Poverty causes stress on everyone involved. The constant feelings of not having enough money, unhealthy living conditions, and the feelings of not being in control of one's life can cause chronic stress for adults and other family members (Leonard, 2009). I have firsthand experience as to how poverty or lack of money can affect all members of a family including children.
My parents were teenagers when my mother found out that she was pregnant with me. They were not married, did not yet have high school diplomas, and were not ready to support a family. However, they did what they thought was right and got married. They were working minimum wage jobs and living with family in the beginning. The stress of not having the money to support a family caused my parents to fight a lot. They were teenagers trying to live like mature adults. Two years later, my sister was born. The lack of money continued to cause my parents extreme stress and eventually they ended up divorcing. My mother was 22 years old with a 4 year-old and a 2 year-old with nowhere to go. We lived with my grandmother for years, and my mother was not around very much. I remember missing her at night the most. We lived with seven people in a small trailer. I recall not being able to have friends over, never having new clothes, feeling insecure and worried, and wanting my childhood to be different. Poverty definitely caused me a great deal of stress as a child.
As I became a teenager and an adult, I decided to let my experiences with poverty lead me in a different direction in life. I decided that I did not want to continue to live my life in poverty, so I made choices that lead me in a new direction. I found a way to get a college education and have established a family with an amazing man who wants the same things in life as I do. Fortunately, Americans have opportunities to rise above poverty that people in other countries to not.
Unfortunately, poverty affects millions of people all over the world. One in two people in Sub Saharan Africa survive on less than a dollar a day. Less than 50% of Africans have access to a hospital and one in every six children die before they are five years old. Only approximately 50% of children go to primary education and only one in every three children finish school. 33% of the African population suffers from malnutrition and 300 million do not have access to safe water. So, although some Americans struggle to support a family, we have wonderful government assistance as well as organizations to help families in poverty. Many other countries do not have these benefits, so there families are in severe poverty with no way out.
References:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/3880
http://www.food4africa.org/index.asp?pgid=42
Tabitha,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your experience on poverty. It is awesome how you were able to maintain and move to higher levels in life instead of getting caught up in the trap of poverty. There are so many people who have lived the life you have experienced and never moved from the trend of poverty. I never experienced poverty as a child but I did as an adult. However I did not allow being without keep me from trying to get more. Even now I am still working on achieving more and promise myself that I would never allow that experience to ever return in my life again.
Tabitha,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story of success. I believe that most Americans do have opportunities to utilize the resources that we are provided, but all do not take advantage of the systems in place to improve their lives. I can somewhat relate to your story of having young parents who struggled and eventually divorced. What encouraged me to earn an education and strive for a successful career was watching my single parent mom work hard while going back to school and changing her life.
Thanks for posting. I chose poverty as well as a stressor. You gave a heartfelt example of how poverty affects children.
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