Hungry - an Essay on Childhood Poverty in the US
Hungry Eight year old Nora wakes up in her freezing apartment and puts on her only set of clothes. She squeezes a small amount of toothpaste into her mouth and pushes it around with her finger before she spits it into the wastebasket. The water in her home was cut off last week because her Mama did not have money to pay the bill. She grabs her book bag and heads out to the bus stop, bypassing the kitchen where she knows that the cupboards are bare. Nora, like Dick Gregory in his essay “Shame”, goes to school on an empty stomach every day. He details how effected he was by poverty as a young child. Poor health, low self–esteem, and a lack of education are three of the many desolating effects of childhood poverty. Poverty profoundly affects the health of children. Many infants are born with a strike already against them because their mothers are not able to afford prenatal care like vitamins, healthy foods, and regular doctor visits. Often, babies are born with a low birth weight which is associated with many preventable physical and mental disabilities. Children raised in poverty are also more likely to have impaired vision and hearing due of untreated infections. Parents are unable to provide their children with basic medical care and nutritious foods for their growing bodies. In many cases a child receives their healthiest and sometimes only meal of their day at school. Gregory writes of his hunger, “Maybe you could sneak into the cloakroom and steal a bite of some kid’s lunch out of a coat pocket. A bite of something. Paste” (60). This level of desperation, stress and hunger greatly effects the mental and physical development of a child and can last an entire lifetime. Economically disadvantaged children are often influenced by family stresses and stigma that negatively effect their self-esteem. Poverty stricken kids have to deal with worries that other children do not. A child should not