Blog #2

          In this blog, I'll be summarizing and giving my opinion on the essay "Forgotten Children."

The essay is about father's who abandon their family. The author of this article discusses some of her

past relationships and how bad the guy's were. She's had a child from two of her past boyfriend's.

She has to struggle with getting child support from them every day. Both of the guy's left because

they couldn't deal with supporting a household. The author begged both of them to take

responsibility and help her take care of their child, but they just didn't want to help. The author has

dealt with poverty numerous times with her two children.She then goes on and discusses the

difficulty on living off of child support. She also talks about how difficult it can really be to attain

child support from the father if you don't have any of his information such as his social security

number or his driver's license number. If the father can be found, then they must prove that he is

really the child's father. Once it's paternity is proven, child support must be given. The author then

mentions how difficult it really is to raise a child as a single parent. If the father doesn't want to pay

child support, it comes to the point that the government can just take away from him. The can even

take things such as licenses. Even after the child is older than eighteen, the father must still pay off

what he owes. Father's just aren't paying child support because they feel like they just don't need to.

The author begins to close her article saying how if she knew how bad these guy's were, she would

have never gotten to know them. She will continue to work hard and raise her children to be the men

that their father's aren't.

          Even though I have both my parent's in my life, I can't tolerate somebody who abandons their

child and aren't willing to support them or be a part of their life. No matter what age they may be, if a

father abandons his child and the child's mother, he is a boy. I just really want to know what goes

through the mind of somebody who is not willing to stay and be there for their child. Those "men"

don't realize the long term effects of abandoning their child. It's sad to know that we live in an

imperfect world and we'll probably never see the day that all men, and women on some occasions,

own up to their actions and take care of their child.
       

Blog #1

I read an article from the This I Believe website titled Creating Our Own Happiness by Wayne 

Coyne. The article begins with Coyne at a stop light in his car during a cold and windy day. While 

waiting for the light to turn green, Coyne notices two people at a bus stop huddled together to keep 

warm. Coyne noticed that they were laughing. At first, he had sympathy for the two people because 

they had to be out in the cold, but once he saw that they were enjoying each others company, he sort 

of became jealous wishing he had somebody with him to have a moment just like the couple outside. 

He then realized that we all have the ability to choose happiness no matter what situation you may be 

in. Coyne then goes back and reminisces's upon his time working at Long John Silver's. It was an 

easy job, but he felt like he was going nowhere in life. During his time working there, the restaurant 

was robbed. Coyne didn't let this event bring him down. Coyne believes everybody is capable of 

being happy with the life they are living. 

I really enjoyed reading this article, It's a nice reminder that we all have the ability to choose 

happiness over sadness. Often times, we as people often forget how lucky we really are. Sometimes, 

we get sad and disappointed because we can't get that brand new phone that everybody is getting or 

we can't get a brand new car to drive. There are people living on the streets in the cold and still have 

a smile on their face because they're happy that they're alive. We can't live our lives living in sadness 

or anger. Nobody wants to be remembered as the grumpy person that they're friends and family 

knew. They say life is short, but I believe it's the longest thing all of us have to go through. We need 

to make sure that with this long life that we are living, we go through it with a smile on our face.