The Horror of Poverty Exposed in There Are No Children Here

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Recommended: Influence on the development of children due to poverty and deprivation

The Horror of Poverty Exposed in There Are No Children Here

When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is not the poverty can not be overcome but that the cycles of teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and dropping out of high school continues and are hard to break. The badges of poverty are just as addictive and capitiving as any disease such as alcohol or drugs.

The above is provided so the student has a better idea of the focus of the paper. The complete paper begins below.

What happens to dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

For majority of african American children that live in the inner-city ghettoes the idea of having dreams seem just that a dream. Dreams that will not become realities because of the poverty stricken neighborhoods and violent lifestyle cycles of their parents. Alex Kotlowitz's THERE ARE NO CHILDREN HERE: THE STORY OF TWO BOYS GROWING UP IN THE OTHER AMERICA, makes the reader aware of the plagues most inner-city children and youth in American ghettoes.

When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is not the poverty can not be overcome but that the cycles of teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and dropping out of high school continues and are hard to break. The badges of poverty are just as addictive and capitiving as any disease such as alcohol or drugs.

The song made popular by Whitney Houston THE GREATEST LOVE says I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.

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