Transcripts For RT Documentary 20240712

Right thing. Hello my names wendy im 18 years old i go to camp Rock High School and i am a senior this year there was 8 of us dont live together there is a 3 bedroom house there was a lot of trouble when the economy had and everything my parents both. Had lost their jobs it was kind of hard for us to even my craft food in my life even though im still free and reduced lunch now and always have my little brother house. And there was 5 of us. My sophomore year i was 15. I was on a journey with r. B. C. And coming back slowly nauseous from there is a started noticing that i was feeling different all the sudden sounds like youre either believing or youre pregnant and like i dont think im believing the like i need all the time is i like well ive watched a pregnancy test and i was like what is its kind of like that or and so like theres a pregnancy test and they came out positive and just kind frighten the my mum told me what any other parent would say to their kid. Youre going to be fine were going to get through this no matter what happened. What am i going to do now 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 young parents and parents who are not married to each other that is about 50 percent of the birth 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 norms over the years by doing careful study with kids who are born in single parent families generally education. Themselves. Or they also have. Kids who come from married couples or. More of our kids were with their married current lives or their whole child with their married parents that all sorts of the huge differences will do better in school we will. College and even the family composition magically over the last 3 or 4 decades more kids arent still families who are kids. So i think americans are going to figure this out Single Parents alone have high stress levels stigma against them because theyre Single Parents. As teenagers we have these adult so we feel like were dont but were very valuable in the sense that were still children who weigh our emotions go up and down and. Kids are making these very tough decisions around friends and peer groups and theyre making a lot of decisions around relationships and who theyre falling in love with and their intimacy with those people and its 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 still am training did i do so much charity work so Much Community service or everyone at school is like wendy spring is a shift mark and she would get away from her family isnt she the church girl i never thought that would happen. You dont think from one night something. Is going to pop out 9 months later you just think oh i have it once youre going to 5. And a half. And know what you see the picture of blue your whole world just. Turned upside down. And when you talk about participating in risky behavior whether were talking about having sex doing drugs drinking watching pornography whatever it is getting involved in social media and becoming really addicted to whatever divide. It is that youre using if were talking about any of those risks to be i think its important to consider. The outcomes of those that its important to consider that were not living for just this moment have a child dont dont fall into the teen pregnancy element 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 youre married before you have kids wait until you know youve 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 its because theres a. Motional intelligence we just dont talk about like relationship and the strategy around what you do as an emotional being. Always been a daddys girl i would go to him for everything. And when i got pregnant he distanced himself along he had different views than i did when i told him i was going to keep matthew. Youre going to keep um well. Not 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. This like i still cant believe you decided to keep him you could have had a future now youre not going to have anything. And its been still 3 years. And i havent heard from what ive heard from people one of my teachers. Actually. When i wasnt there and everyone from the class told me she said if wendy was my daughter i would take the baby away from her razor myself for sure but now shes not going to amount to anything. And hearing to from my dad now. And saying youre not going to announce anything youre not going to have a future anymore because i decided to keep my son. It broke me. And we as a society have lied to you in this weve 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 make having sex outside of marriage is not going to fill the void that youre trying to fill it only creates more and more of a vast open and deep within you because you are opening yourself in the most mourner of all way to another human being who is in no way committed to and his whose actions are really out of selfishness unlikely and a desire to meet a need that day. The day i had him 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 get better im just bawling my eyes out of like i dont know what to do ive never done this and whenever he. I was scared the 1st time i change just. Like i care to change the diaper it will finish but what do you mean you can change diapers like i cant do this i am fix tina i can do this i cannot. I cannot just call work and raise a child. This precious little boy mile at me and im thinking i cant 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 made all kinds of issues because now youre not just a Typical High School kid youre responsible for another human being youre going to have to find a way to bring in candy youre 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 ive 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 cant take away those consequences and you now have very difficult decisions to me. So i have my little brother you. Will be about to be doing it for. A wake up at 6 in the morning around 7 i will wake up my little brother and mother around 720 i will get matthew ready for my sisters at 730 take my. Brother the 730 i get the school im on racing im running rushing to get there i get out of school i want 30 and i was going to work at 2 and get up before i found my sister shall i blame when matthew 30 minutes but i have and then i go to work and whenever i get my 30 minute lunch break to thinking go to my fish health and spend time with then go back and then i get off work around my i want to put them both this way im after but then obviously i are working on my homework at around 1030 and i usually call for a better one it. Was a pandemic no certainly no borders im just glad to nationalities. You. Know so much we dont come its really we dont look like seem to. Be just sitting. Judges. Commentary crisis with this system to modern times we can do better and we should. Everyone is contributing its your own way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenges crave the response has been so many good people are helping us. It makes us feel very proud that were in it together. During the vietnam war u. S. Forces also bomb to neighboring laos there was a secret war. And for years the American People did not know. How much it is officially the most heavily bombed country per capita in all of Human History millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this Small Agricultural country jordyn we dont think were going to. Even today kids in laos full victims of bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for that tragedy and what help to the people need in that little land of mines. In. This politically impossible in the United States to advise eating was anything that has an industry. That makes a lot of money. And going to say over and over again we know what it is in these not much for one for one thing and even less is very very bad for business it doesnt make anybody rich if people eat less. So what i would say to a 15 year old is. I apologize that would have convinced me. That you are lazy but you are and they are incapable they you are still because i dont believe any of those things and. I believe that you have a purpose i believe that greatness is on the. I believe that you bring value into other peoples lives and youll bring value to the lot of the child who choose to hear that its not going to be. And we have failed and it is now our job to come alongside of in support to enable you to make better choices and. My mom will watch matthew the 1st here that i have and i want to tell their. Thank you mom i love you i appreciate you and what you were. Ok before she shows her love differently. You were showing her love by watching him. Taking care of me making sure i had to put on my head. She told me for the 1st time i know i never tell you this often but im so proud of you you have a baby you are working youre going to form not only that youre getting she told me that i was if they dont and if. Youre a strong woman. For me to get a message from her saying im proud of you and everything they are complex and everything thats regularly for me was the best prez i could ever get this is what i have been working for years to get us some for im proud of. Theres a group of villagers working the fields by river when someone in the crew noticed a baby floated downstream. 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 found floating downstream for life there was a steady flow of babies floating down the river and the whole village was involved in the rescue effort 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. Ranging river rather 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 to much one group argued that every possible hand was needed downstream to help rescue the babies they didnt have everyones help they would lose too many downstream. The other group argued that every possible hand was needed upstream think of find out how the babies were getting into the water they could save all of them in a limb an ape 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 its too risky some said might fail or take too long. To lose too many lives. We owe it to the ones weve lost and our future children to fix the problem upstream and save one else falling into. A drought from a separate water fountains used and well how much. Ok what was different about the water. Coming out of it found. That we have a mountain that one of the bones of me. Another go up will. Most. People feel completely. All that life. Based 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 or 8 you know provide people with assistance with child care with out thing that has to be but because people. 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 but you know the circumstances that got us where we are are unique and so our approach every person and every family and poverty needs to be is unique as that person in that family and thats difficult to do and its a little overwhelming to think about but people are different its interesting looking back historically on what weve done to address poverty the United States its 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 body there is not a lot of evidence that those things are going to move people out of poverty except temporarily i dont 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 opportunity not equality of result. 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 it was 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 thats not something that you can contain we knew you cant contain hope i left this place with hope and im going to tell everybody about it i want them to know what i know and im going to succeed because people came in the room they didnt know me and i matter i wasnt born. I am hard. Right im no longer in this isolation where im 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 youre 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 thats where we can start to create a basis of understanding a person saying im not going to judge you im not going to criticize you im not going to do you value your lived experience because its different than my you say to the other human being what ever. Dream. When i was growing up. There were. That were completely. And there were a few kids that were trying really hard to make good choices. Their focus at work. But most of us were somewhere in this gray area where were trying to get our toes as close as we can without completely stepping over but really convicted either way were just all kind of trying to get. What. Is that there are more kids off the rails. There are very few. But there are of young people who are committed who are strong who are focused who want to make. Are making and. That is my hope for the next generation. And that hope comes from the stories that we tell that hope. You can be this were going to stand by were going to help you get through this day after the power to turn the ship and. Make good decisions after that. One of the bigger you have to realize that if you do 24 compound interest things that were going to take you to places that you can but i understand what you do today is going to play more interest that anything youre playing a game thats bigger than yourself youre playing a game for your familys name for your kids that dont 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 were using for our programs some of that can be preventable we want to help them we want to help the Community Around us nats what were 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 theyll say im 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 Issues dont ask for help. Thats 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 Fighting was the key is allowing hope and we cant allow hope we cant communicate hope we can allow worth until theres a 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 in their kids its not been the river thats the movement we want when we 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 theyre not so different after all. You cant be bold with yeah you know what. The world is driven by dreamers shaped by one person or those. Who dares thinks. We dare to ask. For money and onions and money im not one. Of them so i dont need one im full. Of a time about what it was it was a bit and i want to listen to the bomb was more about the. One with the one in the side the fulcrum of the. Scene that im going to get but im the same boat but a cop on a plane but off. By now im by the imam obama didnt. London Police Officer is suspended off to video a mug shot of and needling on the neck of a black man he was arresting also ahead. Pressure mounts on the israeli Prime Minister over his pandemic for months amid ongoing corruption claims. United states quotes up 77000. 00 new coronavirus cases in just a single day shattering its previous record which it comes as Donald Trumps rating seem to be plummeting in response to his handling of the