Absent Fathers Essay Example
Absent Fathers and the Wrong Type of Neighborhood
Things we have always had in our lives sometimes are taken for granted. A house, enough food, money for life’s necessities, and sometimes, worst of all, our families. When we have all these things given to us starting from the day we are born, we don’t give very much thought to it. For those without these things, life can be very different. American youth born in areas in which all of these aren’t relatively common are influenced to live very different lives. In The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore, both boys named Wes Moore without fathers living in their immensely poor neighborhood display the effects of living in a destitute area without a proper male mentor. Wes Moore, the author, was left without a father at age 4, which may have caused him to feel a lack of direction in the beginning of his life; in addition, living in a poor neighborhood may have caused him to be unable to see how success can come through education. His mother did indeed give him love, tried to get to him do well in school, and sent him to a private school, but Wes didn’t feel like trying to do well in school for at least two likely reasons. Wes always grew up in a place where most families had a low income. At Chinquapin Middle School in Baltimore: “Close to 70 percent of the kids were on the school lunch program”. Many of the parents of the community couldn’t afford to feed their children without financial aid from the government. Although he spent a lot of time living outside Baltimore, in the Bronx, he still lived in a place where crime and drugs were rampant. In places such as these, academic success would seem to be futile because of the lack of impression from people in their world. There wouldn’t be very many scholars, who had achieved a higher education and led a successful career that brought them happiness and a handsome salary. Living in Baltimore and the Bronx, Wes had nowhere to actually see with his own eyes how education could
Things we have always had in our lives sometimes are taken for granted. A house, enough food, money for life’s necessities, and sometimes, worst of all, our families. When we have all these things given to us starting from the day we are born, we don’t give very much thought to it. For those without these things, life can be very different. American youth born in areas in which all of these aren’t relatively common are influenced to live very different lives. In The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore, both boys named Wes Moore without fathers living in their immensely poor neighborhood display the effects of living in a destitute area without a proper male mentor. Wes Moore, the author, was left without a father at age 4, which may have caused him to feel a lack of direction in the beginning of his life; in addition, living in a poor neighborhood may have caused him to be unable to see how success can come through education. His mother did indeed give him love, tried to get to him do well in school, and sent him to a private school, but Wes didn’t feel like trying to do well in school for at least two likely reasons. Wes always grew up in a place where most families had a low income. At Chinquapin Middle School in Baltimore: “Close to 70 percent of the kids were on the school lunch program”. Many of the parents of the community couldn’t afford to feed their children without financial aid from the government. Although he spent a lot of time living outside Baltimore, in the Bronx, he still lived in a place where crime and drugs were rampant. In places such as these, academic success would seem to be futile because of the lack of impression from people in their world. There wouldn’t be very many scholars, who had achieved a higher education and led a successful career that brought them happiness and a handsome salary. Living in Baltimore and the Bronx, Wes had nowhere to actually see with his own eyes how education could