roof, feed and provide for me and my 3 children so I am DENIED those foodstamps and my kids are the ones that suffer because why!? because in this country if you have a severe illness and become disabled and cant work any more and have to depend on disability check to live on well you better be prepared to struggle, Because to me that is AMERICA.....struggling all your life til one day you finally die, oh make sure you have burial arrangements too cause your just put your family in more debt if you don't.
I would love to see all the Congressmen, Senators and The President of the US live on $2440.00 a MONTH and see what they think, How well will they do?
Let them have to rely on medicare and medicaid for their health insurance and then maybe their see that it's not fair and no way to have to live in
AMERICA the land of the FREE!
Please feel free to comment, I'm not afraid anymore!
THE AMERICAN DREAM!!!
I have also come to see that if you are foreign in this country that the government offers you more than if you were born here. If you don't believe me then go to your neighborhood gas station or corner mart, who owns it? Go to the office that you apply for Government benefits and your see.
I have also come to the realization that the American Dream is really all about CREDIT! Being in debt! Because if you want anything in this life you have to have credit to get it. And if your poor, well too bad You can't have anything! No car on credit, no new or used house on credit and even if you get a house through that program that builds homes for the poor, welll you have to follow their rules and restrictions and make house payments and if you get behind....well no more house for you!
A lot of you probably dont know but I grew up poor in America, Yes I did. I lived in government housing projects. My mother worked for a so called great organization...The Salvation Army ( boy could I tell you stories about that place), where they paid her $3.35 or less per hour. My father, well I never knew him, He was one of those men that tried to get the American Dream but never could, so he decided to help himself to it, by taking it and running from the cops he jumped off a bridge and hit his head on the rocks and was a vegetable for years, my mom signed him over to my Grandmother (his mom) because she had 4 little ones to take care of and could not give him the care he needed, they never divorced, so I never had to deal with that. My mom did see my dad once when I was 3 and she was afraid, I'm not really sure why, but I was only 8 months when he got injured.
My life was not easy at all, I was shy and clingy. I was awkward so I didn't have too many friends as a child. I remember being in elementary school and not having any friends, I would sit alone on the playground and no one wanted me on their team in gym, it was a sad horrible feeling for me. Even the friends that I had known in my neighborhood wouldn't really have anything to do with me at school, so most of my friends I had were younger than me.
I don't remember getting any new clothes, maybe a few times, but most the time I wore hand me downs from my sisters or my cousins.I remember fighting with my brother and sisters over food! I remember our house getting messy. I remember kids always running in and out of our house, I remember us making our own haunted house's, that was fun and I think they were as good if not better than the ones we have to pay to go see. I remember my mom and our neighbor sitting on the porch while all us kids would play games and run and laugh and just have a good time. I remember us washing our hair in the rain.
MY mom never drove much less owned a car. We never bought new furniture, people gave it to us, we never had to buy appliances like a refridgerator or stove til we left the gov. housing, we did have to buy a washer and dryer though, rent-to-own which cost my mom way more than it was worth and by the time she got it paid off it would break down. I remember going to the grocery store with $20.00 and bringing home 4 bags of groceries that barely lasted the week but you take $20.00 to the store these days and your only have one bag (3 items) now.
I remember receiving a letter from Social Security that we were getting a raise in our benefits because the beneficiary (my father) was deceast. I always wondered...Is that the normal way to notify a wife with children that her husband and father of her children died? Well I was the only one that cried. The letter came with a check so we went to McDonalds, which was a big deal for us to go to and then we went to the dairy crest and was allowed any ice cream we wanted. I still greive for my father, not knowing him or never meeting him or his family members has left me with an emptiness inside. I have tried searching for him but have had no luck but I hope one day to meet someone from his side of the family maybe then I'll know why I have aneurysm's.
Well I dropped out of school and became a statistic, teenage pregnancy but I quit because I was into my second pregnancy and on bed rest because of bleeding, someone was suppose to come to my house and tutor me through the 11th grade but they were going to the wrong house and when I finally got a hold of someone they said they didn't have time for me, so I just quit and got my GED, thats how you get treated in America!
I went to college, community college, but only for 8 months because my teenage marriage was falling apart and I had 3 children to care for, which I ended up not doing such a good job of. Honestly I wonder why I had so many children, what was wrong with me? Well the answer I have figured out after all these painful years is....I was lonely....I always felt lonely and was very depressed and had no self worth.
Then I finally got my head together and got a job that was ok pay but it was a job. I swore I was not going to struggle like my mom and that the 2 kids I had would not grow up like me and that I wouldm't screw up their life the way I did my oldest 4. I got my drivers license at 24 and bought my first car (used) then paid it off in 2 or 3 years and had built up my credit (The American Dream) enough to buy a brand new car, which I ended up totalling! I had to file bankruptcy because I had got so much credit that I couldn't keep up with it all and paying for a car that I didn't have cause the insurance payment hadn't arrived on time...Please.
Well by then my health was going down hill too and I met a guy that I really had no intentions of getting emotionally involved with because I was all about my 2 children, my mom and my oldest 4 trying to get us all back together and living the American Dream! But He wouldn't give up on his pursuit and I fell for him, he had an energy about him that brought me alive. He made me feel whole, like whatever I had felt like I was missing in my life didn't matter after I met him. He didn't have much to offer (as in the American Dream) physically but he gave me love, love that I had never known could exist from someone that was a stranger, I always thought that kind of love only came from a mother to her child, but NO he was giving me his soul and I gave into him and we had a baby, not entending to and not to fill a lost, she was made through a connection, one shared between him and I that really I cannot find the words to describe.
Becoming pregnant was not a good thing for me though. I was already in bad health, which wasn't surprising, cause like my mother that never went to the Dr. and if she did she had to be really sick, I was the same way, I always put my kids first and me last, I would go without food so they could eat and I would do my best not to let them know that we didn't have enough, even though now I don't do that anymore. I'm not going to give my children false expectations that she will have this and that when she grows up, that she can get credit and have the American Dream! She will know that whatever she has in her life now someone worked hard to get it and that that's the only way she will get any where in this country is by struggling and fighting for it all her life. In this country people nor family are not important....Money is! So if you want anything you have to get the money and then your be somebody, but don't have no children cause in this country unless you have the money your children don't really matter.
If and when I leave this earth My children should know that there is NO American Dream! There is only their dream and if they want that dream they are going to have to fight for it because they were born in a country that claims it is a free country but that is not true, if you are on any government help like we are now cause of my illness, you will live in poverty, the United States Of America believes you should live like that. And if you are fortunate to be poorer than that and receive food stamps well you better not let anyone know that you are cause you will be put down for that too, in the grocery line people will judge you for what you buy because their taxes are paying for that food, Well wake up!!! Your taxes should pay for that food, we're talking about children, children that need to eat...OMG! get over yourself, I wish I had foodstamps to feed my children, we struggle every week to keep food in the fridge and the pantry, and the government says that I making $2440.00 a month is enough to roof, feed and provide for me and my 3 children so I am DENIED those foodstamps and my kids are the ones that suffer because why!? because in this country if you have a severe illness and become disabled and cant work any more and have to depend on disability check to live on well you better be prepared to struggle, Because to me that is AMERICA.....struggling all your life til one day you finally die, oh make sure you have burial arrangements too cause your just put your family in more debt if you don't.
I would love to see all the Congressmen, Senators and The President of the US live on $2440.00 a MONTH and see what they think, How well will they do?
Let them have to rely on medicare and medicaid for their health insurance and then maybe their see that it's not fair and no way to have to live in
AMERICA the land of the FREE!
Please feel free to comment, I'm not afraid anymore!
THE AMERICAN DREAM!!!
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