Family & Society

The last two chapters in this book have addressed the current social policies serving families in poverty.  It was interesting to see how welfare has changed from the original intent of the program to how it exists today.  Then we read an overview of each major social program.  The one that I would like to comment on is the Food Stamp Program.  This is available to both working and non-working people to help supplement their income and provide means for them to feed their families.  I hear a lot of complaints about food stamps, mostly from people who claim they have checked out in a grocery store behind someone who was buying filet mignon with their food stamp coupons!  I personally have not had this happen to me.  I also believe that it does not happen often and does not represent the typical food stamp user.  I have checked out behind someone using food stamps.  It happens mostly at places like Aldis and Fulmers in
Xenia but rarely at Trader Joes or Dorthy Lane Market.  It is my observation that those using food stamps are doing their best to buy the most for their money.  They shop at the cheapest stores and buy the lowest quality brands.  They also often buy in bulk and buy lots of canned goods.  It grieves me to think of hungry children in my neighborhood.  The latest report from Earth Times indicates that more and more poor people in Ohio will be receiving less and less food stamps.  The good news is that Dorthy Lane and Trader Joes may experience an increase since we are cutting taxes to the people that typically shop there.  Another report from Reuters presents the government’s newest attempt to save money: make it harder for people to get food stamps. 

 The title of our chapter this week is How Americans View Poverty.  This was an interesting chapter that looked at the historical and current viewpoints of Americans.  Sociologists were some of the first scholars to address the issue of poverty in
America in the early 1900’s.  The Chicago School of Sociology was founded by Protestant ministers who became concerned about the abject poverty experienced by the new immigrants.  Places like Hull House in
Chicago were founded during this era.  Our author notes that current views of poverty center on individualism (blaming the person who is poor for his or her circumstances), social structuralism (blaming our government or institutional structures for poverty), having a culture of poverty (values and beliefs), or fatalism (some kind of destiny or predestination).  Check out what Matthew Benjamin says about how
America views poverty.Poverty News BlogHow are the views of Christians toward the poor different than what our author observes for society in general?  One author that I read currently says there is no difference.  Rebecca Barns calls it “spiritual schizophrenia.”  When the Barna research group looked at 20 lifestyle elements, things American adults do to help other people, they found that Christians are “statistically indistinguishable from non-born again adults on most of the behaviors studied.”  However, I do believe that there are Christians concerned about the poor and desiring to do something radically different than ever before.  here is one example:A Covenant for a New AmericaI am encouraged when I read about The Call to Renewal from Sojourners.  Here is their mission statement:  “to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world. We work with a national network of churches, faith-based organizations, and individuals to overcome poverty in
America.”  Sign me up!!!

The pathways from poverty that effect children’s development are pretty scary.  The chart on pg. 66 pictures all the negative effects from health and nutrition to poor quality neighborhoods.  Many of these kids don’t have a chance simply due to the fact that they were born into poor homes.  As I write this today, our temperature hovers around 5 degrees.  I grumble as I walk across campus that the cold freezes my eyeballs and gives me a headache.  Yet I realize that many families today are huddled together under threadbare blankets trying to share body heat and wondering what to feed their children; children who are home from school today because school has been cancelled.  Snow days always meant something fun at my house when I was growing up.  Snow days for families in poverty mean one more meal to find for children who will not be feed a free meal at school today.  The chapter brought out the lack of parenting that occurs in families of poverty.  This often takes the shape of harsh discipline and slow child development.  A creative solution that I recently learned about is called Toy Libraries.  Actually,
Canada has led the way in this creative solution to both discipline problems and child development in families in poverty.  A toy library is a place where parents can check out toys for their children.  Each toy comes with “directions” on how to play with your children using the toy and how it helps in the child’s development.  These are also centers that have classes for parental training. They make the contact with the parents and offer free classes for them.  I love the idea and think we need to work on bringing these centers to all our cities.  Check out this link to a center in
Canada.  They even provide creative snacks in a café for parents and children. 

Toy Library

This chapter fits right in with our readings this week on social class.  So who are the poor?  Overwhelmingly, they are single-parent, mom-headed, minority families.  Check out the statistics:  The poverty rate reached 10.8% among all families and 31.1% among female-headed families.  Compare this to Black families – 24.7%.  The children in these families are the innocent victims of poverty:  1.3 million children are living in poverty; 43% of the children in female-headed families are poor (one in three Black children, 3 in 10 Hispanic, one in ten White).  I watched a 20/20 segment this week that broke my heart done by Diane Sawyer.  It was entitled, Waiting on the World to Change:  Children in Poverty.  I sat mesmerized as Sawyer took us into the lives of 3 children living in poverty and followed them for over a year.  Please take time to watch this incredible documentary: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2826860I don’t know what to say except that this should not happen in our country. Why are children going hungry?  Why does not our welfare system provide adequately for these families?  I get so tired of people who are not living in poverty saying that these black moms are having babies so that they can make money.  This chapter does the math for you – they are not making it on welfare.  There must be other reasons.  One of the last comments in the book says this: “The author reports that there is little substantial upward social mobility; people usually live out their lives in the same social class from which they came because of the norms learned and the constraints and privileges they experience.”  How does social class affect our lives?  How do the experiences of these children in poverty set them up for their future?

My blog for this course will be to discuss the chapters in Families in Poverty.    This week the chapter highlights 3 different families living in poverty.  Their stories were very real – I personally know people who fit each of those stories.  This morning I stopped for coffee at McDonalds.  They woman who handed me the coffee out the drive-thru window clearly could be identified as poverty-stricken.  She had that look – bad teeth, poorly cut hair, haggard look.  I wondered if she was worried about her children – this morning there was a 2 hour school delay due to weather.  What would she do?  How did she manage her “non-standard work schedule?”  These books will introduce us to the structure of poverty.   What can we do to change the structure of our society to help these families?  I think these case studies in this chapter make it pretty clear that it was not deficiencies on the part of the individuals that led to their situations of poverty but rather circumstances beyond their control.  The control lies in the hands of all of us – what responsibility do we have to be involved in policies that will help these kinds of people?    One of the things we will focus on in this course is social policy for families.  As you work your way through these next weeks, think about this.  Be creative – what kinds of things can we do as a community to change the face of family poverty?????? 

Welcome to my blog!  We will use this space to discuss issues about the family in our society today.  I hope you will find this to be an interesting endeavor.  I am looking forward to discussing issues from my personal perspective and hearing your opinions.  If you have something you would like to discuss, feel free to introduce a topic and we will see what we all think about it!