The Flaws in a White Picket Fence

Ever since I was young, my mother dreamed of owning a house with a white picket fence. She couldn't own one as a result of her poor credit, her score kept her from getting a lot of the things she wanted. The thing about credit score is that it excludes all the setbacks and unwanted issues that causes the score to go down. At the time, I believed that hard work and dedication would make one’s adult life easier, that my mother was only doing poorly because she wasn’t saving her money. My siblings and I couldn’t understand why my mother was struggling to make ends meet every month, why she would yell at us almost every day after work about our education, and why it’s important. Later, I found out that there was no money saved up because there was no money to save up at all. Since my mother was always working, I had limited freedom and wasn’t allowed to leave our apartment. My older brother had to take care of us at such a young age; due to my mother’s inability to pay for a babysitter. One would think that being isolated would increase productivity, but isolation felt like punishment to us.

My siblings and I were discouraged from doing better because my mother portrayed this clear vision that we won’t be fortunate enough to become professionals in our future studies. This is why I spent a majority of my time watching a lot of television; thinking that was going to be my future. I would end up eating my life away on the couch watching television and not making time for friends or family, as a result of constant work. I found that films distracted me from the conflicts going on around me, that were too complex for me to understand at the time. I got to experience other lifestyles that helped me see the world from my home. I learned how to see other sides to an argument as I viewed new perspectives from characters with different backgrounds.

As I became more open minded it was easy to understand a lot about the real world: that my mother couldn't get her house with a white picket fence because she’s lower-middle class, that we are lower-middle class. I realized that not only were my mother’s problems somehow affecting my siblings; they would soon be passed onto us as well. It made me scared to think that children of parents who do poorly, have to try ten times harder to succeed. I had to get a job to start helping out my mother, along with my two older siblings. After working fast food I realized I didn’t want to work a low minimum wage job. This only turned me into a perfectionist who felt the need to not make any mistakes. Now I want to do my best to ensure a comfortable lifestyle for my family and me.

With that being said, I don’t want a white picket fence. It’s so cliche to think that a white picket fence symbolizes purity. When strangers walk by, I don’t want them to think, “They must have money”, or “They must’ve spent a lot”, or anything correlated in that direction. I want to be able to show my achievements without materialistic items. Not only does my family have our ups and downs, but they also taught me that nothing is perfect. That we are not perfect. I am glad that my lifestyle taught me humility and to be efficient in order to succeed. However, I don’t need a white picket fence for validation because I have my family; our togetherness is our fence.