An insight into poverty.
Mar. 23rd, 2006 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI read a fascinating article the other day. It regarded a survey of mothers in Georgia who receive financial aid of some sort, and it asked a lot of the usual questions and one of them was "If your children aren't in school, how often do you play with them?" But it also asked one of the most important questions of all: "If you had the time to do so, would you play with your children more often? If not, why not?"
It may surprise you to know that a huge percentage of the respondents said "no." But what's really interesting is the reason over half of them gave: doing so would interfere with the child's childhood. Because an adult interacting with a child is an imposition on this one and only time in a child's life when a child gets to be childlike.
It has long been observed that poor women don't interact with their children as much as middle-class mothers, and that this lack of interaction leads to a much slower development of language and other learning skills. But now we learn that some of them are doing so because skills like being able to communicate with an adult, and to read and write and so on, are the provinces of adults. To impose those skills on a small child is to deny that child his childhood. For poor women adulthood sucks, and her holding it off for her children as long as possible is perceived as a mercy.
The only question remains, how do we undo this perception and help these people realize that they're not really doing their children any favors? Because this attitude ensures that adulthood will suck for their children.
It may surprise you to know that a huge percentage of the respondents said "no." But what's really interesting is the reason over half of them gave: doing so would interfere with the child's childhood. Because an adult interacting with a child is an imposition on this one and only time in a child's life when a child gets to be childlike.
It has long been observed that poor women don't interact with their children as much as middle-class mothers, and that this lack of interaction leads to a much slower development of language and other learning skills. But now we learn that some of them are doing so because skills like being able to communicate with an adult, and to read and write and so on, are the provinces of adults. To impose those skills on a small child is to deny that child his childhood. For poor women adulthood sucks, and her holding it off for her children as long as possible is perceived as a mercy.
The only question remains, how do we undo this perception and help these people realize that they're not really doing their children any favors? Because this attitude ensures that adulthood will suck for their children.
