Consequences
of Stress on Children’s Development
Poverty
This is a story that my daddy shared with me when I was
young. He told me how when he was a young boy he did not attend school he had
to work in the fields to help support the family. He said he worked doing farm
work from sun up to sun down and one time he got paid with a pair of shoes that
was too big for his feet. He said he was very angry about that. He said they
had to walk everywhere they went. They went without a lot of things because
they did not have any extra money to buy them.
My daddy was 22 when he married my mother who was 17. They lived
with his mother for a while. They finally got a house of their own. My mother
and father both worked while my grandmother my mother’s mom babysat. My father got his first public job at a lumber
mill where he worked during all sort of weather. My oldest sister was soon born,
18 months later another sister was born. My mother and father saved their money and
built a house I and my baby sister were born buy now. One of my father’s cousin
moved in to help with keeping the children and housework while my mother continue
to work outside the home.
The house did not have inside plumbing or central heat. But
they had a home for their family. This is where my daddy’s story stop and mines
began. In the later years they remodeled
the house and my mother lives there still.
My daddy worked hard all his live to provide a good home for
his family and he did just that. We were poor but I did not know it thanks to
the satisfices and hard work of my parents. My sister and I had all our needs
met and some many of our wants. My dad taught himself to write his name, how to
add and subtract and how to read a little. We were born and rise in poverty but we were
determine not to stay there. My daddy passed May, 2013 but his determination
and strength live on in his children and grandchildren.
Poverty in South Africa
Poverty is a stressor that is apparently all over the world.
It has been eighteen years since the apartheid ended in South Africa now it is
said to be one of the most unequal societies in the world and it has 19 million
children who bear the brunt of this disconnection (Nicholson, 2012). In South
African 60% of the children cry themselves to sleep at night because of the
lack of proper food (Nicholson, 2012). Children
and their families are often too poor to purchase the necessities. They live in
inadequate housing, lack of clean water, lack of education and many live with their
mother only.
There are many policy and programs that have been put in
place to assist in this matter but as of now only a few has been successful. Children
begin abandon by parents to survive the best way they can has added to the
number of children in poverty. Many babies are born malnourished at birth. Education
is the single most important factor in stopping the transmission of poverty
from one generation to the next.
Poverty is a worldwide problem even here in the United
States there are children who goes to bed hunger. We have many resources to
assist families here in the United States but yet the number of families are
steadily increasing.
Reference
Nicholson,
Z., (2012). Most black SA kids live in poverty- study. www.iol.co.za/...South-africa/most-black-sa-kids-live-in-poverty-study-1.1
Barbara despite continued reports of economic growth in Africa, much of the continent remains wracked by poverty, with roughly one in five citizens saying they frequently lack food, clean water and medical care, according to the largest survey of African citizens. A majority of the world’s poorest countries today are in Africa. Of course some African countries like South Africa and Egypt are not quite as poor as others like Angola and Ethiopia. And though in recent year’s absolute poverty in Africa has shown some slight falls, African income levels have actually been dropping relative to the rest of the world. So poor Africa has been getting relatively poorer on average, and 2013 sees North East Africa again having starvation for millions in the region now especially affecting Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan - and in Somalia religious war has been worsening the famine situation there. Education, medicine and drinking water are also major problems in poor African countries - as well as transport and energy. Diseases like AIDS, malaria and cholera are widespread with the latter two involving poor water systems. In some African countries a lack of adequate medical services is helping maintain poverty for many families. Many have noted that countries in Africa have often suffered from civil wars and inadequate government, and this may be in part due to many African countries being artificial colonial creations with borders that make sustainable government more difficult. Conflict-torn countries with long running civil wars such as Angola, Burundi, Mozambique, Somalia and Uganda have had little effective government, making it very difficult to get hold of supplies or build necessary infrastructures. This has also given neighboring countries big refugee problems. And much of Africa has also had corrupt government, like Zimbabwe. But in Africa both the wars and the corrupt governments maintaining poverty, have often been supported by richer Western governments. Nearly 49 million Americans, including 15.9 million children, struggle with hunger on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteRetrieved on November 23, 2013 from: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/despite-growth-reports-africa-mired-in-poverty/#sthash.ws9JoRSY.dpuf
The information that you shared about Africa is staggering and heartbreaking but parts of the description you shared also applies to the United States. Children throughout America lack adequate housing, clean water and food and this is in one of the richest countries in the world. There are policy and procedures in place in the U.S. to help with these needs but there are still 43 million people experiencing poverty in the United States. It is a global problem, one that has no easy answer but one that we must keep working toward a resolution.
ReplyDeleteIt sad to know that over 60% of children cry themselves to sleep at night because of things that are out of their control. It has to be hard as parents to be hungry yourself and then have to explain to a child that is hungry as well that there is no food to eat. This can begin a snowball effect of sickness, malnutrition, or even death. Our world has exhausted our resources and we are seeing a lot more of the ramifications of poverty more now than ever.
ReplyDeleteKristina Coleman
This is a great blog post! It is nice to see that although you had a family that struggled through poverty good has come out of it. I think that gives hope to others. It is very sad that in other countries that many children have to cry and can barely sleep because they are so hungry. I think this should make us stop to think in America if we are throwing away food what we could do with that food instead of just putting it in the garbage.
ReplyDelete