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Can the United States be a "Happy" Nation When Almost
1 in 3 of our Children Live in Poverty?
By mickielynn on 2012-02-25 12:08:33
[caption id="attachment_3162" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption=""Occupy Baby" born on February 23, 2012, from
a
Democracy Now!"] [/caption] If we can’t provide decent, safe living spaces,
sufficient food, parental leave to care for young children, good education and well staffed, well trained preschool child care,
prenatal and post natal health care to all of our mothers and children then what values do we actually practice as a society?
In the November 2011 Special Census report the figures showed that nearly 1 in 3 children in the US were poor. This was in
spite of at least one parent working at a paying job. To bring those people a little closer to home: The March, 2010 New
York State Poverty Report found that more than 2.6 million New Yorkers, including 852, 000 children were living in
poverty. Another recently released study shows that more children [nearly 8 million] are living in high poverty
neighborhoods in the US whether their families are actually as poor as those surrounding them. The study [based on 2010
Census results] was done by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The study defined high-poverty communities as those areas
where 30 percent or more are in poverty, defined by the federal government in 2010 as annual income of less than $22,314
for a family of four. Here’s what a Reuters report, written by Susan Heavey and published this Thursday had to say:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Years of economic setbacks have taken their toll on the nation's youngest residents,
with another 1.6 million children living in high-poverty neighborhoods, according to one study that shows
nearly 8 million children residing in poor areas in 2010. In 2000, 6.3 million children lived in high poverty in
the United States, a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found. The growth - a 25 percent increase -
reverses the trend just a decade ago that saw fewer children living in communities with high poverty rates,
according to the nonprofit group. And three-quarters of those children live in such areas despite having at least
one parent working, the study showed. The findings reflect the hit the U.S. economy took during and after the
2007-2009 recession even as signs now point to steady recovery. The nation's jobs market has improved, the
number of home sales has grown and recent gains on Wall Street have prompted optimism among investors.
"The recession has really set back much of the progress that was made in the 1990s when poverty went down,"
Robert Sampson, a professor of social sciences at Harvard University and head of the Social Sciences Program
at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study...
The article goes on to say that just being brought up in poverty or surrounded by poverty has many developmental effects.
Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and data at the foundation, said the data is a key indicator
because the poverty children face growing up can have a direct impact on their success as adults. "Their
families have a harder time providing for basic necessities like good housing, being able to access health
insurance and good quality health care," Speer said. "Kids who attend schools that are in low-income
communities ... tend to struggle in school in lots of different ways..."
Some educators said that living in poverty could set children back educationally at least a year and it was unclear whether
they could regain that loss over time. If you add the effects of poor nutrition and stressed, and unavailable parents the
interactive effects can be considerable. And that’s in addition to the suffering that so many American children are enduring
daily and yearly in the wealthiest country in the world. I’d also like to refer to a relevant recording of a talk given in
November of 2011. The speaker was Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician and author who originally grew up in
Communist Hungary but escaped to the US and then moved to Canada. He has experienced both economic systems and says
that they both are very unjust in different ways. One of his books is titled: “Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to
Matter More Than Peers” (co-authored by Gordon Neufeld). Dr. Gabor Maté’s critique of US society is the lack of
opportunity for parents to be able to spend time with their children nurturing them in the formative years. In a country
where, unlike most Western democracies, the amount of paid maternal leave is 6 weeks, or less and there is rarely any
paternal leave, children with even the most loving parents don’t get the kind of nurturing that they need. When the parents
are poor or worried about economic insecurity, loss of independence and general uncertainty they are constantly stressed and
emotionally unavailable to their children. Then there are the physiological changes wrought on children in utero when their
mothers are highly stressed. Some of these have lifelong effects on both physical and emotional health. To bring this full
circle to the concept of “happiness” he says that studies show that the happiest and healthiest children come from hunter-
gatherer societies where the children are always with the parents or a community of caring, nurturing adults who all support
the children. Of course we can’t replicate that culture in the US but we can learn from it and take its best child rearing
aspects to heart. You can hear Dr. Mate’s 30 minute talk here: http://www.radioproject.org/2012/02/gabor-mate-illness-
addiction/ On a much happier and more hopeful note for those who want to change our society to a more loving and
nurturing one where every child is wanted and loved and nourished: Here’s a joyful story that aired on Democracy Now!
yesterday with a link to the story and the video:
Brooklyn gave birth to a baby, Mila Amie Economopoulos Jones Tuesday night in a scene caught on videotape by her
husband, another Occupy Wall Street activist. Welcome Mila Amie Economopoulos Jones! Beka Economopoulos and
Jason Jones were preparing to host an Occupy video meeting at their home in Brooklyn when Economopoulos began having
contractions. They soon jumped into a taxi, but only made it two blocks before Economopoulos gave birth in the backseat.
The cab driver got out of his car and waved orange flags, directing traffic until two ambulances and six police cars arrived at
the scene. Jones videotaped what happened next and posted it on YouTube under the channel name "Occupy Baby”. [caption
id="attachment_3169" align="aligncenter" width="279" caption="They Got Money for Wars But Can't Feed the Poor, photo
|
by Mabel Leon"] [/caption]
