Originally Posted by
PennyQuilts
It doesn't matter the race and I can't imagine the basis of saying poor white parents are worse than poor black parents - or vice versa. If you have horrible parents living in horrible neighborhoods the poor kids' best hope - maybe only hope - is a responsible extended family member stepping in and rescuing them. The next best thing is for the state to step in and remove the child from the home and get them out of that violent, dysfunctional mess. I personally think it is misguided how hard the state tries to keep children in dysfunctional, violent homes when the best thing that could happen would be to rescue the child before his or her life is destroyed. I don't mean they should take the child - usually, I think they should throw their weight behind extended family and support them in getting custody. It is not a perfect solution but it beats heck out of leaving a child in a violent, terrible home or placing them in foster care.
But to get back to the problems of black families, my observation is that, so often responsible extended family members are fairly distant. Having dysfuctional children/grand children abusing drugs, being in and out of the criminal justice system and/or living a life that rejects values they hold close invariably results in a splintering of family, eventually. We've all seen nice families with a troubled family member who just wears out his brothers and sisters if not his parents. Due to that dynamic, so many black kids are often left in the charge of awful parents with fewer responsible extended members available to intervene. After several generations of this, grandma may be close by but just as messed up as the mother because this has been going on for several generations. And yet, their cousins might not have gone that route and would be wonderful homes if they had any influence over the situation or made themselves available.
At this point in time, a lot of simply awful white parents still have extended family with some sense nearby that might step in, but in another generation or so many will be far enough removed from responsible relatives that the troubled white kids will be in the same boat as so many of today's troubled black kids. Twenty years ago when I was working at the district attorney's office, I would see "poor white trash" come in on charges. It was about half and half - the first half frequently brought their kids and they were in dirty clothes that looked like they came out of a rag bag. They ran around practically unsupervised with no toys brought along to keep them occupied. No grandparents came to support them or if they did, they looked like meth heads. Those kids were in a second or third generation of dysfunctionality.
The other half would be young white parents who looked pretty scruggy but their nicely dressed parents would be there and, invariably, the children would be well dressed (in clothes bought by grandma, no doubt), with toys to play with to keep them occupied and a courtroom that had a number of responsible looking families members there for support even for minor hearings. All the difference in the world and still time for a family to turn around a downward spiral into poverty and all that goes with it.
But it isn't just about being poor - a well off parent who is working and married, living in a nice home can still be a clueless parent who doesn't understand what parenting is all about. We see them all the time letting their little darlings run wild in public being nuisances. But those poor neglected kids won't have the same skill sets their parents were taught and the whole thing is just tragic.
And single parenthood - which hits younger parents and poorer people in far greater numbers - is just so hard. I recall one particular time as a guardian ad litem being in a restaurant with a nice single young mother of a four year old who was running absolutely wild. "I can't control him," sez she. Well, she didn't even try. I finally looked at her and said, "You do realize this is the most control you will ever have over that child? What is he going to be doing in ten years, do you suppose?" She just shrugged. Fact is, she was a nice girl but exhausted trying to raise a child on her own. She loved him but without the father supporting her (and I don't just mean financially) and without family close by to help her, she was just treading water on a good day. Single parenthood is a recipe for disaster, so often. Certainly it can be done and has been done, but for those people on the edge, it is often just too much. Moreover, their personal lives often tend to be chaotic because they are raising children and trying to date at the same time with all the drama that goes along with that. I feel sorry for all of them. That being said, we can't have people spraying a crowd with bullets. That is a person so damaged that he or she must be removed from society until they can get themselves under control.
Bricktown Shooter: parents arrested dozens of times
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks