single-mothers

Before I was born my father disowned me. You know those ones who get the females pregnant, and then say the baby is not theirs? He rejected me, told my mother that I am not his child, so I never had a relationship with my father. Shelton __pples_ Burrows reform gang leader

Nowadays it is seen as a shame, to marry a girl who is a mother, who has never been married. I want to get rid of that prejudice.

If you have no armsTo hold your crying child but your own armsAnd no legs but your own to run the stairs one more timeTo fetch what was forgottenI bow to youIf you have no vehicleTo tote your wee one but the wheels that you driveAnd no one else to worry, __s my baby okay?__hen you have to say goodbye on the doorsteps of daycareor on that cursed first day of schoolI bow to youIf you have no skill but your own skillTo replenish an ever-emptying bank accountAnd no answers but your own toSatisfy the endless whys, hows, and whens your child asks and asks againI bow to youIf you have no tongue to tell the truthTo keep your beloved on the path without a precipiceAnd no wisdom to impartExcept the wisdom that you__e acquiredI bow to youIf the second chair is emptyAcross the desk from a scornful, judging authority waitingFor your child__ father to appearAnd you straighten your spine where you sitAnd manage to smile and say, __o one else is coming____ it.__h, I bow to youIf your head aches when the spotlight finally shineson your child because your hands are the only hands there to applaudI bow to youIf your heart aches because you__e given until everything in you is goneAnd your kid declares, __t__ not enough.__nd you feel the crack of your own soul as you whisper,__ know, baby. But it__ all mama__ got.__h, how I bow to youIf they are your life while you are their nurse, tutor, maidBread winner and bread baker,Coach, cheerleader and teammate_If you bleed when your child falls downI bow, I bow, I bowIf you__e both punisher and huggerAnd your own tears are drowned out by the running of the bathroom faucetbecause children can__ know that mamas hurt tooOh, mother of mothers, I bow to you.__oni Sorenson

The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family. For some of those guys in the gang that was the only family they knew, because when their mothers had them they were too busy having children for other men. Some of them never knew their daddies. Their daddies never look back after they got their mothers pregnant, and those guys just grew up and they couldn__ relate to nobody. When they had their problems, who could they have talked to? Nobody would listen, so they gravitated together and form a gang. George Mackey, the former representative for the historic Fox Hill community in The Bahamas.

We really had a close netted structure to rely on for anything, you could have gone by anyone house and get something to eat. Whatever they were eating, they would__e fed you, and all the mothers would__e treated you just like they treated their own. What the gang also did, it provided some level of protection for a lot of the working adults in the neighborhood. They knew that their houses were safe, when they went out to work and didn__ have to worry about anyone breaking in to their homes. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members

I came from as low as one could come, with no mother and no father. So in return I build a family for myself and these fella__ were a part of my family. So I had to look out for them, as if I was looking out for my children. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the definition of the word __ebellion_ is __n act or a show of defiance toward an authority or established convention. Extensions of the expression include to fly in the face of danger and to fly in the face of providence, both of which carry a sense of reckless or impetuous disregard for safety.__ecause we did not grow up with our fathers, we became reckless with our lives and disregarded the lives of others as well. Therefore, the problem is not the gangs, so to speak; rather, it__ the conditions that create them. It is the dismantling of our homes and marriages that create the right conditions for gangs to flourish. If homes could be put back together or prevented from falling apart, then these symptoms could be, root cause eradicated.

We don't get to choose who we fall in love with. If we did, the world would have fewer single mothers.

The Rebellions were the first gang in The Bahamas, to come up with a popular logo/brand in the wearing of Raiders clothing. However, other neighborhoods gave birth to their own gangs using popular sporting team images as their official colors and name. You had the Hoyas Bull Dogs out of Kemp Road; the Coconut Grove area took on the name Nike, which became their clothing of choice. Miami Street took on the name Hurricanes, and wore Miami Hurricanes clothing. However, when you look at it closely, because of the lack of involved fathers, a lot of us were simply lacking an image and a positive identity of ourselves.

I feel like I've lived numerous lives...and you can explore my incarnations through my works.

I never thought to ascribe my mother's emotional and physical exhaustion to the lack of a husband and father; rather, I ascribed it to my existence. In other words, I grew up learning the exact opposite of what Eisenhower was taught. I learned that if I didn't exist, the family would be better off. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved. (page 35)