i think one of the worst things as a kid is what you want to do it's not what you want to do it's why do you do the things you do you could design a life that is focused on your watch being aware of work as a way of expression people ask me what motivates me every day and i look i'm just being me i started my company because it was an expression of myself i am just painting on a canvas but i think if we can teach them that think of their work and their life as a place to express themselves and then dream what they see themselves becoming. that strategic mistake makes you think more long term rather than the short term want athletes are told to picture making the shot before they take the shot and i think that the same thing is true for the rest of us we have to picture what our goal is is looking like and not just pick an arbitrary goal but what do we want our

life to look like and then create a plan to get there and we can help kids do better but it's in their own hands it's in their hands that's a lesson every kid should learn and those sort of stuff the responsibility i can make sure that i never will be poverty and my kids in the role of barbie if i do the right thing. oh my name's wendy i'm 18 years old i go to caprica high school and i'm a senior this year there was 8 of us don't live together there is a 3 bedroom house there was a lot of. the economy head and everything my. they both had lost their jobs it

was kind of hard for us to even like cat food all my life even now i'm still on free and reduced lunch so now. i have 3 with my little brother has free and reduced lunch and there was 5 of. my sophomore year i was the same. i was on a journey with our p.c. and coming back slowly nauseous from there and the started noticing that i was feeling different. so i carry a there believing are you pregnant and like i don't think i'm believing the like i need all the time like well i've watched a pregnancy test and i was like what it is kind of like better and so there's a pregnancy test that came out positive just kind of frightening so my mom told me what any other parent would say to their kid. you're going to be fine we're going to get through this no matter what happens. what am i

going to do. when my going to finish school how am i going to do any of us at all. just. terrified out of my mind. it turns out in the u.s. right now an awful lot of children are being born to parents and parents who are not married to each other and that is about 50 percent of the birth of the youngest generation in other words about half of the birth and the youngest generation are babies born outside of marriage to typically quite young parents we have normal over being. with kids who are single parent. generally education. they also have. then kids who come from married couple.

more of our kids with their married parents live for their whole childhood with their married parents that also can make a huge difference they'll do better in school will be more likely college and even though they might compositions magically over the last 3 or 4 decades more kids are in still families who are kids we're both there so i think americans are going to figure this out single parents alone have high stress levels stigma comes against them because they're single parents. as teenagers we have these adult problems so we feel like we're adults but we're very malleable in the sense that we're still children in a way our emotions go up and down and happens is so many kids are making these very tough decisions around friends and peer groups and they're making a lot of decisions around relationships and who they're falling love with and the

intimacy with those people and it's just this kind of like these tough things like what really a lot of kids in poverty. i never thought i would. ever play because i was i am i thought am i standing there i do so much charity work so much community service work everyone at school is like $23.00 business units marline and she would get one from her family isn't she the church girl i never thought this would happen. you don't think from one night something. is going to pop out 9 months later you just think oh i have it once here keep going with 5. and a half. and know what you see the picture and blow your whole world just. turned upside down.

and when we talk about participating in risky behavior whether we're talking about having sex doing drugs drinking watching pornography whatever it is getting involved in social media. becoming really addicted to whatever device it is that you're using if we're talking about any of those risks to be i think it's important to consider. the outcomes of those things it's important to consider that we're not living for just this moment which have a child don't. really think about the cost that it takes to be a parent the cost in time the cost and finances and i would encourage you to wait until you're married before you have kids wait until you know you've got that 2nd parent that 2nd income that can help you raise that child what kills me is when i see a kid with all the academics to rock it you know they get these all lazy finally they finally break this glass ceiling where they put all this hard work in their

academics and then they get pregnant with their with their high school sweetheart and i think literally just take 3 steps back and i think it's because there's this . intelligence we just don't talk about like relationship and the strategy around what you do as an emotional being. always been a daddy's girl i would go to him for everything and when i got pregnant he distance and stuff along he had different views than i did when i told him i was going to keep matthew. you're going to keep. going to keep you like he saw me completely. i had matthew on april 26th. i called a month later to see how he was doing. to catch up to see if he wanted to see my son he calls me. i still can't believe you decided to keep them you could have had

a future now you're not going to have anything. and it's been built 3 years. and i haven't heard from what i've heard from people one of my teachers actually. when i wasn't there and everyone from the class told me she said if wendy was my daughter. i would take the baby away from her raise it myself sure but now she's not going to amount to anything. and hearing it from my dad now. and saying you're not going to announce anything you're not going to have a future anymore because i decided to keep my son. broke me. and we as a society have lied to you in this we've been dishonest. because what we have said . is that you can behave any way that you choose you can make any decision or choice that you want to make whatever you feel this this day you can make those

kinds of decisions and we will do the best that we can to alleviate the cons. but the fact is we cannot alleviate the consequences it is true that you make your own decisions you can choose any of these paths that you want to choose but we are being dishonest to you when we say we can help you avoid consequences there are consequences for the choices that you know having sex outside of marriage is not going to fill the void that you're trying to fill it only creates more and more of a vast open and. within you because you are opening yourself in the most mourner of all way to another human being who is in no way committed and his whose actions are really out of selfishness likely and a desire to meet a need. that day. in the day i had on i started getting ready i started getting

pain and then by the time i got there they told me it was too late for me to have it. i'm just bawling my eyes out i was like i don't know what to do i've never done this and whenever he got there. i was scared the 1st time i change just. like i care to change the diaper he looked and what do you mean you can't just type of like i can't do this i am fix tina i can do this i cannot. i cannot do school work and raise a child. precious little boy mile at me and i'm thinking i can't do this at all the only thing going through my head was i cannot do that. if you find yourself pregnant at 15 there is no easy option for you you can choose to have an

abortion and that is not an easy option it leaves damage for the rest of your life for you and for your family. having a child at 15 leeds all kinds of issues because now you're not just a typical high school kid your response will for another human be you're going to have to find a way to bring in candy you're going to have to tend to a sick baby in the middle of the night when you have homework and you have to get up early and go to class yourself and then your other option would be to place your baby for adoption which is the most difficult decision i've ever seen a young person it is a wonderful choice and it is often the best choice for that child but it is heart wrenching and extremely difficult so once you find yourself in an unplanned pregnancy we can't take away those consequences and you now have very difficult decisions to make. so i have no other. the betting line i have met but.

about to be still in it but i wake up at 6 in the morning at around 7 i will wake up my little brother and at around 720 i will get back there ready i'll drop him off at my sister's at 730 take my little brother this class i'm 30 i get the school and i'm racing i'm running rushing to get there i get out of school at 130 and i was going to work at 2 i get off or i have some i get this out i play with matthew for the 30 minutes but i have and then i go to work and whenever i get my 30 minute lunch break do the same thing go to my sister's house and spend time with then go back and then i get up before for online i want to put them both ways after i put them up please i will start working on my homework at around 1030 and i usually call feel better about we wanted. to i think israel has. genuinely and to some extent in

a manipulative way. feared any strong state in the region and iran in that sense is a psycho political career. more than that i think immaterial breath but it's you with the material carette is used to manipulate in part the israeli public which is very divided now and they need symbols of unity and one of them is. the iran threat. the world is driven by dreamers shaped by one person at the end.

the day. thinks. we dare to ask. always be polite never engage with a negative a good or confrontational also. don't get into any conversation or start answering questions just ask for an attorney. to survive in the territories. definitely don't want to go in the jumpsuit one coach. you're more likely to walk free if you're rich. or if you're poor and.

you've got 2 eyes and ears in one now. so you should be seen in here and a whole lot more than you're saying if you don't take that advice easy going to dig yourself a hole. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy foundation let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical of time to sit down and talk. so what i would say to a 15 year old is. i apologize that you have convinced me. that you are incapable of because i don't know the. and those things and i. believe that you have

a purpose i believe that greatness is only. believe that you bring value into other people's lives and bring value into the lot of this child if you choose to hear that it's not going to do things and we have failed and it is now our job to come along in support to enable you to make better choices go. my mama watch the 1st. tell their. thank you mom i love. and. love differently. you want to show her love by watching him. taking care of me making sure how to look for my head. she told me for the 1st time i know i never tell you this often but i'm so proud of you. you are working.

for me to get a message saying i'm proud of you and everything. everything that. was the best. this is what i have been working. for i'm proud of. there's a group of villagers are river when someone in the group noticed a baby floating down the street. one of the men rushed into the water rescued the baby and brought it to sure but before he could recover a number of babies were trying floating downstream. there's a steady flow of b.b.c. . floating down the river and the whole village was involved in the rescue efforts

pulling babies out of the water and making sure they were made safe but not all of them could be. some are pulled under by the ranging river whether slipped through the villagers hands while others fell back into the water as the villagers tried to save them. the villagers were saving as many babies is they could but before long they became exhausted from all their effort. frustrated controversy erupted milledge one group argued that every possible hand was needed downstream to help rescue the babies they didn't have everyone's help they would lose too many downstream. the other group argued that every possible hand was needed upstream to get find out how the babies were getting into the water to save all of them in

a limb an 8 the need for the costly and time consuming efforts downstream. to find out how these babies are falling into the river in the 1st place we can stop this and no more babies will drown if we go upstream we can eliminate the cause of the problem. but it's too risky some said might fail or take too long to lose too many lives. away to the ones we've lost and our future children to fix the problem upstream and save one else calling them to get. a drink from a separate water fountain houston texas well how much. but

what's different about the water. coming out of it found. the comparison. of the mountain that was of the posts. that go up i realize most. people feel completely. all that life. plaistow around them. when you. you know there are 2 ways to address poverty one is to try to prevent it from ever occurring in the 1st place and the 2nd is if it does occur to a 1000000 right you know provide people with assistance with child 8 care with alfie who has to be but has to be. you have to help those who are in need now and you have to help those might be huge and in order to do both you have to not only work downstream you have to call the circumstances that got us where we are.

and so our approach to every person and every family and poverty needs to be is unique as that person and that family and that's difficult to do and it's a little overwhelming to think about but people are different it's interesting looking back historically on what we've done to address poverty in the united states it's mostly been to provide people with assistance of various kinds and those things are needed i think we should not leave people destitute and without such assistance bob there's not a lot of evidence that those things are going to move people out of poverty except temporarily i don't think americans are in favor of simply redistributing income what they want is to provide everyone an opportunity to get ahead on their own we believe in equality of opportune. not equality of results.

i went to a conference once the conference was an opportunity conference where we invited 74 families from our community and hopes to just allow a pathway to cycle out of poverty majority of the people in this conference were generational poverty so they came in and they heard from dr beagle are her story and were encouraged to mrs 6 hour program and she would say how many of you know what it is to have a disconnect notice how many of you know what it is to receive an eviction notice and before long arms were coming up and she allowed them to see that if i can do it you can too we all have hope with this sometimes just gets buried so i had the opportunity to visibly see hope rise to the surface of 74 people and that's not something that you can contain we knew you can't contain hope i left this place

with hope and i'm going to tell everybody about it i want them to know what i know and i'm going to succeed because people came in the room they didn't know me and i matter i wasn't born. i am hard. right i'm no longer in this isolation where i'm irrelevant or i have to walk around and lead with this label of shame little by little the hope starts to take that label off and when people come into place you're able to replace that label with words of worth instead of allowing that person to feel. we all are the same when it comes to what our basic needs are and what our basic desires are and i think if we really think about what we have in common with one another that's where we can start to create a basis. understanding

a person saying i'm not going to judge you i'm not going to criticize you i'm not going to devalue your lived experience because it's different than my you say to the other human being what ever. dream you've ever had is still. when i was growing up. felt like there were a few kids that were completely off. and there were a few kids that were trying really hard to make good choices and really had their focus at where it needed to be but most of us are somewhere in this gray area where we're trying to get our toes as close to the line as we can without completely stepping over but we weren't really convicted either way we're just all kind of trying to get good at. what i see now is that there are more kids

off the rails. there are very few kids in this very area. but there are a lot of young people who are committed who are strong who are focused who want to make good. and who are making an impact on the people around. that is my hope for the next generation. and that hope comes from the stories that we tell that hope comes from us saying to our scholars you can do this we're going to stand by we're going to help you get through this day after the power to turn the ship and it happens make good decisions after that. one of the bigger and. actually realize the things you

do from 14 to 24 hour compound interest of things that like we're going to take you to places that you can't even understand what you do today is going to play more compound interest that anything else you're playing a game that's bigger than yourself you're playing a game for yourself or your family's name or your kids that don't even exist yet for your grandkids who are going to benefit off of the hard work you put into that . not all poverty is preventable but we know certainly that based on research and the research that we're using for our programs some of that can be preventable we want to help them we want to help the community around us nat's what we're trying to rally our community around and support a lot of times when i work with people who currently live in the crisis of poverty else who are not smart enough to get a skill not smart enough to go to college to ask for help you got to ask for help

in poverty issue don't ask for help. that's the wrong message. nobody makes it alone absolutely no one we have to work together we have to overlap with other organizations we have to be community is the key is allowing hope but we can't allow hope we can't communicate we can't allow worth until there's relationship if we can spark a movement that not only helps those who are in the river but also gives them the tools to help their kids and their kids' kids not be in the river that's the movement we want only reach out to people across. these barriers of poverty barriers of political opinions. we can really find some unique treasures in people who are different from months and find out that they're not so different after all.

imagine picking up a future textbook on the early years of the 21st century what are the chapters called gun violence school shootings homelessness 1st it was my job it was my family bill it was my savings i have nothing i have nothing and it's not like i don't try i look for resources i look for jobs i look for everything i can to make this pass. in the aisle of doing is. the road to the american dream paved with good refugees and this very idealized image of our america needs americans look pasta the deaths that happen every single day this is a modern history of the usa my america. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the

world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. in france runs into a 2nd weekend bill that could ban the filming of police but the government insists it won't drop it. on the week. let's talk to the 1st world. nation. with 19 vaccinations this weekend in the capital. on the front line of the pandemic he was among the 1st to get the. people who are sick hospitalizations and intensive care and needing long ventilators and i don't want to see this anymore becomes that your patients myself.