Kayla Johnson - The American Way of Poverty Blog #3

Kayla Johnson – The American Way of Poverty Blog # 3

1.       “Improving a dysfunctional welfare system might, however, be the easiest part of the anti-poverty equation… Far harder is how to break cycles of poverty so that eventually fewer people need to fall back on long-term state aid in the first place. Doing so involves thinking holistically about such big-ticket items as housing, healthcare, education, criminal justice systems, drug treatment, mental health programs, banking, and labor markets.” 

Although I find this entire section worth pointing out, I specifically want to call attention to the bolded, italicized text. Far harder is how to break cycles of poverty… THIS is where major change is needed, but it definitely will not come without major opposition. The text also notes that change must happen at the local level before expanding any further. In that respect, the part we play could be monumental. Think about it- it‘s far easier to convince a family member or close friend to try something new or change a behavior than to convince a stranger or large crowd. In my opinion, future change depends heavily on our current relationships. The more we can build each other up and inspire change in one another; the more it will spread. In the end what started off as a few people will expand to numerous families, communities, states, and even to the entire country. If we can only” run with endurance the race marked out for us” [Hebrews 12:1] we will be victorious in the end. Assisting poverty is a MASSIVE undertaking, but may not seem so daunting if we only focus on our immediate sphere of influence and begin our work there.

2.       “Stable economic environments tend not to produce gangs, street-level drug markets, hunger, homelessness, and all other daily facts of life that poor kids have to navigate in their communities.”

My mother is the children’s minister at our church and says all the time that the things that many children have to endure and overcome these days is sad and downright wrong. We have a van ministry at church that picks up children from low-income homes, whose parent(s) often times do not have cars, and brings them to church. These children are almost always hungry, sometimes dirty or a little smelly, oftentimes misbehaved, and starving for loving attention. From a very young age they are exposed to environments that many grown adults would not be able to withstand. That is what I think about when I read the above quote. Stable environments do not produce situations like this and would not dream of treating children the way they are treated today.

I recently read a book about elephants called Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. Did you know that elephants are pregnant for TWO YEARS before giving birth to their calf? Can you imagine being pregnant for two years?! Even men can understand the gravity of that type of gestation, and they would not even be the ones carrying the child. The book notes the extreme love, affection, and care that the mother elephants have for their young. And elephants do not often times have many babies (probably due to the grueling 2 year pregnancy period). I can’t help but think that if only we would treat the children of today with a fraction of the love that a momma elephant has for her baby, our environments would not be so poisonous, dangerous, and unfit for children. Gangs and drug markets wouldn’t even exist because kids would grow up knowing that they are loved and valued, and in return, sharing that love with others.

3.       “We believe in the redemptive powers of education, training. When you believe in people, you can encourage them to believe in themselves. We don’t take shortcuts here. “

I digest this quote in two parts. 1) We believe in the redemptive powers of education, training.  Sometimes I think people come to be in poverty because they have no idea what they are doing with their lives or what they want to do with their lives. The immense pressure of having your life “figured out” by the senior year of high school may be one of the reasons why people drop out of school or quit trying- because they cannot stand the pressure and anxiety that comes with deciding their life’s career on the spot. But I think this pressure needs to be lessened because education for the sake of education is pointless if you cannot use it. It needs to be coupled with training (as the quote mentions). And when you believe in people and reassure them that they can be successful and acquire the knowledge needed and succeed in school and a future job; then they begin to believe in themselves as well. 2) We don’t take shortcuts here. I have a friend who is probably 35 or so, but at the age of 27, she was married with 2 young children and in college full-time. Even so, she decided that “you better get busy living or get busy dying.” Now, I think it is important to make something very clear: She does not just sit around planning big trips and going and doing crazy things. No- she works… hard. She and her husband love doing fun things, but they realize that in order to have fun you must work. The problem is often times, we don’t want to put in the hard work. We live in a society of immediate self-gratification. We want, what we want, when we want it; which is NOW. But we can’t take shortcuts. If we’re not willing to work for what we want; then we probably don’t deserve it.