But in effect they grew up on different planets. And while we should demand better choices from people like Bethany, we should also insist on better choices from our politicians both are necessary to reduce poverty.īethany and Cassidy are similar - both ebullient, friendly personalities, charming and quick to laugh. Sure, Bethany made poor choices, but almost any of us born in that environment might have done the same.
The child was born two months ago, and Bethany today is in the Tulsa Women and Children’s Center, a residential drug treatment program with a strong record of helping women start their lives over. That was because she was injecting meth while pregnant with his baby. Because third graders are really good at math.”īethany ran away from home at 14 and eventually settled with a boyfriend who sold meth for a living she says he treated her well, except for the time he dragged her out of a hotel room by the hair. “I’m at third grade in reading,” she said, “and probably second grade in math. While Cassidy was thriving at private school, Bethany was skipping school, completely dropping out in the eighth grade. “Getting drugs wasn’t a problem because all my friends’ parents did drugs,” she said. By 14 she had graduated to injecting meth and became an addict. “I began using marijuana at 9,” Bethany remembered. But she knows that she won the lottery of birth and was headed for success the moment she was born to a doctor and a lawyer in Madison, Wis. Cassidy, 21, is wicked smart and a brilliant future journalist. In Tulsa we also met a young woman almost the same age as Cassidy - and a perfect contrast. It is a moral failing for our nation that one-fifth of our children live in poverty, by one common measure. And conservatives too often want to stop the conversation there, without acknowledging our society’s irresponsible, self-destructive refusal to help children who are otherwise programmed for failure.Ĭhild poverty is an open sore on the American body politic. Liberals too often are reluctant to acknowledge that struggling, despairing people sometimes compound their misfortune by self-medicating or engaging in irresponsible, self-destructive behavior. The main public response to American poverty has been a great big national shrug - and that is why I wish the candidates were talking more about this, why I wish the public and the media were demanding that politicians address the issue. In short, what we lack most is not means but political will. My contest winner, Cassidy McDonald of Wisconsin, a journalism student at the University of Notre Dame, traveled with me along a wrenching journey through this Other America, starting here in Pine Bluff. This year, partly because America’s presidential candidates are ignoring domestic poverty, I led my win-a-trip tour right here in America. Gangs begin to recruit boys at about 14, and his friends carry knives.Įvery year I hold a contest to choose a university student to travel with me on a reporting trip, typically to write about poverty, disease and hunger in Africa or Asia. I want to be a police officer, or a fireman or a judge.” But, he acknowledged, there isn’t a single book in the house.Įmanuel’s ambition is commendable, but children of poverty face treacherous obstacles to success.Įmanuel has already been caught shoplifting - “I’m not doing that anymore,” he said firmly with what sounded like contrite embarrassment - and his mom, Christina Laster, worries about him. “I’d like to go to college,” said Emanuel, who earns A’s and B’s in school.
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