GotZoom
Senior Member
- Thread starter
- #21
Gabriella84 said:Trinity, I salute you for having the courage to explain things to your kids. My parents, both 60's hippie types (take your best shot here), never talked to my sister or I about sex. I think they were afraid to do it. Since obviously their parents didn't do a good job of it.
Simply put, "at risk" teens normally come from broken or dysfunctional families. They have gotten little or no parental support or guidance. Many are unwanted or ignored. Typically, they live with a single mother or female relative who spends a lot of time working, or perhaps is unemployed and troubled by alcohol/substance abuse.
These girls are at substantial risk to quit school, join gangs, get pregnant and become delinquents. The vast majority are economically disadvantaged and typically ethnic. They have problems that few understand and fewer have time to deal with.
They are the faceless victims of the massive cuts in social services. Because their problems normally don't exist in the more economically privileged areas of Ivory Snow, America, these teens are often seen as unimportant.
I gravitated to this field because it is so prevalent where I grew up. I went to school with these girls. I got to know them. I felt they needed to be helped.
To help build up my credentials as a bleeding heart liberal, I have spent the last two summers working an unpaid intership at a social service agency. Since material possessions are unimportant to me, I have a four-year full academic scholarship and my fiance has a good paying job, I don't feel the pressure to work the normal minimum wage summer job. I would rather do this.
It is very soul satisfying, and leaves me with a lot of time to hug trees and otherwise make life miserable for decent normal Republicans.
Nice that material things are unimportant to you - and fortunate that if you do want/need something, you have your fiance to buy it for you.