[pm90]

I'm very sorry to hear the trying circumstances in your youth... but I'm very glad that you did manage to break out of it and be successful. The solutions you suggest to changing culture will unfortunately definitely not work. If its one thing I've noticed, its that if you try to ban something it drives it underground and makes it even "cooler". I don't know what the solution is, but changing the culture like that just isn't valuable.

There is also this fact that a lot of people who grew up in better circumstances (including myself and most of my friends) just never get to meet, interact with and understand people who grew up in tough cultures like you did.

[tcbawo]

I think you touched upon my original sentiment and that intimated by several others, which is that parents look out for their children and try to put them in the best situation. This is why we see competition to move into the best school districts, pricing many hard working and worthy families out. Unfortunately, we see this played out in irrational and societally negative ways like white flight. As a society, we lack role models which do not derive from a promotional/capitalistic agenda (ie. sports stars, musicians). Clustering people by socioeconomic status probably only serves to further deprive lesser privileged children of role models. There is no easy answer. Some solutions are known, but NIMBY is a powerful force.