Reply #40: A lot of people do not understand poverty

[turtlelowe]

It seems to me that there is a pretty significant number of people on DU who have had a lot of opportunities in life that have shielded them from the horrors of poverty. It is difficult for most people to truly understand something that they have never experienced. And for those people, it is easier to discount poverty as a result of laziness or ignorance than as a result of a broken social system that drops people through cracks. Rose colored glasses make the world look prettier (sarcasm).

I grew up in poverty. Both of my parents worked very hard manual labor jobs that paid next to nothing. It never seemed to matter how hard they worked, we never seemed to get ahead. My earliest memories of childhood involve driving up and down dirt roads picking blackberries to sell to people in town to buy second-hand clothes so we would have stuff to wear for school. I also remember going to state parks to pick up walnuts to sell at the feed store to buy food. My parents were neither ignorant or lazy, they were not mentally ill or alcoholics. They just happened to live in an area with no opportunities and no way to break out of their circumstances. We did what we had to in order to get by, and even then there were a lot of rough times. They had many sleepless nights worrying about how we were going to get by.

Poverty is real and still exists but trying to fix the problem involves a level of understanding and commitment that many people either do not have or are not willing to invest.

Tammy