Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
1–10 of 139 posts
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#2On some level you almost want to say "duh.", but having grown up in a very lower-middle class household and being on the high side of middle class now, the difference in how I was raised and how my kids are being raised is fairly vast. I'm sometimes jealous of how easy my kids have it compared to me, to be honest. I can only imagine where i'd be now if I had parents who were able to provide the resources that I can give to my kids, in terms of connections and education.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#3In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no fault of their own.
We're consistently condemning the children for the sins of their parents to appease this view and severely reducing these children's potential, and in doing so reducing the potential of the country. As this article shows, the cost to a country's society and economy of poverty and low standards of living is very large and over a long time span. Our governments should be doing more to tackle child poverty as whilst it's not as bad as it used to be, we can certainly do better.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#4On some level you almost want to say "duh.", but having grown up in a very lower-middle class household and being on the high side of middle class now, the difference in how I was raised and how my kids are being raised is fairly vast. I'm sometimes jealous of how easy my kids have it compared to me, to be honest. I can only imagine where i'd be now if I had parents who were able to provide the resources that I can g…
absolutely, same boat. I have to think that my kids just not having to listen to their parents constantly fight about money like I did has to go a long way. Going to the store with friends and your parents have to pay with food stamps carries a certain stigma. I had good parents who always worked hard (not necessarily smart) and did the best they could for us, so I have no other complaints but I was definitely very aware of being poor.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#5In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…
These are generally the same people who protest so vehemently against abortion. I have always been amazed that I live in the richest country in the world and at night tens of thousands of kids go hungry or fall asleep in a car.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#6In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…
> for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want
Also, this belittles the cases where one parent was making a great choice, by leaving the other.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#7Housing is an enormous tax, and rent seeking just transfers money from the poor to the rich. Rather than giving everyone money, I would prefer to see a market solution where we greatly lower the costs for things at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#8On some level you almost want to say "duh.", but having grown up in a very lower-middle class household and being on the high side of middle class now, the difference in how I was raised and how my kids are being raised is fairly vast. I'm sometimes jealous of how easy my kids have it compared to me, to be honest. I can only imagine where i'd be now if I had parents who were able to provide the resources that I can g…
I agree with you but it’s more complicated.
Not all kids want to grow up and be something. There used to be an avenue (future) for those kids. I don’t think that exists much any more.
What I mean is a blue collar family could provide enough to produce another content blue collar worker. If you graduated high school today to be a content blue collar worker your options are kind of limited.
I think some of this structural reality results in the appeal of Bernie to many young voters.
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#9In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…
What programs tackle child poverty?
Re: Poverty hurts children in ways we're beginning to understand
#10In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no faul…
These are generally the same people who protest so vehemently against abortion. I have always been amazed that I live in the richest country in the world and at night tens of thousands of kids go hungry or fall asleep in a car.
also the same people that are fine with putting immigrant kids into cages.