Obstacles In American Youth

There are a lot of obstacles that we as America’s youth face, weather it is a problem we created or someone else’s doing. The problem becomes cumbersome when you retaliate in an ineffective way. My grandmother always told me “it’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” In order to change the direction of your retaliation to things you have to know yourself and be able to effectively articulate yourself. My vision for America’s youth is to learn their selves, be comfortable in their skin, and effectively articulate their selves to initiate change in their lives and the lives of others. Building a sense of identity can be very challenging as a young person with all the different types of influences you come in contact with. However, your identity plays an important role in …show more content…
She was very easily influenced, she started doing narcotics when she was twelve years old, and had me when she was fifteen years old, as a result of these actions she was kicked out of my grandfather’s house. She did not finish high school, had been incarcerated four times, and has poor judgement when it comes to men. One of her men molested my younger sister, which caused my sister and I to be wards of the state. I am under strict rules and regulations of the state because of someone else’s actions, at any point and time I could have been uprooted from my family and taken to a foster family or a group home because of someone else’s actions. My immediate family took the necessary classes to become foster parents so we would not have to go through that turmoil. Some of my family members thought that when I got older, I would be just like my mother. If I listened to every comment that was made for my defeat, instead of deciding within myself that failure was not an option. I looked at my mother as an example of what not to do. My mother had lost her identity and had no motivation to get it