"As is often the case all across the United States, I was born into a family that had no money, stability, or long term aspiration."

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Beginnings In Adversity

Since before I can remember, we moved from place to place, often several times a year, in an attempt to find greener grass on some other side. Both my parents were raised in poverty, and had never established the tools or aptitude to create a secure and healthy environment for themselves, much less a child who depended on them. Before I was even in preschool our family had split apart, and I ended up spending the rest of my childhood being raised by a single parent. We ended up in neighborhoods where drug abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness pervaded throughout. Nearly all of the people we knew had become dependent on government assistance. Career trajectories were not only absent, but we didn’t even know that it was an aspect of life that existed for people like us.

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Accepting the Status Quo

By the age of 13, I had simply accepted that this was life as it had to be, that having a roof over our head and enough food for the week was the best-case-scenario, and that there was no practical way out. We were who we were, and that was that. We frequently stayed in shelters if it was too cold or wet, and would sleep in tents when there were none available. I had no God, no money, no discipline, and certainly no spark to look for something more.

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The Turning Point

Then, at 15 years old, a shift happened. One day a friend's parent’s acquaintance offered me weekend work on his large property. He stated that I could mow his lawn, trim the trees, burn the brush, etc. I was given as much work as I wanted for each weekend, and I began putting in two days a week helping with his landscape. Eventually, he asked if I wanted to come officially work for him over the summer. The next nine weeks changed my life forever.

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Three Elements of Change

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Element One: I got up every morning at the same time, got ready for work, and went out to earn an income, learn new skills, and take pride in something I was doing.

Element Two: I was now spending my free time in a completely new environment, doing activities and spending time with people who thought about more than just survival.

Element Three: Every morning we had a breakfast and every evening we sat down in the dining room, ate a proper dinner together, and talked about our day.

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Emerging from Old Patterns

Eventually summer came to an end, and school started back up. Between the money I had earned and being able to take more work on the weekends, I was able to find and afford a place to rent, which led to me becoming emancipated and moving out on my own. Participating in sports became a major priority.

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Facing Reality and Resilience

It would be easy to say that from that point on things turned around, but my Mother's sudden death and my Father's unceasing issues proved to be overwhelming. The next few years were hard. But my ability to work, passion for healthy pastimes, and newfound friend group gave me the strength to persevere.

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Breaking the Cycle

The cycle of intergenerational poverty is a self-feeding machine. Without an outside influence, it is nearly impossible to break away from. Because of the help I had as a teenager, the cycle of poverty within my family has been broken with me; And I think we can do it again.

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