There Are No Children There

I believe life is what we make of it. People forget that the daily decisions we make structure our future and way of life. We decide on our own. That is why it is important to be responsible, have a good education and good family values. After reading the book; There Are No Children Here and The Baltimore Sun series on foster children. I became upset. Things like this happen because of the lack of responsibility, lack of family values and bad decision making. People make decisions according to what, at the time, seems to be convenient or the easy way out of something. They don't plan ahead. In the book There Are No Children Here. La Joe, structured her whole life by the daily decisions she made through her life.

La Joe made bad decisions when she was a teenager and through her life. She ended up paying for it for the rest of her life. When she got pregnant the first time, she should have stopped having more kids if she knew she did not have a responsible man to support her and her child. Her decisions escalated her problems. She decided not to study and therefore could never find a job that could support her and her children. She decided to have more children even though she did not have a stable job and could not afford them. She decided to continue to take back a man that was not supportive and that had a drug problem. Also, she allowed him in her children's life. This probably influenced the children to do drugs. They saw it at home displayed by their father. La Joe did not have it in her to be a successful woman, mother and role model. She struggled to feed, educate and support her children. She could not even provide them with a safe place to live.

The Baltimore Sun series on foster children repeats almost the same story, but in a different part of the country. Where are these children's parents? Why do people have children when can not take care of them? Things like this happen because of the lack of responsibility, lack of family values and bad decision making. These stories make me mad. I can relate to being poor, but being poor does not mean you can not make something positive of your life. I come from a poor immigrant family.

We immigrated to the United States in 1988. We were illegal for many years. Even though I was not legally here, I went to school and so did my other three brothers. My parents worked hard to provide us with food, clothes and good living conditions. We struggled for many years. It

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