A Quote by Eminem

I don't like to give the sob story: growing up in a single-parent home, never knew my father, my mother never worked, and when friends came over I'd hide the welfare cheese. Yo, I failed ninth grade three times, but I don't think it was necessarily 'cause I'm stupid. I didn't go to school. I couldn't deal.
Yo, I failed ninth grade three times, but I don't think it was necessarily 'cause I'm stupid.
My mother worked in advertising and my father was a journalist. But they split up when I was three and I grew up in a single-parent family. My mum brought my brother and I up.
I never went to high school. I never really finished eighth grade. I was kicked out of seventh grade once and eighth grade twice. Mainly for not showing up and not doing it. Then I went to an alternative high school for part of what would have been ninth grade and part of what would have been 10th grade.
I'd have to say I'm most proud of my mentoring camp that I do in Dallas every year for one hundred boys from single-parent homes. I was raised by a mother who was a Sunday school teacher and a father who worked hard. Together they taught me to give back.
When it came to my childhood - growing up in a single-parent home, often struggling financially - my mother definitely instilled in me and my siblings this strength, this will, to just continue to survive and succeed.
My mother wouldn't allow me to speak slang when I was growing up. But when I got outside, around my friends, it was 'Yo' and 'That's the joint' and 'Yo, what's up?' So I had my game for my friends and my game for my mom.
The idea of being at home and picking up kids from school and cooking dinner and then the husband comes home - there's something that seems really nice to me 'cause I never had that growing up. And it seems so enticing. But in my mind, I'm like, 'Well, I'll just play that in a movie and go about my own life, bizarre as it is.'
I don't forget my roots. My father was an emigrant from Italy who worked in a steel factory. My mother worked part-time. When my father came home she would go out to work, cleaning offices.
The main quality I have is my mentality because I never gave up - I never, ever give up. I have been like that since I was young. I knew I had to take my chance when it came. Nobody gives you anything. You have to go and take it and this was the way I think.
I failed eighth grade twice, and then they moved me up to ninth grade. Then I failed that and dropped out. My teacher would hand me a test, and I'd grade it myself with an F, then put my head down on the desk.
My mother only had a third grade education, was illiterate, worked as a domestic 2 to 3 jobs at a time, because she didn't want to be on welfare, because she never saw people who went on welfare come off of welfare, and she just didn't want to have her life controlled in that fashion.
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn't been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A's without taking a book home. I didn't go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
I think the hard thing about this job [stand-up] I mean, I think this part is great but that the traveling is y'know, 'cause 'cause I'm gone a lot from home and this time I'm out for three-and-a-half weeks without going home, and that's hard, to be gone three-and-a-half weeks 'cause then I have to ask my friends, "Would you mind going to the house and watering the plants, and turn some lights on and make it look like somebody's home, and make sure that the mobile over the crib isn't tangled or the baby's gonna get bored.
When I was growing up, my family was plagued by poverty. My mother, a single parent, worked around the clock to make sure her children - me, my five brothers, and three sisters - could eat and have a safe place to sleep. We hardly saw her.
I had very low self-esteem. Books saved me. I found friends in stories like The Chronicles of Narnia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. During lunch hour at school I'd avoid social interactions by sitting on the bathroom sink and reading. My mother worked in my school cafeteria. When my anxiety got really bad, I'd put a coat on, grab my book and a flashlight, and hide in the freezer with the mac and cheese.
I liked to be in my own company, so when I came home from school, I'd just go up to my room and hang out by myself. I wouldn't really have friends over or go to see friends much.
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