A Framework for Understanding Poverty (22 page)

Family structure of the poor: "more homes without a father, there is less marriage, more early pregnancy and, if Kinsey's statistical finding can be used, markedly different attitudes toward sex. As a result of this, to take but one consequence of the fact, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of children in the other America never know stability and `normal' affection."

Dicks, Lee E. The Poor Who Live Among Us. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. p. 118.

Ibid. P. 120.

Ibid. P. 123.

Lewis, Oscar. The Culture of Poverty. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. P. 138.

Harrington, Michael. The Invisible Land. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. P. 153.

"First rule of the streets: don't display weakness, sentimentality."

The author asks an interviewer how she feels about hooking. The response is: "'You just turn off part of your mind. You gotta think, well, a guy goes out, he buys work hoots, and he puts them to work to make money. I put my body to work. It's the same thing, really."'

The author describes the poor in America as being "pessimistic and defeated."

"Poverty in the United States is a culture, an institution, a way of life."

"He (F. Scott Fitzgerald) understood that being rich was not a single fact, like a large hank account, but a way of looking at reality, a series of attitudes, a special type of life. If this is true of the rich, it is ten times truer of the poor. Everything about them, from the condition of their teeth to the way in which they love, is suffused and permeated by the fact of their poverty."

"There is, in short, a language of the poor, a psychology of the poor, a world view of the poor. To be impoverished is to be an internal alien, to grow up in a culture that is radically different from the one that dominates society."

In describing men who worked in coal mines but who were laid off, Swados says, "'it is truly ironic that a substantial portion of these men, who pride themselves on their ability to live with danger, to work hard, to fight hard, drink hard, love hard, are now learning housework and taking over the woman's role in the family."'

"As often happens in the culture of poverty, marriage was somewhat irregular among these folk. The women were not promiscuous-they lived with one man at a time, and for considerable periods. But, after some years and a child or two, the marriage would break up. It was not uncommon to meet two or three sets of halfbrothers and half-sisters living under the same roof."

Capponi, Pat. Dispatches from the Poverty Line. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Penguin Books, 1997. P. 150.

Ibid. p. 153.

Harrington, Michael. The Other America. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1962. P. 2.

Ibid. p. 16.

Ibid.

Ibid. P. 17.

Ibid. P. 28.

Ibid. p. 98.

Ibid. p. 99.

Ibid. P. 127.

"And yet this grim description, like the account of a Negro ghetto, misses the quality of life. As one walked along the streets in the late summer, the air was filled with hillbilly music from a hundred radios. There was a sort of loose, defeated gaiety about the place, the casualness of a people who expected little. These were poor Southern whites."

'But within a slum, violence and disturbance are often norms, everyday facts of life. From the inside of the other America, joining a `bopping' gang may well not seem like deviant behavior. It could be a necessity for dealing with a hostile world. (Once, in a slum school in St. Louis, a teacher stopped a fight between two little girls. `Nice girls don't fight,' she told them. `Yeah,' one of them replied, 'you should have seen my old lady at the tavern last night."')

"Related to this pattern of immediate gratification is a tendency on the part of the poor to 'act out,' to be less inhibited, and sometimes violent."

Ibid. pp. 135-136.

Ibid. P. 136.

"In New Haven, for instance, Hollingshead and Redlich found that in Class V (the poor) some 41% of the children under seventeen lived in homes that had been disrupted by death, desertion, separation, or divorce."

Regarding family structures among the poor, Yale researchers found that "23% grew up in a `generation stem family,' where different generations are thrown together, usually with a broken marriage or two. Under such circumstances there is the possibility of endless domestic conflict [among] the different generations (and this is exacerbated when the old are immigrants with a foreign code). Another 18 % came from broken homes where one or the other parent was absent. And iivo had experienced the death of a parent."

"Another aspect of this family pattern is sexual. In New Haven the researchers found that it was fairly common for young girls in the slums to be pregnant before they were married. I saw a similar pattern in St. Louis. There, children had a sort of sophisticated ignorance about sexual matters at an early age. Jammed together in miserable housing, they knew the facts of sex from firsthand observation (though often what they saw was a brutalized and drunken form of sex)."

Ibid. p. 135.

Ibid.

"Perhaps the most important analytic point to have emerged in this description of the other America is the fact that poverty in America forms a culture, a way of life and feeling, that it makes a whole. It is crucial to generalize this idea, for it profoundly affects how one moves to destroy property."

"On another level, the emotions of the other America are even more profoundly disturbed. Here it is not lack of aspiration and of hope; it is a matter of personal chaos. The drunkenness, the unstable marriages, the violence of the other America are not simply facts about individuals. They are the description of an entire group in the society who react this way because of the conditions under which they live."

Some of the evidence to support the changes in family life includes: "Large numbers of adult males are only loosely attached to the families and households that contain their offspring. Many among these see their children sporadically, if at all, and contribute little or nothing to the financial support of their children."

When walking with five children (two are 7 years old, two are 9 years old, and the other is described as a tiny child), Kozol says: "None of the children can tell me the approximate time that school begins. One says five o'clock. One says six. Another says that school begins at noon." The children then tell him of the rape and murder of one of their sisters.

A 12-year-old boy named Jeremiah tells Kozol that "I white people started moving away from black and Spanish people in New York'" in 1960. Kozol asks him where the white people went. Another boy says he thinks they moved to the country. Jeremiah then says, "'It isn't where people live. It's how they live."' Kozol asks him to repeat what he said. "'It's how they live,' he says again. 'There are different economies in different places."' Kozol asks Jeremiah to explain what he means, and Jeremiah refers to Riverdale, "a mostly white and middle-class community in the northwest section of the Bronx." "'Life in Riverdale is opened up,' he says. `Where we live, it's locked down."' Kozol asks him, "'In what way?"' He responds, "'We can't go out and play.'"

Ibid. pp. 159-160.

Ibid. p. 162.

Zill, Nicholaus. "The Changing Realities of Family Life." Aspen Institute Quarterly. Winter 1993. Volume 5. Number 1. P. 37.

Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1991. pp. 12-13.

Kozol, Jonathan. Arnazing Grace. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1995. p. 32.

A 15-year-old student, Isabel, says she thinks Jeremiah's description of feeling "'locked down'" is "too strong." "'It's not like being in a jail,' she says. `It's more like being "hidden." It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but aren't sure if they should throw it out, they put it where they don't need to think of it again."'

Ibid. pp. 38-39.

Chapter Five: Role Models and Emotional Resources

Harrington, Michael. The Other America. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1962. pp. 77-78.

"But in a study of the New York State Commission Against Discrimination an even more serious situation was described: one in which Negro children had more aspiration than whites from the same income level, but less opportunity to fulfill their ambition ... The Negro child, coming from a family in which the father has a miserable job, is forced to reject the life of his parents, and to put forth new goals for himself. In the case of the immigrant young some generations ago, this experience of breaking with the Old Country tradition and identifying with the great society of America was a decisive moment in moving upward. But the Negro does not find society as open as the immigrant did."

Chapter Six: Support Systems

Chronic low income results in "coping strategies and material deprivations that are detrimental to children's behavior."

"Other fruitful strategies might be more indirect programmatic ones, such as helping mothers read more to their children (as well as read more themselves) and teaching mothers about intellectually stimulating learning activities that they can do at home with their children" (Brooks-Gunn, Denner, and Klebanov, 1995; Snow, 1986).

Mayer, Susan E. What Money Can't Buy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. P. 76.

Smith, Judith R., BrooksGunn, Jeanne, and Klebanov, Pamela K. Consequences of Living in Poverty for Young Children's Cognitive and Verbal Ability and Early School Achievement. Duncan, Greg I., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 167.

"Parents' economic resources can influence self-esteem in several ways. Parents' income brings both parents and children social status and respect that can translate into individual self-esteem. Income can also enhance children's self-esteem by providing them with the goods and services that satisfy individual aspirations."

In models by Rand D. Conger, Kathy J. Conger, and Glen Elder, "IL ow income produces economic pressures that can lead to conflict between parents over financial matters, which in turn affects the harshness of the mother's parenting and the adolescent's self-confidence and achievement."

The author makes several points that he says "conservatives may find troublesome." One of these includes: "Federal programs have made a difference in children's lives. As noted earlier, the character of child poverty in this country has been changed for the better by programs such as food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, Chapter i and equal opportunity efforts."

Chapter Seven: Discipline

"If generations of irregular employment and discrimination result in street skills seeming more valuable than academic skills, parents will be more likely to encourage their children to acquire street skills than to study or stay in school."

A school counselor said, "'Giving the family money can improve the standard of living, but it won't give the children the tools they will need for success.' Her colleague added, `I think it is the parenting values-the parenting style-that matters more than the money."'

Axinn, William, Duncan, Greg J., and Thornton, Arland. The Effects of Parents' Income, Wealth, and Attitudes on Children's Completed Schooling and Self-esteem. Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 521.

Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne. Income Effects Across the Life Span: Integration and Interpretation. Duncan, Greg J., and BrooksGunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. p. 602.

"Lill, Nicholaus. "The Changing Realities of Family Life." Aspen Institute Quarterly. Winter 1993. Volume 5. Number 1. PP. 47-48.

Mayer, Susan E. What Money Can't Buy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. p. 51.

Ibid. p. 113.

"'Power-assertive' disciplinary techniques" -physical punishment, valuing obedience, and not being supportive of their children-are used by poor parents more so than other parents.

"Because poverty is associated with symptoms of stress, and because symptoms of stress are associated with poor parenting practices, many researchers infer that poverty leads to bad parenting practices, which then cause worse outcomes among children."

He said his father "didn't get angry or hit me. That he left to my mother."

An example of punishment was given. He said his mother "carved into my flesh with a leather belt."

"Across domains, family structure appears to he more important in some areas of children's well-being than in others. Behavioral problems show the most consistent negative effects. All four of the studies that examined children's outcomes in this domain found that a parent's absence was associated with more behavioral problems. Hanson, McLanahan, and Thomson (chapter 8) found that family disruption increased school behavior problems. Pagani, Boulerice, and Tremblay (chapter ") found more fighting and hyperactivity among children from nonintact families, and Lipman and Offord found evidence of social impairment. In addition, Haveman, Wolfe, and Wilson (chapter 14) found that girls from nonintact families were more likely to become unwed teen mothers than were girls from intact families."

Ibid. P. 115.

McLanahan, Sara S. Parent Absence or Poverty: Which Matters More? Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, '997. P. 40.

Chapter Eight: Instruction and Improving Achievement

"The higher the income of a family, the more education succeeding generations receive."

Rodriguez, Luis J. Always Running. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, '993. P. 47.

Ibid. P. 74.

Ibid.

Lewis, Anne C. "Breaking the Cycle of Poverty." Phi Delta Kappan. November 1996. Volume 78. Number 3. P. 186.