Is poverty just being poor and never having enough or, can poverty be much more? In “What Is Poverty,” Jo Goodwin Parker tells a story about a girl who grew up in poverty, lived her whole life dealing with it, and then watched her children struggle with it also. What is poverty according to the girl in Parkers essay and is her idea a reflection of others idea of poverty as well? Parker tells in her essay how the girl views poverty in her daily experiences. The girl and her family wake up on dirty mattresses with no sheets because they were used for diapers. The family smells of urine, sour milk, spoiled foods, and onions. They smell of spoiled milk because their refrigerator doesn’t work and it cost too much to fix. Parkers essay shows how
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She dropped out of high school to get a job to help her parents pay for bills. When she got married things started to look up but then her husband lost his job. She gets odd jobs to help put food on the table. The house keeps getting worse and worse they never have enough money to fix it, they barely have enough money for food. Even with her small jobs she never had enough. She made twenty-two dollars a week and day care took it all so she decided to quit and start working at home. She takes care of her three kids. She stays up late and washes her daughter's clothes in hope that they would be dry enough for her to wear the next day. When she asks for help she feels so ashamed but does it for her children. Even with the help she gets she still has to use all the money on food, there is never enough for medicine, soap, or heat. Bauman demonstrates his point of view on poverty as, “People in poverty are usually represented as present-oriented, living one day at a time with little planning to the future, and always procrastinating decisions that could lead them to a better-off economic situation. (5)” Parker continues to explain how the girl sits up all night watching the fire, adding paper when the fire starts to die and making sure it doesn’t jump to the newspaper walls and start a house fire. Soon the financial stress gets to her husband and he abandons her with their children. Being poor destroyed her marriage and left her children
She dropped out of high school to get a job to help her parents pay for bills. When she got married things started to look up but then her husband lost his job. She gets odd jobs to help put food on the table. The house keeps getting worse and worse they never have enough money to fix it, they barely have enough money for food. Even with her small jobs she never had enough. She made twenty-two dollars a week and day care took it all so she decided to quit and start working at home. She takes care of her three kids. She stays up late and washes her daughter's clothes in hope that they would be dry enough for her to wear the next day. When she asks for help she feels so ashamed but does it for her children. Even with the help she gets she still has to use all the money on food, there is never enough for medicine, soap, or heat. Bauman demonstrates his point of view on poverty as, “People in poverty are usually represented as present-oriented, living one day at a time with little planning to the future, and always procrastinating decisions that could lead them to a better-off economic situation. (5)” Parker continues to explain how the girl sits up all night watching the fire, adding paper when the fire starts to die and making sure it doesn’t jump to the newspaper walls and start a house fire. Soon the financial stress gets to her husband and he abandons her with their children. Being poor destroyed her marriage and left her children