Mastering The Art Of Success

(^) Mastering the Art of Success
(^)
CANFIELD
It depends on what kind of district you’re in. If it’s a poor district
the parents could be on drugs, alcoholics, and basically just not
available. If you’re in a really high rent district the parents are not
available because they’re both working, coming home tired, they’re jet-
se tters, or they’re working late at the office because they’re
workaholic s. Sometimes it just legitimately takes two paychecks to pay
the rent anymore.
I find that the majority of parents care but often they don’t know
what to do. They don’t know how to discipline their children. They
don’t know h ow to help them with their homework. They can’t pass on
skills that they never acquired themselves.
Unfortunately, the trend tends to be like a chain letter. The people
with the least amount of skills tend to have the most number of
children. The other thing is that you get crack babies (infants born
addicted to crack cocaine because of the mother’s addiction). As of this
writing, in Los Angeles one out of every ten babies born is a crack baby.
WRIGHT
That’s unbelievable.
CANFIELD
Yes, and another statistic is that by the time 50 percent of the kids
are twelve years old they have started experimenting with alcohol. I see
a lot of that in the Bible belt. The problem is not the big city, urban
designer drugs, but alcoholism.
Anoth er thing you get, unfortunately, is a lot of let’s call it “familial
violence”—kids getting beat up, parents who drink and then explode,
child abuse, and sexual abuse. Y ou see a lot of that.
WRIGHT
Most p eople are fascinated by these television shows about being a
survivor. What has been the greatest comeback that y ou have made
fr om adversity in your career or in your life?