“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”
~Norman Vincent Peale
I first heard about Blog Action Day my first week blogging. I think it’s a tremendous idea; people across the world, hundreds of tongues, all wagging on the same subject. I promised myself that when the day came, I’d dip my quill in ink.
Today is that day.
I cannot speak with authority about the two billion (plus) people who live in this world, surviving on less than two dollars a day. Theirs is a poverty for which I have no authentic frame of reference. Only movies, television, and other frivolities of our industrialized world have illuminated such misfortune to my eyes.
I cannot speak with authority about the characters in my country or the souls in my state who, through no fault of their own and every effort to evolve, have found themselves destitute. They have countless stories to tell, and could tell them far better than I.
In the year 2008, there is no shortage of poverty in this country. We have poverty of our minds, poverty in our government, and poverty in the methods in which we teach tomorrow’s leaders. This is too much for me to tackle now; I’d like to start with something smaller.
Today, I will discuss the poverty I know, the kind which litters the few square miles where I grew up for the first fourteen years of my life; the same square on the map where I’ve returned to live for the last seven.
When I was small, during that window when my memory is more like fuzzy analog television than HDTV, our family didn’t have much. My parents worked daily to build their small business, and every dollar mattered. Our clothes were second hand, coupons clipped for every purchase.
Before they started their business, both Mom and Pop had lost their jobs. My half sisters were living with us, we had no money coming in, and desperately needed assistance. My mom, against my father’s formidable protest, applied for welfare.
I understand my pop’s position. To me, getting a check for work I have not done, yet would be perfectly willing and able to do, would be akin to having the bottom of my foot sliced opened, horse hair sewn inside; every step an excruciating reminder that my life must alter its course.
Unable to pull ahead, and unwilling to stay behind, my parents risked it all in pursuit of a dream. They traded the security of their check for the back breaking eighty hour work weeks intrinsic to building a flower shop on a foundation of nothing. By the time I was an adolescent, the business was a success and we were able to move a few miles east.
When Daisy and I bought our first home, we came here, back to my old neighborhood, on the other side of town.
I do not speak of the hundreds of hard working families who surround us. They who get up early, work all day, and return home to the endless exhaustion of being mindful mothers and fathers.
I speak of those with big screen tv’s, bathing themselves daily in their deity’s bluish glow while waiting for the mail truck to pull curbside with their check.
This is not poverty, it is sloth.
What shatters my heart when I see this, is not that these people live off the sweat of others. That merely raises my ire. What truly kills me is that these people are teaching their children to wander inside an aimless circle rather than soar in a neat line, straight ahead.
There is often something missing in these situations; a single ingredient that could twist the tide in the opposite direction.
Fathers.
Now there is a poverty eating part of our population; they who think it’s acceptable to have a child and then leave it to chance. That is a poverty of the soul, that if enlightened, might extinguish the horrors it’s left behind.
Writer Dad
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My better half, Namas Daisy, has written a terrific post on poverty as well. You can find it here.
About Sean Platt
Hi Sean,
I think that the hardest thing about being on welfare was waiting in the checkout line at the grocer store. Me, a baby faced, well dressed, educated twenty-something with an above average IQ, toting four kids aged a few months through 8 years old. Judging by the looks we got, I might as well have hung a sign around my neck that read: “ignorant, baby making, leech on society.” I would pretend not to see people scrutinizing our purchases, resenting the abundant array of meats, fresh produce, healthy fare – only the best that our double coupons and food stamps could buy. They never stopped to think that the beautiful $6.00 roast with 50 cents worth of potatoes and 35 cents worth of carrots would make a pot roast feast for dinner and sandwiches the next day. Two meals for a family of six – beat the heck outta one drive through meal at McDonalds. Those carefully spent food stamp dollars were stretched, sometimes it seemed, a la Jesus Christ and the loaves and fishes. Having welfare was salvation for our family during a difficult time. It enabled us to have food, shelter, medicine,care and a springboard to a brighter future. I believe that sometimes public assistance is an absolute necessity. We as a society, have a moral obligation to help those with a critical need (I am after all a child of the 60′s). This, however, should serve as a temporary tool – not a life sentence. I couldn’t wait to get the hell off of welfare, but this comes from having pride and self respect. You don’t just pull that out of a cracker jack box (God, am I dating myself?) but must be instilled in you. While growing up in South Central LA, I never knew that we were poor. Papí had two jobs – eventually, his own store. Mom was June Cleaver. I went to the best schools (Catholic) and wore couture clothing (all hand made by Mom with homemade brown paper sack patterns). Never did I go hungry, and was quite happy with my hand me down roller skates, box of crayons and never ending supply of library books. I am grateful that you and KittyTown got to experience both sides of the financial spectrum. It gave you guys a healthy perspective and is a part of who you are today.
Love ya,
Mom
Hey WD
Well I had a read of the reply to Beth and I can certainly understand how these people would piss you off, especially so close to home.
You have to wonder how or why people come to be like they are; these people who irritate you and the flashy, (potentially) heartless rich that irritate me. Nobody’s created in a vacuum.
I’m sure you’re a compassionate man, and hey, if I’m allowed to get mad at my neighbours just for mowing the lawn, then I should probably say no more ;-)
Seamus Anthonys last blog post..The Subtle Art of Getting Jack-Shit Done
Hey WD
Well I had a read of the reply to Beth and I can certainly understand how these people would piss you off, especially so close to home.
You have to wonder how or why people come to be like they are; these people who irritate you and the flashy, (potentially) heartless rich that irritate me. Nobody’s created in a vacuum.
I’m sure you’re a compassionate man, and hey, if I’m allowed to get mad at my neighbours just for mowing the lawn, then I should probably say no more ;-)
Seamus Anthonys last blog post..The Subtle Art of Getting Jack-Shit Done
Cricket: Good luck with your life change. Change can be difficult, but it is what drives us toward something better. Blaming others only drives us in the wrong direction.
Mom: Hi Mommy. I’m glad we grew up humble too. I never had any objection to getting all our clothes from Goodwill or the Purple Heart. I did however object to some of the selections. Seriously mom… the seventies were over.
Seamus: That’s funny. I read your lawnmower post. I can relate. My neighborhood is SO noisy, and it starts first thing in the morning. Weekends are worse. By the time it quiets enough to work, I’m too exhausted to get anything done. But I promise, my compassion is firmly in place.
Cricket: Good luck with your life change. Change can be difficult, but it is what drives us toward something better. Blaming others only drives us in the wrong direction.
Mom: Hi Mommy. I’m glad we grew up humble too. I never had any objection to getting all our clothes from Goodwill or the Purple Heart. I did however object to some of the selections. Seriously mom… the seventies were over.
Seamus: That’s funny. I read your lawnmower post. I can relate. My neighborhood is SO noisy, and it starts first thing in the morning. Weekends are worse. By the time it quiets enough to work, I’m too exhausted to get anything done. But I promise, my compassion is firmly in place.
did Mom just compare herself to Jesus?
did Mom just compare herself to Jesus?
Yes, KittyTown, she did.
Yes, KittyTown, she did.
ahh, I see…
interesting.
And what did that have to do with fathers again?
ahh, I see…
interesting.
And what did that have to do with fathers again?
She needed one to make us.
That’s the best I could do, and I took the whole night to think about it.
She needed one to make us.
That’s the best I could do, and I took the whole night to think about it.
Hi Writer Dad – I love how you started this post with the Norman Vincent Peale quote. It's so fitting for the beautiful and honest story you wrote.
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