Doug Wallace: Inspirational Stories of Childhood Poverty

Everything Will Be All Right (A True Story That Questions the Social Science Behind Poverty)

Fifty years after Lyndon B. Johnson initiated the "War on Poverty", the number of children living in poverty today is higher than of any time in our nation's history. In his memoir, Doug Wallace and his seven siblings barely survived childhood, fleeing in the night from landlords, scrambling for food, and burning down the only house they ever owned to collect insurance money. His family had lived in poverty for generations. Children's studies show that the longer children remain in poverty, the greater the chances that they will grow up to remain in poverty. In Everything Will Be All Right, Wallace recounts his ...

The Safety Net that Never Was

There is no such thing as guaranteed success.  We all start out in life with expectations. [caption id="attachment_6538" align="alignright" width="150"] The Poor are Falling Through the Net[/caption] Some people begin life with a head start.  Others start out at the bottom and work their way up. But there's another segment of society, the poorest among us, that are born into such dire economic circumstances that it takes a miracle for them to escape poverty.Destiny is as much influenced by our free will as free will is influenced by our destiny. Yet when a child is brought up in a culture of poverty, the choices they will make are more likely ...

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HARD WORK

There's no easy way to do hard work. You have to find your passion, stay focused, and keep at the task until the job is done. If you own a small business, then growing that company means eating, sleeping, living, dreaming and breathing your small business 24/7. You have to stay obsessively motivated. You have to stay on course, everywhere and in every way you can. You have to keep up with what your competition is doing. When I ran my small business, before I sold it, my mission statement was "One team, better, faster, cheaper, than anyone else in the world." With respect ...

TRUE MEASURE OF SUCCESS

The movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," is about a small town banker and how beautifully he created a living legacy which changed the destiny of an entire town. But the movie had an ironic twist. In the movie, the true measure of the lead character's success was not about his political acumen, or his oratory skills, or the great success he acheived in the community. Indeed, his success was measured by the many choices and behaviors, made when he was a young boy, and continuing throughout his early adulthood life. You see, George Bailey, the lead actor in the movie, was given a wonderful gift--an Angel allowed George Bailey to see ...

Self Determination: The Power Within You

“You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you” Oliver Wendell Holmes   Family values have a historical significance in American History based upon the fundamental belief that every generation shall have a better future. Parents teach their children to reach for the stars, to utilize all the power than is within them in order to achieve their full potential. Our children and grandchildren will be impacted by the beliefs and behavior of their generation and they will be influenced by the historical events that will occur in their time. We can help them by ...

Author Interview: Sociology Students Ask Questions About Growing up Poor

The Project: Students studying sociology at a northeasrtern university were asked to read the memoir, "Everything Will Be All Right", as a class assignment. They were asked to use their sociological imaginations to study the behavioral patterns of children born into generational poverty. Upon completion of the class, they were asked to submit questions to the author.  The professor then picked a select group of questions from the students and sent them to me. If you have read my memoir, this post will be interesting to you. If you have not, I encourage you to read it anyway because it will provide great insight into ...

Sargent Shriver: A Man Who Had Been Given a Great Gift

Sargent Shriver died on January 11, 2011. Lyndon Johnson once referred to Sargent Shriver as "Mr. Poverty," because of his extensive work in creating programs like the Jobs Corps. Today, poverty levels are at an all time high. Our nation could learn a lot about the culture of poverty by studying the life of Sargent Shriver, a man who was given a great gift. The gift of understanding the real needs of children born into poverty. "If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigid caste society.” These are the words of Sargent ...

Troubled Teen Escapes Poverty: Achieves Financial Independence

That's me, Doug Wallace,  top center in the above photo. My siblings and I lived with our parents in the Kirkpatrick Homes housing projects in Granite City, IL in 1955. There were six of us children back then. Years later, our mother would give birth to two more boys. We lived in abject poverty in a crowded housing project apartment where food, shelter and safety were never assured. By the time I was fourteen years old I was firmly entrenched in the culture of poverty. In reality I was afraid of being stuck in the cycle of poverty, but you couldn't tell that by my behavior. As a teenager, my life ...

Teens in Poverty Face Life-Changing Choices

In the poverty neighborhoods of east Nashville, we lived in a time and a place in which rules were far less important than a healthy self-image. When your sense of self-worth is constantly hammered, demanding respect is the measure by which we hold on to our dignity. If we didn't get that respect, then we fought---yes it was wrong, but it is one of the ways the poverty culture teaches troubled teens to deal with a low sense of self-worth.  Respectability expands opportunities for “self-determination," and opens the doors for communicating with the other social economic classes. It was unspoken knowledge in our neighborhoods that blending ...

Troubled Teens: How Can We Save Them?

When thinking about the culture of poverty, start with the proposition that poverty is evil– people are not. By way of example, we’re all born equally innocent, a happy baby in search of the good. There is no rule that says a child born in poverty is less innocent, less intelligent, less motivated, or less important that a child born into immense wealth. So, what happens to cause children to drift away, or digress from that which humans are naturally built to do—quest after the search of good? Mike Tyson, by the age of thirteen, had been arrested over a dozen times ...

Myths and Inconvenient Truths About Children in Poverty

There are many unknown factors when it comes to poverty, especially if you come from a background of the middle and upper classes. Though we can't predict the future, we can dispel some myths, and confirm some inconvenient truths, that collectively affect the sense of self worth and behavior of poverty victims, and make escaping poverty far more daunting than most people realize. This post will explore some of the myths, and inconvenient truths that affect the self-esteem and behaviors of impoverished families and over time gives little incentive for them to make it in the mainstream society. Though many of these myths have some elements of truth, it ...

Doug Wallace Live Radio Interview With the Jim Bohannon Show

This radio interview was with Jim Bohannon (pictured left) of the Jim Bohannon Show, broadcast live over 350 stations nationwide. It involves live interaction with listeners calling into the program. Though I have done dozens of radio interviews, this particular interview involved live calls from listeners and I enjoyed that very much. The thing about a live interview is that there is no rehearsal because you cannot anticipate the question. I think you will enjoy this interview very much, so please take the time to listen. If you are a teacher or a professional in sociology, or a parent dealing with a troubled teen, I think you ...

Character Counts

Young people generally value the opinions of their elders, and will often ask questions like, What advice do you give to someone who really wants to succeed financially?  I used to ask the same kind of questions to my elders during my younger years. Out of all the advise I received, the most valued was from my college roommate's father. My roommate during early college years invited me to his parent's house in Milwaukee, WI for the weekend. After dinner, on that first night at his home, my roommate's father asked if he could speak with me privately. He pulled me aside and said, "I have some advice for ...

Life Changing Rules for a Better Life

The following chart illustrates the comparative choices, behaviors, characteristics, and habits of people born into generational as compared to other social classes. These rules show you how to live a better iife Learning these rules will change your life. If you live in poverty, learn these rules, change your behavior accordingly and you will live a better life. Subject Poverty Class Middle Class UpperClass Possessions People Things owned One-of-a-kind objects, pedigree. Money To be used spent. To be managed Is to be conserved, invested. Personality Is for entertainment.Sense of humor is highly valued. Is for acquisition and stability.Achievement is highly valued. Is for connection.Financial, political and social connections are highly valued Social Emphasis Social inclusion of people that he/she likes. Emphasis is on ...

Ten Behaviors Guaranteed To Ruin Your Life

Amidst the desolate landscape of missed opportunities and broken hearts there lies the unanswered question: Why Do People Fail in Life? Could you have detected early warning signs and avoided the misery of failure? How far can will you fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable?  How can you reverse course and get your life back on track? Every person, no matter their circumstances, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that says the rich are guaranteed success while the poor are not. Anyone can fail and most all of us eventually do. But, many people recover ...

Everything You Need to Know About Success

At the age of twenty-six I passed the bar exam and started my own law firm. The Juris Doctor degree I received from law school was my first and only degree. I didn't graduate from high school or college. I never once attended the best schools. In fact the law school where I received my Juris Doctor was Woodrow Wilson College of Law, a school that was not accredited by the ABA. But I had a strong and creative talent for survival. As it turned out, that creative skill gave me a tremendous edge over other lawyers, even those who considered themselves the best ...

When Entitlements Hurt Children in Poverty

The US Census report for 2010 reports a significant rise in the number of people in poverty in 2009 as compared to 2008. I don’t think this is a surprise to most people. The New York Times reported in September 2011 that more people are living in poverty today than at any time in the 52 years that the bureau has been keeping records. The increasing number of vacant office buildings and empty retail spaces in small towns across America are ominous signs that something is seriously wrong with our economy. It’s not just the high unemployment rate that is causing depression ...

Judy Collins: Send in the Clowns

This is Judy Collins singing "Send in the Clowns." I loved this song the first time I heard it many years ago, and I still love it today. It reminds me of the irony of the war on poverty. The perception that our government helps the poor is far from the reality.When I think of the lyrics to this song I’m reminded of the isolation of impoverished children. I know this song isn't written for poverty victims, but they do a good job of describing the problems of children in poverty. Within the profundity of those lyrics is a conundrum, thus far unanswered. When the ...

Teachers at Work

When I was contacted by the Principal at the Junior High School in Llano, Texas a few months back, I was thrilled that they had chosen to use my book to study the sociology of the culture of poverty. I had no idea of the adventure I was about to experience. Students were engaged in my story in a way that I could have never predicted. They related to my story of being born into generational poverty. They shared their own stories of poverty, and they did something that neither I nor the teachers anticipated; they openly discussed their own internal fears and concerns in comparison ...

How Children in Poverty Can Change Their Life?

The truth about child poverty is that these children have no idea about the social behaviors of the middle class. As they grow older, they want to have a better life—-they want all those things that children in the middle class want.   However, within the culture of the middle class, there are rules of behavior which are unknown to the child living in a culture of poverty. These rules reside in the reflexive loop of middle class children—--mindless common practices that are such an integral part of the upbringing that they become “common sense.” Children raised in the middle class might ...

Standing Up To My Father’s Rage

I was barely a teenager when I first learned about reducing fractions to their lowest common denominator. It’s not that I hated math. I was gifted with the ability to do many math equations in my head without the need of a writing pad. But, our family moved so frequently, from one run-down neighborhood to the next, attending schools in some of the worst schools in the area. Throughout my childhood I had limited access to a quality education as did all all eight of us children. It was rare for us to finish a school year in which we ...

How to Overcome the Odds

A university in New Jersey is using my memoir this semester as part of their studies in sociology. A couple of days ago I received a very nice letter from the Professor of Sociology at the university in which she made the following comment, ”We enjoyed reading about your struggles because as sociology majors we were able to use the sociological imagination to learn a lot and understand a lot about your life.” She sent a list of questions from some of the students who wanted to know a little more about my story. I was greatly honored that the university ...

Life Choices:Free Will or Destiny

“Do you believe in destiny or free will,” I asked my wife. “Well,” she replied. “If you were meant to be shot, then you will never have to worry about drowning.” "Thought provoking response,"  I amused, but I couldn’t help wondering what about those babies born into poverty? Where they meant to endure hunger, violence, deprivation and inequality as their destiny based solely upon the fact that they were born into poverty? Of course not—every child born in America should have an equal opportunity for a better life. Belief in fate and destiny are major tenets of my belief system. I believe this is the key ...

True Life Stories of a Child in Crisis

Children in poverty are emotionally fragile; their feelings are easily hurt by the most ordinary things. The real life stories of children living in dysfunctional homes where there is a constant crisis: utilities suddenly cut-off for nonpayment, evictions, addictions, and in your face violence are more prevalent today than at any time in my memory. There are times when everyone will experience hurt because things didn’t go their way, causing emotional pain. But, envision a lifestyle in which things rarely go your way as a result of the limitations imposed by poverty. The worst thing you can do is blame yourself ...

How to Escape Poverty: Gratitude

My brothers and I spent a lot of time during our teen years talking about our dreams and aspirations when we became adults. At an early age I decided that I would become an attorney. My older brother, Bracy, wanted to own a used car lot. His idea was to buy old cars, refurbish them, and sell them at a nice profit. Steve wanted to be a regional or national sales manager for a large retail store or fast food chain. My younger brother Rick was still very young and seemed content to hang out with his older brothers. Whenever we talked about making plans for the ...

A Mea Culpa Moment

I would like the tell the story of my own mea culpa moment, which taught me an important lesson--failure to say "I'm sorry," has the potential to seriously alter your own future success. In my memoir, Everything Will Be All Right, I write about an instructor at the Job Corps, where I was a corpsman, who for some reason, unknown to me, had judged me as an "arrogant" student who deserved to be taught a lesson. I learned that I was in trouible with the instructor when I was just weeks away from completing her course. The instructor announced to the entire class that I would get a final grade of “F,” as in failing ...

Indie Award For Best Non-Fiction: Reader Reviews

Aftr receiving the Indie Next List Notable award for best non-fiction my email inbox started getting crowded from readers, some who knew me from way back when, and some were people who crossed my path during my life journey, and others were from people who were touched by my story. I have selected letters from people who have written via email after reading my book. Due to space limitations, I couldn't include everyone's letter. If I omitted yours, please forgive me. The following are the reviews chosen from my email files: Letter from Book Club in Dallas, TX: The letter was written by a ...

Books Available on Amazon in Multiple Languages

  On October 1, 2009, Doug Wallace's memoir, Everything Will Be All Right, was released by Greenleaf Publishing Company in Austin, Texas. On December 1, 2009, the book won an Indie Bound Next List notable award for best non-fiction. I was thrilled to win this prestigious award as a first time author. I know how rare it is for a first-time author to get the kind of attention this book has gotten. Such success is rare, but in today’s publishing climate, they are almost unheard of. eBooks are available at Amazon for $2.99. Amazon Prime members can download the book free as a loaner. Another ...

What Money Can’t Buy

Have you ever considered what you have in life that really matters to you?  Chances are what really matters to you is something that money cannot buy. When I was ten years old my father set fire to the only house we ever owned, just to collect the insurance money. When I got off the school bus that afternoon the ashes were still smoldering. When I left for school that morning I didn't know that my father had planned on burning the house while I was away at school. My older brother later told me that the house burned faster than my ...

Impoverished Teens Need Jobs

Impoverished teens need jobs. The unemployment rate for teenagers today is a whopping 23%. That is especially bad news for teens from poverty neighborhoods. When it comes to job interviews, the middle class children will have an advantage over impoverished teens. Middle class teenagers will be interviewing with managers who are also from the middle class. The language skills and behaviors of the middle class will mirror those of the managers interviewing them.  Imagine the hurdles impoverished teens must overcome to get a job. Impoverished teens do not have a rule book on how to conduct yourself in an interview with the middle class. Their casual language will be replete with bad grammar ...

Social Science Studies Show Income Inequality Affects Children’s Brains

By Doug Wallace USA Today published an article four years ago social scientist released a, “Study:Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains.” The study adds to a growing body of evidence that shows how income inequality affects the language development and executive functions of those children whose parents are sliding into poverty. Children's studies have long established the effect of a parent's socioeconomic status upon the social skills of the child, including language acquisition, their ability to plan, to remember details and to pay attention in school. The income gap between the wealthiest 20 percent of American households and the rest of the country grew sharply in 2011, the Census Bureau reported, as an ...

Everything Will Be All Right by Douglas Wallace on ibook, iTunes

Everything Will Be All Right can be purchased Kindle, Google, Barnes & Noble or purchased for your  iPad, Iphone, or MAC . Writing a memoir is in some ways an emotional roller coaster ride.  Because every person is only one member of a larger family, then any person who writes a memoir is necessarily revealing specific and personal information about the larger family as a whole.  It makes sense that not everyone likes the idea that some member of their family is planning on writing a memoir. But the positives far away the negatives in writing a memoir.  For me, the greatest reward in writing a memoir was the positive feedback from readers. Students, ranging from Middle School to post graduate studies have reached ...

Please Mr. Spare Me a Job

America’s Flawed Safety Net—The Jig is Up!

America is facing a mountainous $16 trillion in debt, an anemic economy in a labor market with declining salaries, and a record increase in entitlement spending, such as a record handout of food stamps, cell phones, and a plethora of programs costing hundreds of billions of dollars. How America deals with this situation, how the government prioritizes its spending, will present a number of really big game changers that could affect the lifestyles of every American within a very short period of time. The average American today senses something is wrong with our economy, but they can't always explain exactly what is wrong with our economy. Perhaps it justn't doesn't feel right. One reason for ...

The War on Poverty Can be Won in the Classroom

I know I have written several articles about the importance of mentors for children born into poverty. But, I'll say it again, without mentors, most children born into poverty are destined to remain stuck in the cycle of poverty. I know many of you, dear readers, are teachers currently using my memoir in your classrooms as a real life example in the study of the culture of poverty. I really enjoy the Q & A sessions with the students. An example of the type of questions which student's ask can be found on my website at Students Interview Poverty Victim. I believe discussions like these can take a lot ...