Today I finished Paulie’s story in “Almost Home,” which
described the transition of a normal thirteen-year-old boy to a homeless
teenager who fell into drug addiction and homelessness. What struck me most
about the story was the main causes of Paulie’s homelessness: his father’s uncontrollable
abuse and his mother’s neglect to help him. It's just shocking that nothing was ever done about these things.
Parents should be the first safety net in keeping their
children off the streets and from making bad decisions. Regardless of a
parent’s financial situation, they should always strive to make their child
more adaptable to the world around them in order to have a better future. Without this vital safety net, many kids fall
into an unstable lifestyle full of homelessness and crime. This happened to Paulie, yet nothing was done about his parents actions.
The parents of these children should be held more
accountable for the situation they’ve left their children in, and some sort of
mandatory financial assistance should be coming from them. When you have a
child, you are financially responsible for that child until such time as they
turn 18. It's appalling that parents can get away with not taking care of the
basic needs of their children, on top of not being a good role model in the
first place.
Something needs to be done about parents like this.
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