“What if I die before my child dies? I only wish my child would… die earlier or right after me.” While reading Chapter Eight in the book “Family Poverty in Diverse Contexts,” by Broussard and Joseph, I recalled this phrase from my own memory, about the realistic wish of a mother who was raising a disabled child. From her quote above, I made assumptions about how much time a disabled child must take in the daily lives of their families. At the time, I felt bitter towards her, not knowing how difficult raising a disabled child could truly be. In this book, the authors point out the significant number of impoverished children who live with developmental disabilities. In many instances, children with disabilities in the U.S. are significantly more likely to live in poverty. To this point, Fujiura and Yamaki (2000) found that 28% of U.S. children with disabilities lived below the federal poverty threshold, as contrasted with 16% of children who were living without disabilities. Why is this the case? The authors highlight that the relationship between children with developmental …show more content…
In addition, parents often work to create peer relationships for their child, lobby for needed services and supports, and strive to ensure their child’s acceptance and participation in the community. Such demands often result in exhaustion and create undue hardships for these families. The caregiving demands for these parents have been shown to directly, and negatively, impact both their psychological well-being and physical health (Brehaut et al., 2004; Raina, et al., 2005). In this regard, some studies have found that these families are easily dissolved since smaller daily stresses may be amplified due to the stress of
...to the situations and problems in social work. Poverty had a few chapters on its own. There is nothing wrong with covering poverty, but chapter thirteen should be split into two chapters to give a more comprehensive overview of developmental disabilities. Therefor the book should not exclude the chapter, it should expand the chapter. Developmental disabilities is constantly overlapping in social work. Social workers should have a basic understanding of developmental disabilities. Clients who have disabilities should be understood to an extent, and should get the help they need. The information in chapter thirteen does give helpful information in understanding individuals with developmental disabilities.
Roth, D. L., Perkins, M., Wadley, V. G., Temple, E. M., & Haley, W. E. (2009). Family Caregiving and Emotional Strain: Associations with Quality of Life in a Large National Sample of Middle-Aged and Older Adults. Quality of Life Research , 18, 679-688.
Parents who are supported in their caregiving role are better able to nurture their children, who have a better chance to grow up to be productive, contributing members of society. Research has demonstrated that programs such as parenting education, support groups, and home visiting are effective and produce positive, significant results for parents and their children. (p. 75)
People living in poverty can be thought of as a “them” who can be easily ignored and forgotten; when, in reality, poverty can affect anyone. When people are living in poverty, sometimes it is not their fault. Often, unfortunate events that are out of someone’s control can set them up for failure. For example, the poverty rate for disabled adults from the age of 18-64 is 28.5%, while disabled 18-64 year olds only make up 7.7% of America’s population (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar 16). Therefore, poverty disproportionately affects disabled adults. The stories of those living in poverty are incredibly diverse, as Sasha Abramsky points out in The American Way of Poverty:
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
" Effects of Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness on Children and Youth." American Psychological Association ,www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.
Poverty in Developing and Less Developed Countries The world includes less developed countries and developing countries. Less developed countries are countries considered to be poor and often contain many people who are in absolute poverty. Developing countries are countries like India, which are gaining in wealth. There are two types of poverty within the world.
"Disability the facts." New Internationalist Nov. 2013: 20+. Advanced Placement Government and Social Studies Collection. Web. 27 May 2014.
Radley, M. (2009). Understanding the social exclusion and stalled welfare of citizens with learning disabilities. Disability and Society, 23(4): 489-501.
According to a survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control, 22.2% of the United States population reported having some sort of disability (2013). While the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), acts to prevent the discrimination of people with physical and mental disabilities, it has been unsuccessful in erasing it all together. Almost a quarter of the US population is disabled, meaning that almost a quarter of the population face some form of inequality due to their physical
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2012).Teaching children with disability in inclusive settings. Reterived on March 20, 2012 from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001829/182975e.pdf
For centuries, gender, race, ethnicity, and age, have contributed to the social stratification of persons in society, and more specifically, for the means of this essay, women in society. In the United States for example, gender and age greatly contribute to whether or not one will be subject to a life of poverty. In Cultural Anthropology: A Problem Based Approach, Robbins discusses the book Women and Children Last by Ruth Sidel in which Sidel draws a comparison between the Titanic and American society in the 1980's. "Both were gleaming symbols of wealth that placed women and children at a disadvantage" (Robbins, 239). When the Titanic went down that night, the women and children traveling first and second-class were the first to be saved, but the women and children in third-class and steerage were either the last ones to be saved or rather not saved at all, so much so that 45 percent of the women and 70 percent of the children in steerage died. Sidel claims that the same way certain women and children on board the Titanic were the last to be saved, in the United States as well, certain women and children are not the first to be saved, but rather the first ones to fall into poverty.
“…we do believe that how we bring up out children has a most profound effect upon how our society is behaving and how we deal with each other as human beings.”
As developed countries quench their thirsts for petrol, developing countries around the world are left behind, force to watch on without any help from the outside community. Being poor means to be disadvantaged in every single way. It means not being able to support yourself or your family or have the basic necessity to life. Without substantial help for these helpless people then we should be feeling guilty that we are living lives far better than what others are experiencing. Poverty may because by wars, disease or lack of education and infrastructure and the resulting consequences may be hunger, starvation, crime and ultimately death. If poverty is not eradicated then injustice will continue, increasing death tolls and lives.
The last part of this quote is pivotal. The mothers must consider everyone involve, including themselves. They must take their own interests into account and care about how they will turn out in the long run. This act, itself, defies traditional motherhood roles. In all actuality, mothering is a selfless act and mothers think about themselves last, if at all. But sometimes, for the sake of themselves, their souls, and their families, mothers have to put themselves first for the sake of everyone involved.