Ghetto Royalty

Once upon a time, there was a King and a Queen. The Queen had given birth to six sons and one daughter. The princess was the oldest who loved to dance, draw pictures, and tease her brothers. She did not have her own private space in their ghetto apartment. The princess spent her nights sleeping on the couch. Every prince loved to eat, run, play computer games, and sports. The princes all shared a room that had two bunk bed sets and a twin bed in it. Monday thru Friday, the children would go to school until three o'clock. Then they would go to the Boys & Girls Club of America until six o'clock at night. The King was a plumber and spent most of his time dealing with sewage, so he smelled bad every time he got home. The Queen cleaned homes and office buildings. When they returned home, everyone could not wait to eat and take baths. Since there was only one bathroom, everyone took turns, and the King always went first. While all the children were waiting for their turn in the bathroom, they finished their homework. After eating diner, the Queen would read her children bedtime stories. Every story was always a fairy tale with a happy ending and nothing like what people experienced in real life.

Every weekend the Queen would take her children to a new park to explore. The Queen bought a rope for playing tug a war, frisbees, a basketball, soccer ball, football, sacks to race in, and a bowling set. The Queen kept all these things in her van for her children to play with at the park.

One day Prince Kay found himself in a terrible situation because he wore some cheap shoes to school. Every one of the children in his eighth-grade class started making jokes about his sneakers and laughing at him. Prince Kay was so embarrassed and did not want to go to school anymore. Even when he stopped wearing the sneakers, they continued to tease him. The extremely tall and skinny Prince M, was also being harassed at school. Some guys decided to hit him because they felt that he was too weak to fight back. The King told his sons to ignore them. The Queen was outraged and immediately went to talk to the principal. The principal had a meeting with all the student's parents, and he decided to place them in detention for three days.

That night the Queen decided to change the bedtime stories from fairy tales like Cinderella and the toy story. She started telling stories about how every child was either a prince or a princess with superpowers of their own. When a woman gets married and her husband respects and adores her. It does not matter if they are rich, poor, sick, or healthy that type of man becomes her King. When the King finds someone that supports him and pours all her positive energy into him. She becomes the type of woman who can receive the title of being his Queen out of respect. They do not have to be rich or live in a castle. They can be in an apartment in a neighborhood filled with gangs and drugs.

The superpowers that all children possess are their words, actions, and beliefs. The Queen went on talking to her sons and telling them that when they go places and people are teasing them those are only words. Those words do not have any power to hurt you unless you believe them. Also that they can always use their words for good and tell those bullies that all you want to do is go to school and learn so you can get a good job when you grow up. No matter how poor or rich my parents are, it is because of what they decided to do with their education when they were my age. So yes, my parents may be poor and struggling, but that does not make me poor. Just like having rich parents who own a successful business will not make me rich. That business belongs to them, not me if I do not learn how to run that business, I will have to work somewhere else. They choose to give me things or not. I do not have control over that. All I can do is go to school and work hard for my happiness in this world. So whatever you say about me is your opinion and it has nothing to do with why I am going to school every day. The boys understood their Mom and went back to school. No one bothered them anymore and they began believing that they can control their own emotions so no one could make them sad or feel less than them anymore. They grew up to be very successful doctors, lawyers, and businessmen and lived happily ever after.

My Mom did not ever read to me when I was young, neither did my father. I personally have always read history stories to my children when they were growing up. Stories about prophets and people who lived during the time that the prophets were alive. I always wanted my children to be able to apply whatever I read to them to their own lives. So I could not write about my experiences instead, I made one up myself. I hope you enjoyed it.