Rosa Lee Story

The Rosa lee story Rosa Lee gave dash full access to her and her family life for four years, because she thought someone could learn from it. Rosa was born in Washington and was living a low class life, and often looked down up on for it . Rosa lee was brought up in a single parent house hold and when she entered jr. high her dad died. Rosa mom often struggled to take care of her and her siblings. Her mother gave birth to twenty-two kids, but only eleven survived. Rosa and her mom never saw eye to eye and when she got pregnant at the age of thirteen it didn’t make their relationship any better.
At the age of fourteen she had her first prostitution experience for five dollars, she told her customers at work that if they were going to have sex with her, they had to pay because she had eight kids at home. After Rosa third child she married into an abusive relationship with a man who was twenty one which made her sixteen she couldn’t take anymore so she moved back in with her mom. Rosa and her mom relationship was filled with conflict. At a very young age Rosa started stealing from people. She stole to basically buy her some friends, she would take her friends to the movies and buy them candy.
At the age of twenty Rosa had moved to the North East with her six kids and was on welfare by the time she was twenty one she had two more kids. Rosa just wanted to make sure her family was ok and that they had some of the things they needed. Rosa also did other jobs that paid under the table so she could still get her welfare check. So she became a dancer at night clubs and got paid for sex. Being brought up in a neighborhood like Rosa had several down falls. Her and her sibling didn’t really have anyone to motivate them to do the right thing. The girls were supposed to be domestic but Rosa rebelled against it.

Rosa started selling drugs in the seventies and in fifteen years she was in jail a dozen times. Until Rosa was twenty-nine she got away with stealing, she tried to steal a fur coat and had to do eight months in jail. Most of Rosa lee brother and sisters made it out of poverty and became middle class. They had honest jobs like bus driving and had their own cab services. Her brother and sister choose a different path because they seen and knew the struggle that their mom and sister Rosa had to deal with. Seeing Rosa life its self made you want to do right.
Eight kids, having to steal, selling and using drugs and being back and forth in jail made you want to do right. Rosa didn’t start selling drugs with the intent to use them, it just happened, she thought selling marijuana and heroin was a quick way to get money and keep her welfare, but when she started she couldn’t quit she was using two fourty dollar bags a day. She said that when she used the drug it gave her courage. Rosa could do and say anything when she was high. Rosa and her siblings used drugs and broke the law because they were not taught any right from wrong .
They had such a rough childhood and at this time they didn’t know any better, they were young when they started. Even Rosa kids started taking different paths at very young ages. They didn’t go to school because she didn’t make them. Rosa did drugs in front of her kids and it made them want it. Her one and only daughter Patty started using drugs at the age of thirteen and was rapped several times by relatives while Rosa was incarcerated, which is why she said she hated males and on top of that she was prostituted by her mom.
Her son Ronnie started using drugs at the age of fifteen, she told him if he wanted to drugs he had to support his own habit, so he started selling marijuana with his mom. Her oldest son Bobby died of aids cause they all shared needles. At a very young age Rosa stopped going to church and didn’t start going back until she was about forty. She didn’t seek for religious ways to help her in her situation she thought that what she was doing was right for her and her kids.
Even with Rosa taking the path she did she could have taught her kids the right from wrong. I think that Rosa had a choice to do well she just choose a different path. She lived in a single parent household, where drugs were being sold and welfare was the way to live. She wasn’t getting the attention that she needed so she explored and ended up finding out the hard way that wasn’t the life she wanted to live. If Rosa stayed in school and maybe had a better a male figure in her life she probably wouldn’t have been in all the trouble she was in.