“Eye-opening.” “Shocking.” “A wild scramble.”
Those are some of the sentiments expressed Wednesday by participants in East Cooper Community Outreach’s poverty simulation exercise.
The event was designed to expose people with stable incomes to the daily anxieties and challenges experienced by the poor.
Participants were assembled into family groups, assigned roles (mother, father, child) and provided with a set of circumstances. The goal was simple: to survive.
One “family” was comprised of a single mom, her boyfriend and a 1-year-old baby. Another included an out-of-work dad and rambunctious children. Another featured a dependent senior.
Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.
“One “family” was comprised of a single mom, her boyfriend and a 1-year-old baby.”
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This sentence described a major part of the problem. The “single mom” and her “boyfriend” are not bonded in marriage as a husband and wife. The boyfriend may not even be the child’s father. The mother may not even be sure who the actual father happens to be.
These loose ‘pairings’ for sex and companionship do not carry with them an obligation for a life-long partnership devoted to the raising of of the “1-year-old baby” so that that “baby” might have the opportunity to be a successful parent.
Instead, what often happens, is that the baby, if a girl, will become an unwed mother or, if a boy, will become the father of a baby born out of wed lock. Quite possibly a father who will not acknowledge his child or isn’t even sure that he sired a child.
Then what often happens is that such a baby is often exposed during its pre-adult years to a melange of relationships that its mother has with various men. As the baby learns that its mother through her behavior shows little respect for the institution of marriage, the baby grows up to be sexually active adolescent/adult who has little or no respect for that institution.
The bottom line is that the woman is used/abused, the child is confused/abused and the male gets to ‘opt out’ of the responsibilities of marriage.