I remember being 3 years old and never believing there was a Santa Claus. As much as my teacher or other adults around me tried to tell me that he was real, I never believed in him. There were a lot of things that I just did not believe in as a child. See, I never had the luxury of fantasizing or that believing anything was possible; I was taught the realities of life. I knew what real life was and the people around me did too; dreaming was not something we did. I was taught I was great but never to think outside the box. We knew way too much and started so early having responsibilities that we never believed in anything beyond what we saw. One thing that we knew was there was going to come a point you were going to need to make money and live your life. No more parents to lean on.
I believe you need to expose your kids to real life situations but you also need to make sure that a child stays a child during his/her childhood. I was over exposed to violence, sex and drugs. How do you tell a child to be a kid when he/she is 10 years old watching their cousins smoke crack? I was scared out of mind. What if they try to make me smoke? I am a child, I’ve heard about people smoking crack and even called someone’s mother a crack head but I did not know what that meant. As much as I wanted to be a man I was not ready for the things I was faced with. I just wanted to be a child and dream about riding my bike playing cops and robbers. I wanted to think about playing baseball with my friends.
When people are always telling you to be a man when you are child, it sets you up for situations that you cannot handle; a child should not feel the need to have to pay his parents’ bills. When you bring a child in this world, you should make them your world. Too many of our children are 12 years old and are more worried about when they are going to get a job , than finishing their homework . It affects you when you become an adult; I never had the chance to take chances as a child. I had too many people depending on me to be better and do better. Some of the decisions I made were not for me, they were decisions based on what people thought I should do or should be; I just wanted to dream.
In some ways this still affect me as a man. Everything that I do is safe from my investments, career, and how I love. I do not want to take a chance and live a little bit. At times, I can be super tight with my money; I just never know when someone is going to need something from me and sometimes other people’s responsibilities even seem to become my own. It is difficult when hard work and dedication has been taught are the only ways to be successful, but what about working smarter and networking. I am trying to learn how to live and watch life instead of letting life watch me. I am dreaming now………

Remember to Keep it GC,
Adrian Taylor