To: shades who wrote (47202 ) 1/17/2006 1:57:54 PM From: GraceZ Read Replies (1) | Respond to My view is not simple or simplistic, it comes from real life experiences in watching others either succeed or fail. I've devoted a large part of my life to understanding what it is that makes someone stay poor or slip into being poor. I came from crushing poverty. A lot of my childhood friends and acquaintances died of drug overdoses or were jailed. My husband came from a similar background and has similar experiences. At some point both of us decided that we would give up destructive behavior and do what was needed to pull ourselves up. He decided long before I did, I was actually quite late, in my 30s before I got my chit together. Statistics would have me in jail most of my life considering the circumstances I was dealt as a child. When they were handing out privileges at the Edna B. Conklin Home for Children in Hackensack, NJ they ran out long before they got to the kids whose last name started with Z.
