Poverty is a vicious cycle. This is The United States of America, the land of opportunity, where through sheer hard work and determination, people can come from nothing and still achieve the American dream. However, it takes hard, hard, hard work. And I do not believe that success happens in a vaccuum.
There's stories of people coming from poverty, working hard, getting into Harvard or Yale, and becoming a CEO or a lawyer or a doctor. However, I would be willing to bet cold hard cash that every one of them can point to at least one influential person in their lives...mother, father, uncle, aunt, grandparent, teacher, coach, pastor, mentor, etc. Expectations can be powerful things. It's hard to succeed if everyone in your life has low expectations for you and don't think you're going to amount to much. If you are a child and there is absolutely no one in your life encouraging you...if every important person in your life (family, friends, teachers, etc.) all have low expectations for you, you're going to aim low. If the important people in your life have raised and taught you well and expect big things for you, you're going to aim for the stars. My parents expected me to go to college. My teachers expected me to go to college. My friends expected me to go to college. There was never a question or doubt in my mind of whether or not I was going to go to college. Having set high goals for myself and knowing that others had high expectations for me, I felt like I had to guard my future, which meant not getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, not drinking, not smoking, not doing drugs, not cutting school, not becoming a teenage mother, etc. I knew people were counting on me and I didn't want to let them down or let myself down. So I think it's really important for every child to have someone who believes in him/her and for that someone to build up the child until he/she believes in himself/herself.
A good work ethic is essential for success, and I don't believe that people are just born with a good work ethic. It's something that's learned. If a child grows up with negligent, drug-addict parents, who's there to teach that child a good work ethic? Who's there to make sure the child stays focused on succeeding in school and is not tempted astray by the lure of easy money from stealing and drug-dealing? If a child grows up always being told he/she is stupid and worthless, how is that child going to succeed? Yes, in my hypothetical situation, child services should have removed the child long ago and the parents should have been locked up, but it doesn't always happen due to overcrowding in both foster care and prisons. In my hypothetical situation, success requires an adult (teacher, coach, mentor, community leader, church leader, etc.) taking an interest and a responsibility for that child...encouraging the child, building up the child's self-esteem and self-worth, teaching the child hard work and perseverence, teaching the child the value of education, teaching the child to keep his/her eye on the big picture (becoming a docotor or a lawyer or whatever his/her dreams are), making sure the child stays on the straight and narrow (avoiding drugs, alcohol, gangs, teen pregnancy, etc.) and doesn't lose focus on his/her goals, making sure the child knows he/she is worthy of success and higher education, etc.
There definitely needs to be changes made to our current welfare system to prevent abuse. I don't know what the solution is, though. But I'm definitely against completely doing away with social services. The children are the ones that will suffer. I think there needs to be a way to ensure that food stamps are being used to feed children and not being used to feed parents' drug habits. I also think that there needs to be some kind of limitation on the length of time people can be on welfare, so people aren't just on welfare indefinitely if they are physically and mentally able to work. I think the keys to a huge societal change are children and education. If, through mentoring programs and after-school programs, one child goes from poverty to college graduate, then the cycle of poverty can broken for that child's future children and grandchildren.
I'm just realizing how rambly this post has been. Way past my bedtime.
Hybrid Mode
