While I personal have never experienced a stressor as a
child that I can remember but being that I am the youngest out of 6 children I
have heard stories of the struggles and violence my siblings had growing up
with our parents until they obtained careers that allowed them to move from one
social class to another. My parents
married when my mother was 18 years of age and my father was 23 years of age. My father had a daughter from a previous
marriage but she left him when he went in the service and my sister with my
father’s mother, father and his siblings.
During his last tour in the service he met my mother and they married in
North Carolina, my mother’s home state, and he moved he to Maryland to
live. Every two years they had a child until I was
born with a 13 year gap. It was due to
the fact of my mother not having a fulltime job and my father fresh out of the
service seeking employment to take care of his growing family, they struggled
financially. My two older sisters became
teenage mothers, and the sister that was born before me joined a gang. My brothers were bullies and fought just like
my sister.
My oldest brother joined the Army as his way of easing his
struggles and obtained a federal job upon his discharge thus never returning
home. My two sisters that were teen
moms the oldest one had three more children but all of her children were by the
same man, my other sister had one more child and obtained a federal job like our
mother. My next to oldest brother went
to the community college receiving a engineering degree and obtained a job as a
city building inspector and drafter. The youngest brother was a security guard
until his health declined and he lost his sight and died 4 years ago from renal
kidney disease. My gang member sister
got married straight out of high school and was physically abused by her
husband that became an alcoholic. Upon
my family removing her from the situation she joined the police force.
By the time my parents had their 3th child, my father got a
job as a bus driver and my mother had a career opportunity with the federal
government. This opened the way for
financial freedom for my family. When I
was born my family moved from the area in which they lived for nearly 20 years
and move uptown to a more elite area where doctors, lawyers, school board
officials, school teachers, and politicians. This is why I have no idea on
struggles during my childhood.
I chose to look at the way children in Europe handle poverty
and violence. The United Kingdom is
considered one of the richest countries in the world. But even they have poverty issues. It is reported that 3.6 million children growing
up in severe poverty. In London out of
10 children 4 of them are living in poverty.
“England has higher child poverty rates than other developed European
countries with seven of the top 10 worst places in London, a study revealed
today (MailOnline, 2011)”. 4in10 is a
group created in an effort to look into the poverty situation on children in
London. 4in10 group spoke to children
and young people last month (October 2012) about living in overcrowded homes
and the following was reported:
“Masum aged 12, said: ‘I sleep in a
bedroom with my mum, dad and everyone. My mum and dad have a double bed where
they sleep and right next to their bed is where my little sister sleeps and
just behind her cot is my bed where I sleep and it’s not that big.’
Jordan aged 12, said: ‘I do my
homework in the living room but it is very noisy. Sometimes it gets so noisy so
sometimes I do my homework in the toilet...it’s not nice.’”
The child poverty map below from MailOnline shows a country divided between
children born into very different lives, some fortunate, some with much poorer
life chances.’
References:
4in10. (2012). No Space At Home: Overcrowding in
London. Retreived from www.4in10.org.uk
