In the essay "What is Poverty", mystery author Jo Goodwin Parker accounts a personal story of what herself and her three children experience as a poverty stricken family and gives us a glimpse into the past that's brought her here. Foul smelling, malnourished, and full of hopelessness at her situation, this woman describes in detail why life is this way for her. After swallowing her pride to ask for help at a local government agency and being passed around like a hot potato, Jo finally receives some relief in the form of seventy-eight dollars a month, which is intended to care for her family of four. Touching on the cost of child care and her horrifying experience with a sitter that cost any less, Jo answers any questions one might have as to why she doesn't do something. We learn about the price she must pay in simply getting a ride to town, by a neighbor man who expects money or sexual favors and who sits in self righteousness when discussing the poverty stricken, immoral mothers who ask for government assistance. She shares still, after her painful account, of her dream for a brighter future, one in which hand cream and health care is no longer out of reach.
The realities depicted in this story could only have sprung from a woman's heart who has felt the searing burn of poverty's torture. Any mother reading her description of the condition she found her children in most probably felt vomit rise up in their throats at such a horror. Not to mention the utter since of despair one would feel at not being able to afford going to work. This is a truth that I have faced, that the cost of childcare can't always be off set by a persons income. This woman has learned how to live in unbearable filth, making great sacrifices in ways of neglecting her body, as well as her childrens' bodies, just to survive. Still, her obvious ability to be a coherent mother, shown in her watching that the flames don't catch on the newspaper coated walls to protect her children is the hope I found in this story. What makes a human being so marvelous is that beautiful, enduring ache a person feels in response to their child. She inspires me to hold a different understanding for what a person can experience, for though I have felt poverty, I have lived in city that has blessed and afforded me with support and opportunity and I have never had to go through anything so heartbreaking as this woman.
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"Touching on the cost of child care and her horrifying experience with a sitter that cost any less, Jo answers any questions one might have as to why she doesn't do something." I remember that piece, it was so sad, by the way the sitter was nanna. I think nanna means grandma. Your reaction to this horrifying tale is so appropriate, "Still, her obvious ability to be a coherent mother, shown in her watching that the flames don't catch on the newspaper coated walls to protect her children is the hope I found in this story. What makes a human being so marvelous is that beautiful, enduring ache a person feels in response to their child. She inspires me to hold a different understanding for what a person can experience, for though I have felt poverty, I have lived in city that has blessed and afforded me with support and opportunity and I have never had to go through anything so heartbreaking as this woman." I know I felt like vomitting and crying all at the same time. Very well written the summary has all the kep points and your reaction just reminds me of mine. Good job!
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