Growing Up In The Wild Wes Moore Summary

Where the environment the child is being raised does affect them. Children can be influenced by other things like their surroundings and take in what is their and will try to duplicate it and assimilate to fit in. Moore makes the case that, “Three fights and four innings later, I conceded that the experiment wasn’t working out. The game was called. Everyone retreated to their separate corners, to their separate worlds. Everyone except me, still caught in the middle. I was becoming too “rich” for the kids from the neighborhood and too “poor” for the kids in school. I had forgotten how to act naturally, thinking way too much in each situation and getting tangled in the contradictions between my two worlds. My confidence took a hit” (Moore 53-54).

This help us discern how author Wes was impacted since he just wanted to fit in but struggles with two conflicting environments. Eventually, leading him to choose one which ended him neglecting school for the streets with his friends. So it all accumulated in forcing his mom make the decision to send him to military school. Moore plainly asserts, “Baltimore City had a 70 percent dropout rate at the time. Tony had already joined that statistic; Mary wanted to keep Wes away from the same fate. And now here Wes was, walking around Dundee Village, hoping these bucolically named “avenues” and “circles” would lead him to a better place than the city streets had” (Moore 57). Here, Moore reveals the way that the other Wes felt moving from a place to place for the fourth time; lost and hoping for a better life. This is significant of the way that his mother, Mary, chose this area for its “spacious neighborhoods, quality schools, and higher per capita income” (Moore 55). She wanted a place to raise her son away from the violence and crime that was plaguing in their old