In Parts 1 and 2, I wrote about how I started smoking weed at 10 and my life was never the same. Now I am going to enlighten you on my upbringing.
I was shy for a long time. I had very good parents when it came to making sure me and my brothers had the things we needed.
One of the reasons I’m writing this story is to help the parents of today understand it’s more to being a parent than just giving your kids the things they want and need. The most important thing is to always show LOVE to your kids. That’s where my parents fell short. I guess growing up in South Carolina and their parents having a lot of kids, they was not showed LOVE so they did know how to show LOVE.
My father used to drink each and every day but he never missed a day of work. At one time he worked two full time jobs. Because he worked so much, I didn’t see him a lot of the time until the weekend. I think this hurt me a lot. Because if he had not been working so much, he and I could have spent more time together.
Then when I was told my Dad only had a third grade education, it hurt me real bad. Coming up in the South, back then, they had to pick cotton and could only go to school on rainy days. The most important thing I feel my Dad taught me was hard work never killed no one.
I was in church so much you would think I would be the best kid a parent could have. But because I had to go to church so much I would not come home on Saturday night until my parents was gone to church on Sunday morning. My life would have been so much better if I had not started getting high.
I was real smart and played sports in high school. I played football and baseball. But again because of my drug use, I never went to college.
My family would go on vacation each and every year. I never had to wear my brothers’ clothes because I had more than I needed. But again I didn’t feel LOVED. And that’s so important in life. What I started doing was trying to find love in all the wrong places. And what I found was trouble. Once I was in the streets, the streets became my way of life.
And now when I look back on my life, the streets can and will destroy you. It sure did when it came to me. There was kids who would have loved to be in my place. But what did I do with it? I stayed in jail for one thing or another most of my life.
Again, it’s so important to show your kids LOVE. And most of all make sure you always communicate with them about life and what’s going on with them. By doing so you can always know what’s going on with them. Our kids are the future and what we teach them can and will take them a long way in life.
