HELP THE YOUNG HELP THEMSELVES

Working in social service allows you the opportunity to see a lot of scenarios you would not expect to see someone go through in their lifetime. Because I am graduate school educated I think I have all the answers. It is easy to think that if you just did x then y and z would happen. Or if you just did not do x then y and z would not have happened and you would not be in that predicament.

I mentor a young lady who has grown to mean the world to me. I'm not wanting to take her mother's place, but I am wanting to adopt her and raise her as my own. I think she could do so much better than what she's doing. Then again I think that about everyone including myself. In my eyes all the opportunities are there. It's the acceptance of these opportunities that she's not taking advantage of that exhaust me.

I admit I had a very boring childhood. When I graduated high school I was so ready to leave that small town there was not a bus, car, train, or plane that could get me out of there fast enough. I did not have the exposure and comradery my little girl has with her classmates, fashion, entertainment, or even after school activities. So in my eyes being involved in organizations and after school programs was my only way out of the house. Sad to say my only opportunity to dress up and go somewhere was going to church on Sunday. Personally, I think that is why I stay away from the house so much now. I hate to me at home even though I live by myself and can do what I want, I refuse to sit still cooped up in a house doing nothing.

This leads me to not understanding why youth in a metropolitan area so full of opportunity have nothing to show for it except poverty, crime, truancy, in-school suspension, and boredom, not to mention a lack of interest in educational adventure such as learning to cook, sew, rock climb, website design, etc.

I have to continually pull myself back and realize that not everyone is as easily entertained as I am with opportunity to learn something new or grow beyond the present state of boys and music. So, to my little girl and those out there like her full of love for drama, the undaunted necessity to talk back, and an relentless subjection to disobey authority please forgive me for not understanding why my way does not work all the time and I have to beg and plead over and over again to make you see it my way.

I'm only trying to save you from success-less-ness.