How Poverty Has Changed My Life

When I was growing up in a small town, poverty was everywhere. Even though my mother and father had decent jobs, other families around did not have reliable income flowing in the -household. My mother worked as a supervisor for Smithfield Packing and my father was employed with Huntington Ingalls Industries. During the school years of my childhood, I was friends with children of low-income families and some of my friend’s parents did not go to work. They have the resources that help them prosper from neediness, but instead use the income for permanent use. These assistances would include, temporary assistance for needy families (TANF), redevelopment housing (Section-8), and food assistance programs (SNAP). Most families in poverty work, but

For example, my best friend occasionally went to the boys and girl club after school. She explained to me, the staff was strict on their homework and the club also had study sessions. She also had a mentor to teach her the importance of a resume, cover letter and to become an intelligent woman. Lastly, she had a counselor from tidewater that talked with her about issues that could hold her back from succeeding. She had helped not only to keep her studies on track, but she had helped to keep emotions from affecting her life. As a middle-class child growing up with nobody to guide and inspire me it was hard to stay on track. Acting out in school was my form of asking for help but everybody looked at I came from a good home, as if I did not need

That the resources are already there, to pull from because their parents made a way for them to live decently and go to extraordinary places. Some low-income children follow their parent’s footsteps and become another statistic and the children from the better sides of the tracks may succeed better than low-income children because they have the funds set aside to do so. That it does not matter the class the child may come from they still have equal opportunity and it is the child’s decision to get the opportunity for their themselves.

Not to mention, most parents do not choose to live in poverty but have to because of their criminal background that was caused because they lived in a reckless environment. My friend’s father had a reputation with the justice system. His background affected him from not providing a stable environment for his children. It taught her that she could not afford to get in trouble in school, be on the street and get involved with troubles crowd. As a child growing up my parents never talked about the seriousness of going to jail because my parents could afford to hire a decent