By: Nicholas Kristof
This article actually hits very close to home in a few ways. I grew up in a single parent family where my father raised me by himself with the help of my grandparents from the age of 21. He could not afford to go to college, pay for it himself, and raise a child at the same time. In my opinion trying to get a job even with a degree is very tough never mind without a degree. I personally know many people that have a B.A. in whatever field they chose to go into and still can't find a job which makes no sense.
“The chance of a person who was born to a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution rising to the top 10 percent as an adult is about the same as the chance that a dad who is 5 feet 6 inches tall having a son who grows up to be over 6 feet 1 inch tall,” Krueger observed in a speech. “It happens, but not often.”
This quote to me is basically saying that if you were not born into a rich family it is less likely for you to succeed. I disagree with this quote. I was not born into a rich family and I am a first generation college student and am succeeding in life just fine. It is harder when you aren't rich especially when you are paying for college classes on your own with no financial aid but it is not impossible.
This is another quote that I do not necessarily agree with for the same reasoning I gave for the above quote. It is only as hard as you make it out to be but nothing is impossible.
"The best metrics of child poverty aren’t monetary, but rather how often a child is read to or hugged. Or, conversely, how often a child is beaten, how often the home descends into alcohol-fueled fistfights, whether there is lead poisoning, whether ear infections go untreated. That’s a poverty that is far harder to escape."
I agree with this quote 100%. What it is saying is the way a child is brought up and the environment they are brought up in plays a major role in their future. If you raise a child in a house where parents don't care what the child does or about anything I think that child will grow up to me more troubled than another child who is brought up in a house with a parent/ parents that are fully involved in the child's life
Hi Valerie,
ReplyDeleteThe three quote format worked well in this blog, and this format provided you a way to track your thoughts.
Your first two quotes attend to the individual level and you write that an individual might be able to lift themselves out of poverty. It's hard to disagree that some people might.
In this class, we are also talking about the larger systems of oppression, which is what your #3 quote and response gets at. Kozol would argue that poorer areas tend to have more pollution, more lead poisoning, less health care options, etc. These and other systemic pressures have negative effects on health and increase levels of stress (impacting violence, depression, health, etc.) for people living in areas with high concentrations of people living in poverty. These systemic pressures impact individuals living in poverty much more than individuals not living in poverty.