People around me. Reading social and community context.
I was born in Newcastle, in the small town of North Shields. Both of my parents are white British, they were both quite well-off regarding income as they had high-paying careers and we lived in a bought house with my two brothers Ross now 27, and Jordan, 21. We lived in an estate when I was young just off the area of Meadowell, this area was a well-known place for crime and local authority housing. Although our street was tranquil, we still had ‘troublemakers’ around us, like all areas. I would describe my upbringing as the best I feel I could have had, because of the area I grew up in a lot of my friends had very different lifestyles than myself, but this never phased me, at the end of the day they were still my friends. In Rick Bowler’s chapter from my reading resources, I related to when he discussed that unequal social conditions bread fear, distrust, anger, and poverty (Bowler, 2013).
As I said, my friends that I grew up with had a totally different upbringing from mine, they were treated differently, and their families never had the same treatment as my family did. A couple of my friends grew to be troublemakers and angry, I suppose this was them crying for attention and to be noticed by not only their parents but everybody else around them. If they did bad things, they would look brave. I believe this relates to what Bowler said about unequal social conditions breading aspects of a person because if they got the attention, they craved they would not need to act out of character.
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Bowler states that youth work has shifted from a universal approach to more targeted to those who need it most, I think there are pros and cons to this (Bowler, 2013). I understand the importance of helping those in need, but this could cause issues for those who do not get attention just because they had a good life. When I was in my adolescent stages of life, I went to a youth club around my area and I always noticed that other children would get more ‘attention’ than I would receive and if there were any trips they would always be considered first, this sometimes upset me but now when I look back on it, I know the reasons why and know that there is always a reason behind why people do things.
Different does not mean different. Socialisation and Radicalisation.
I do not remember enormous amounts from primary school, I know I fitted in quite well, I was never really bullied or in trouble. I had a lot of friends and a good experience in my years. Starting high school, this was slightly trickier as I did not know anybody because I went to a catholic school and most of my friend’s families did not investigate the same school choices as my mother. I quickly adapted to high school life and became very good friends with two girls, one called Ami lived very close to my house so we would go to each other’s after school and sometimes would visit our other friend Katrina.
In Gundara’s chapter ‘An Intercultural Apprenticeship’, he talks about how education is seen as the only avenue that would lead out of the trap of the complex middle position of the Asian minority, my friend Katrina was from the Philippines and I understood what Gundara was saying in regards to this as Katrina’s parents where very pushy towards focusing on school and becoming a nurse, I never understood why they were so pushy but over time this became apparent that they needed the education to feel accepted (Gundara, 2000). I had never really had a friend from a different cultural background, this did not faze me at all. I would enjoy having tea at Katrina’s, they ate quite a lot of rice so I decided I would have rice and tomato sauce one day, and this quickly became my favorite meal! It interested me a lot to know the different languages they spoke and, in some ways, a different outlook on life.
One night I will never forget. Critical Moments.
When I was around 5 years old my parents split up, I know this affected me and my older brother a considerable amount, my brother went off the rails at school and started to misbehave. My little brother was only 6 months old, so he never really understood. After the separation, my father neglected us for a few years and acted up a bit. A few years on me and my brothers started to have more contact with our father and by this point, both parents had met somebody new, we accepted this and accepted that we had an extended family structure. This shows I had to adapt to my surroundings, but my mother helped me with this. The significance of the social in all forms of interaction, producing active and generative forms of character work, something as simple as speaking to others around you becomes the justification that you will be okay (Wood, Westwood, and Thompson, 2015).
In 2010, the one night I will never forget as it changed my life completely, but not for the right reasons. I remember like It was yesterday, I was at Wallsend Mero station on my own on my way home after having a night with a couple of friends. A drunk man approached me and asked me for money, I politely told him I did not have any as I had spent up on a pizza that night! The man quickly became aggressive and at this point, I found myself cornered with nowhere to run with a knife pointed at me. I cried my eyes out absolutely petrified, nobody was around to help me. I do not know how I did it, but I managed to literally crawl past the man’s legs, get on my feet and run as fast as could away from him. I cannot help but think somebody else may not have been as lucky as me that night and that petrifies me. Ever since that night, I would not leave the house, I did not want to see my friends or go anywhere public. This caused me a huge amount of anxiety, I was treated for anxiety and PTSD from the age of 15 and remain on my anxiety medication now, this incident is something that has had a profound impact on my life and unfortunately has restricted me from doing a lot of things in my youth. I have never been on any sort of public transport since that day without somebody else with me. While reading the chapter Locating the Self by Jason Wood, I came across a quote that I found quite relevant to this instance, it reads “the significance of our life experiences and how they help shape who we are” (Wood, Westwood, and Thompson, 2015).
This ordeal has changed my life enormously, unfortunately in bad ways more than good but one thing I learned was that people can use their powers to undermine yours and that is the way they choose to live their lives and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that other than be yourself. Wood talks about stereotyping in which women face being the lesser human to a man, he states the main issue as a practitioner is that our expectations of another person’s personality can affect the way we treat somebody, and I can relate to this statement as I feel this man felt he was superior to myself and that he could overpower and intimidate me. It is so important that as a youth worker, you do not have this way of thinking, because everybody is equal and should be treated that way (Wood, Westwood, and Thompson, 2015).
I rebelled against my mother. Adolescence, identity, and change.
Growing up I rebelled against my mother quite a bit and blamed her for everything that had gone wrong in my life, I know now that is far from the truth. My mother is my absolute rock, she is my best friend, I could not think of anybody better to raise me and I do not know where I would be without her. Due to my rebellion against my mother, I had a strong relationship with my nana, she was like my mother growing up. Sadly, she died in 2012, this really broke me, and I felt like everything I had felt before this was nothing. I went downhill after my nana’s passing; I was diagnosed with depression not long after this and was referred to a counselor at my GP to help me come to terms with her death and accept it as a blessing she was ever my rock and I now cherish that. I started to misbehave at college and could not finish my studies to become a Teacher.
In the chapter Who Am I Going to Be? By Chris Beckett, he talks about how crime and self-destruction happen within adolescence and this is exactly where I was in my life, although he also talks about parenting styles being an impact on the adolescent transition I always had an amazing upbringing but looking back on my situation now I believe my parents splitting and having a broken home could have been an impact on my life but because I was so little when it happened, It slowly crept up on me as well as the trauma I endured at such a young age as previously spoken about (Beckett and Taylor, 2010). Beckett also talks about self-doubt during my transition to adulthood (Beckett and Taylor, 2010), I had an incredible amount of self-doubt and lack of confidence growing up and still do now but if I could speak to my younger self now as a youth worker helping people in the same situation, I would tell her to never give up, nobody is perfect because in the end it is you that controls how you see yourself and how your life is being lived, and the only person that can change that is you.
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