Poverty: Is There an Escape?

Growing up, we were poor. I remember months at a time where we would have pinto

beans for dinner, and what we hoped was that my mom had enough money to make

some cornbread and enough to put some sort of pork in the beans so that tasted

okay. My mom was a waitress, had been her whole life, and still is. She would

work two jobs to try to keep food on the table, the rent paid for and her car

payment paid for, and whatever else she had to pay. It was a never-ending

battle for her to keep up. While she worked two jobs, I stayed home with my

little bother. He was only five years younger than me, so it was quite

difficult. I know now that if DSS knew, they probably would have taken us. But

I also know now that my mom did all that she could possibly do. She had no one

to help her, and she was prideful.

She always refused to ask for help, that included government help, help from

friends, and we really had no family, so help from family wasn’t an option. I

can see now that her refusal to ask for help and to take the government aid was

prideful and really hurt my brother and me in the long run. But she had her set

of values and that didn’t fall within those values, so now I completely respect

her for it. I often ask her about what her childhood was like, and it was just

like mine, her mother was a single mother after her father passed away and

waited on tables to try to stay ahead, however it was an impossible battle that

she was never able to achieve.

It was like a family legacy passed down from generation to generation, my

grandmother tells the same story of poverty. While I was growing up, I was

pretty intelligent and my mom would always talk about me doing things that were

going to make so much money, “Baby, you are going to be a lawyer someday,” or

“Mandy, I hope you become a successful engineer.” There were so many of these

lines filled in by high paying jobs that I often thought that was what I was

destined to do. But it wasn’t what God had planned for me; I always knew I was

meant to be a teacher. So I have decided to do that, but here is the question,

as a single mother, am I setting my son Rylie up to the same childhood that I

had. Are we going to have to stretch every last dime to merely pay the bills?

I know it is like that now. In order for me to go to school, I had no choice

but to rely on the system. I think my mother was a bit disappointed at first,

but there was no way I could afford five hundred dollars a week in childcare,

lord only knows how much for Rylie’s health insurance, enough food to keep us

well fed. So I swallowed my pride and did it. I know that for me it is a

short-term solution, just till December when I finally graduate and start

working. But even then, with all the student loans that I had to take out in

order to get an education and supposedly get ahead, will it ever work, or will

the family legacy be passed on to yet another generation?

All over the world, disparities between the rich and poor, even in the

wealthiest of nations is rising sharply. Fewer people are becoming increasingly

“successful” and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population is also

becoming even poorer. There are many issues involved when looking at poverty. It

is not simply enough (or correct) to