Uniquely Designed:
The Journey To Becoming Me
Shelene Wolins
PSY 202: Adult Development & Life Assessment
Rochelle Kilmer
July 11, 2008
From the Windy City to the Great Lakes I am…
It was a chilly, sunny day in Chicago, the perfect day to be born. March 3,
1970, is where my life and journey begins.
My parents met in grade school around the ages of twelve and thirteen. Little did they know they would become husband and wife four years later. Davey Lee Greathouse and Laureen Adams became parents at an early age and then married. My sister Vanita, was born in October of 1966, my brother, Davey Jr. in May of 1968 and they saved the best for last me. By the age of twenty and twenty-one they had three children, very limited education and no stable income. This equation equals a hard knocks life.
One would think that growing up and living in the city was fun and exciting and at times it was but I recall it being hard and troubling. I grew up in the inner city during a time when gang violence was at an all time high, where you could not walk down the streets or even go to school without being asked, ” What you ride?” Which meant, what gang did you represent? Regardless of your response you would get “jumped in” meaning you were beaten until you said you would join or worse hospitalized or sometimes death. Another facet of city life was the rampant use and selling of drugs in and around the schools in my neighborhood. Because of this, my mother decided to integrate or “bus” us into the White schools which were in more suburban areas, where we had to catch the city bus to the school bus that would take us on to school, thus the term ’bussed.”
Of course we were made fun of by both the Black and White kids. Our friends felt we thought we were better than them, we were labeled as sellouts and the White kids (manly their parents) did not understand nor did they want us in their neighborhoods or schools. I began to...