Angela M

Child(ren): 5 children, youngest Samantha, 1 year and 10 months

Issues: Health, Environment, Drugs, Violence and Trauma, Family, Childhood, Breaking the Cycle

"I’m concerned with all my children but my son most definitely, especially with the young black men going to jail and killing one another. My heart really goes out to him. I tell him when I wash his football clothes, ‘Oh, mommy loves washing football clothes’ because that’s what I want him to do. He’s eight, he’s getting older, and look at what he sees. When he gets a couple years older I want to send him to some charter school. That’s why I want him to keep his grades up."

Widowed and the mother of five, Angela lives in an environment shrouded in drugs and violence. In her neighborhood she and her family walk by prostitutes, people selling beer from the back of a truck, drug addicts and crack dealers, all on the way to her son’s football practice. They also pass by a recreation center that has been boarded up for twenty years and a memorial to a kid killed in a drug-related death.

Angela teaches her children each day to respect other people and other people’s property. She worries constantly about her son because she has seen what many of the young men in her neighborhood have become, drug users and dealers. By living in this kind of environment her children are very much limited in their opportunities to explore, experience, and learn.

Because Angela’s mother instilled good core values within her she does the same for her children, involving them in church, football, chess, and many other stimulating activities. Her hope for her children is that they grow up to be “model citizens”.

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Angela M

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