On August 2nd, 1998; David and Christine Bouchard who are amazing parents gave birth to a pretty awesome daughter, myself: Alison Elaine Bouchard. I mean I must be awesome if they only needed one child. We lived in a small trailer in Oakland, Maine with a springer spaniel named Colbie who would soon become my best friend. At this time my dad was working long hard hours, the night shift at the local paper plate mill. My mom worked for the hospital at odd hours as well. They tried to go to college to better themselves and although they took an alternative path I am so proud of them for getting their degrees. I even got to attend their graduation ceremonies. This lead to my grandparents acting as my second set of parents since they took care of me so often. Both my parents and grandparents made me the young woman that I am today through many life skills that they taught me even if it was hard to learn. Although this is just the beginning of a lifelong story we are all faced with hardships just like the board game LIFE. From a young age to my current self I have had to work through the same disadvantages time after time. These disadvantages are generally based on things that I cannot change even if I tried because it is shown through sexisim against my gender, economic hardships, and even prejudice against my race. When I was three I attended Kid’s Corner for nursery school and later, at age four moved into preschool. They helped me figure out that I had an interest in
My mother’s favorite quote was “work hard for what you want because it will not come to you without a fight.” Growing up in the city of Columbus was pretty easy. The town was pretty decent. I was born to the parents of Termica J. Webber and Paul V. Roland on July 14, 1998. On September 18, 2002 my mother gave birth to my younger sister, Annie Rogina Deanes who is now 13 years old and lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her father. I am the oldest child of my mother and the youngest child of my father. When I turned 6 I instantly moved to a small town of Pheba, MS with my grandmother, Thelma Webber, where times were hard. No one hardly lived in the small town and I was the only child living with my grandmother besides my aunt
I am the way I am because of my father, he drives me to get an education, and he wants me to be better than him. My dad constantly tells me “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you’re going to be.” This quote means significantly to me because when I was in 6th grade I would hang out with the wrong crowd, later when I was a freshman, I made new friends, better friends, and the ones that push me to strive. My mom is my rock, she struggles sometimes since she raised my brother and I alone, but she always finds a way to get us what we need for school and sports that we play in. I have this picture of my brother, my cousin, and I in front of our house when we first bought it, it’s been 17 years that I’ve been living in it. It may not be the nicest house, but its payed off and I have a roof over my head, to me that’s all that matters. My neighborhood is actually quiet, I have 3 neighbors that are nice people, when we go out of town they watch our house for
A brief background of my family will provide some meaning to our family structure. My parents were both born and raised in Muncie, Indiana at a time when the economy was not strong. My father was the fourth of five siblings in a household dominated by a physically abusive and alcoholic father. My mother lost both of her parents at a young age. I would learn later in life that my father
I come from single parent home and I have seen my mother struggle all her life to give me the life she never had. She immigrated to the United states, with my grandma, and her two siblings when she was nine and attended
Growing up in a family with two older siblings always dawned on me. It was extremely difficult getting used to the fact that my brother, and sister would never have much in common with me due to the age difference between us. I recall so many different memories when I think back to my childhood, whether the memory involved my siblings, or my mother and father, those moments in time are still very vivid in my mind. My parents weren’t very prominent when it came to my childhood, and I completely understand due to the basic fact that they were hard working immigrant parents. They worked day and night to support my siblings and I. It was difficult starting a new life in a new country. My family had to build from the ground up to get to where we are now, and with hard work and perseverance, we’ve gotten extremely far.
I have overcome many obstacles within my life and I am proud of where I am today. To start, my full name is Samantha Heart LeClair. My life began on December 21st 1995, in Kingston; however, I moved to Sydenham for four years at which time my family returned back home. I’ve attended three elementary schools, two high schools and now two colleges. I am currently taking the Community Service Worker (CSW) program at Trillium College. In elementary school, I played soccer and basketball, and was involved with the track team. For extracurricular activities, I tried hip-hop dance classes, ballet classes and piano classes. My family is limited, but the ones who are an active part of my life mean the world to me. I was raised to believe family comes first and in the end, family will be there. Throughout my life journey, I have come to realize this is very accurate. My mother is my best friend. She has always been there to support every decision and bring light on my dark days. My brother, Zackery, is three years older than I. Throughout the years, we have had many falling outs, but he is still one of my closest friends. My stepdad, Dan, isn’t just an ordinary stepdad; he is my dad. Dan has been a better father figure than my biological father, which is why I consider him my actual father. It takes more than just creating a life to be a father; it takes good parenting, patience and unconditional love to be one. The latest addition to my family is my eight month old son,
I am the first born child of my family. I was born in 1994. This is the same year that our country experienced a genocide. My father died when I was three years old. This has negatively impacted my life, because he was the provider of our family. Since then, my mom has had to fill the gap so that we can survive. In addition to that, we lived in a rural area where there was no electricity, and few or no infrastructure at all. In my village, families usually did not send their children to school until they were 10 years old. Back then, no nursery schools were there, we had to start from the first grade of the primary school.
I have overcome many obstacles within my life and I am proud of where I am today. To start, my full name is Samantha Heart LeClair. I was brought into this world on December 21st 1995, in Kingston. I moved to Sydenham for four years at which time my family returned to Kingston. I have attended three elementary schools, two high schools and now two colleges. I am currently taking the Community Service Worker (CSW) program at Trillium College. In elementary school, I played soccer and basketball, and was involved with the track team. For extracurricular activities, I tried hip-hop dance classes, ballet classes and piano classes. My family is limited, but the ones who are an active part of my life mean the world to me. I was raised to believe family comes first and in the end, family will be there. Throughout my life journey, I have come to realize this is very accurate. My family consists of my mom, brother, stepdad and son. My mother is my best friend. She has always been there to support every decision and bring light on my dark days. My brother is three years older than I; we have had many falling outs, but he is still one of my closest friends. My stepdad (Dan) isn’t just a stepdad; he is my dad. Dan has been a better father figure than my biological father, which is why I consider him my actual father. It takes more than just creating a life to be a father; it takes good parenting, patience and love to be one. My son, Noah, is an amazing blessing. He is what
As, we settled in Palatine, without a father in my life, I basically became a father and a caregiver to my brother and sister. Many days and nights, my Mother, had to go out and run some errands, there would never be anyone to babysit my siblings especially since money is so tight. I would be the one watching them, many times it could be for hours and other times it could be all day. They would often have seizures, which I learned how to take care of and learned how to distribute the emergency medication. Often, I would have to come home from school or practice and help make dinner, clean the house, or help get my brother and sister ready for bed. After doing all of these chores to help my Mother out , and i would still be able to crank out my homework, and still manage to get great grades, because I knew the importance of them. This has always been a stressful situation in my life. My life has made me a better person, everything has matured me, and made me a better person. All of this is a part of my identity/background , it's made me who I am, and prepared me for the life. I'm not the normal football jock, this is my
Throughout the seventeen years that I’ve been alive I have witnessed all the sacrifices my parents have gone through ensuring I have a better future than they did. I come from immigrant parents that weren’t fortunate enough to continue studying. I myself was brought into the country when I was two years old so I could build a different path than the one my parents had to take due to financial reasons. Short after, my sister was born my mom got remarkably ill with Diabetes. I would watch in terror as my mother would lay in bed barely able to move. I held her hand, wiped her forehead, with a cool wet towel, and longed she would get all better. Being the oldest in the
Hey Nandi, just letting you know that you're a really amazing person. Honestly you're a unique person there is no other person I could meet on the planet that could out weight your personality. I've decided that since the day I was born, BAM, mother-child bond. You've always been a strong woman you've done everything from working two jobs, to go our every school events, and handling our family problems. You're extremely happy even in bad situations and your not afraid to show us discipline that has an impact. You're a woman of few words but when you do open your mouth something extraordinary comes out. You fight for us, love us, your kind to all people, help raise strong people by putting reality in front of us since we were little. The most valuable lesson you've taught me so far is, life's going to be extremely difficult at times but you have to be strong, because you are strong, you can fight, and if you go down swinging better make worth your while. Couldn't ask for a better woman in my life.
My mother worked day and night so I had to care for my sister and cousins. On some occasions I had to help my mom clean houses to earn money. At the age of thirteen up until I was sixteen I was cleaning houses for the people we longed to be. I got a glimpse of a life I have never known. For the most part my mom’s boss was nice, but her family was ignorant at times. They would ask me where I have traveled and if I’ve been to all these kinds of expensive places. When I answered no they asked why not. I guess they didn’t comprehend the fact that my mom and I were cleaning their dishes and making their beds for less than the minimum wage to be able to barely afford the rent of the small room we all
When I was just 6 months old, my parents left me with my grandparents in India to pursue the "Indian" American dream. I soon realized I would need to "grow up" quicker since my grandparents were old and couldn't expend all of their energy taking care of me. When I was 11, I was fortunate enough to reunite with my parents. Although I was grateful for this, I wasn't able to fully embrace them. My parents quickly found out I wasn't excited with ordinary kid activities, so they started taking me with them to our gas station in the summers. By going to the gas station with my mom in the morning at 5 AM in the struggling town of Crenshaw, MS, I was able to kindle a strong relationship with my mom and learn valuable life lessons in the process. The first year, I learned how to greet people when they were ready to check out; I noticed there
November 9th, 1996, my brother first entered this world cold, scared, and naked; then into the warm arms of my beloved 19-year-old mother as my 17-year-old father stood beside him. According to statistics, 8 out of 10 teenage fathers do not marry the teenage mother of their child; most couples don’t stay together at all. But here my brother is today 18-years later with my mother and my father still happily married with 3 kids. My parents both sacrificed a lot for my brother, my sister and myself, which included moving to a new state at a young age leaving everything they knew behind, going to night school, and doing countless hours of hard work. They made sure we never had to work for anything; they gave us everything we needed, wanted, and
If I wasn’t raised by my godparents, I don't know where I would be right now. I would often think where I would be in life if I stayed with my mother. Now, my mother wasn’t a bad person or anything when I was young. She was just a teen mom, unexperienced basically. My mother and my Godmother met at a fair, my godmother saw my mother struggling trying to calm me down. She decided help, they made conversation and later found out that my godmother was my father’s