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Doug Wallace, an attorney and author of the memoir, Everything Will Be All Right knows what it is like to grow up in abject poverty. Out of four generations, he was the only member to escape the cycle of poverty. "The hearts and minds of small children are delicate organs," says Wallace, "and this is especially true in the case of babies born into poverty." Constant neediness eventually gets the better of the child, becoming meddlesome to the heart and mind. As the child grows older, the organs are easily galled and anguished by the most mundane things. By their teenage years, the fear of uncertainty dims the clarity of thought as the child steadily loses a stake in the future. Grasping for salvation, the child will resort to the undisciplined pursuit of a quick solution. A child might turn to fighting as a way to gain respect, or to drugs as an escape from the real world. A chronic shortage of cash may cause the child to drop-out of school or turn to crime. The heart and mind surrenders to the need for gratification. As they grow into adults, they are positioned to remain in the poverty class. The pattern of behavior tends to mirror that of their parents—a constant struggle for survival, unemployment, low wages, a miscellany of unskilled occupations, a chronic shortage of cash, the absence of food reserves in the home, pawning personal goods, borrowing from anyone who would loan money, and use of second-hand clothing and furniture. As a parent, the cycle is repeated as perceived failure fuels internalized oppression, which plays itself out in violence and put-downs. The parent unwittingly holds their children back from reaching their potential, just as their parents did before them. To stop the cycle, society has to protect the heart and mind of the child.
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Doug Wallace is an attorney, a successful entrepreneur and a published author. His book Everything Will Be All Right is scheduled for nationwide launch on October 1, 2009. Doug chose to write his story of growing up in poverty as a way to call attention to the unimaginable hardships for the generationally impoverished. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders Kindle, Sony Reader, and retail book stores everywhere beginning fall 2009.
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