Book Report: There are No Children Here

I just completed another book from the recommended reading list, There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz. It is a story of two young brothers growing up in housing projects in Chicago in the late 1980's. It gives the reader a look at poverty and the many things that come with it- gangs, drugs, violence, death, teen-pregnancy, crime, prison, high-rates of school dropouts – and it focuses especially on how it affects the children. This true story takes place from 1987 to 1989, and one thing that stays with me throughout the whole story is the children's young ages - just a few years older than I was at the same time, but living light years away in another world entirely. Here I am, growing up happy and safe in my middle-class suburb, when only a few hundred miles away are children who live in fear of not making it to their next birthdays.


I read this book just after completing another book that I read not as part of my teaching preparation, but I cannot help but draw comparisons between the two books. The other book, The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski details the author's life as a reporter who spent many years in Africa. The overwhelming descriptions of poverty and corruption and feelings of helplessness in each book stuck me the same way. So did Kapuscinski's descriptions of warlords in African nations, like Liberia, who carve up their country and its meager resources, stealing from the impoverished and helpless people, preying on the weakest members of society – women and children. The warlords enlist the poor and starving boys in their armies, give them drugs and guns and use them up before throwing them away like garbage. They are not very different from the drug lords in the United States who make money by addicting the poor, inciting crime and violence, pulling young people into their gangs and destroying communities and families. And like the warlords in Africa, the drug lords are also largely a product of their environment.

At the same time, I do not consider the poor in America to be as equally bad off as the poor in Africa. I do think that the problems in America can be more easily repaired as well, but not without a massive mobilization of people and money and resources, and I am not sure we as a nation are capable of making that kind of commitment. It is too easy to not see our own impoverished. They are tucked out of sight in housing projects like the one described in Kotlowitz's book, and the violence and horror that take place there everyday goes unreported by the media, and the rest of America, well, we turn a blind eye and claim ignorance to the problems – or we just throw up our hands in despair and say, what can I do that could possibly make a difference?

Well, for starters, we can stop being so blind, and we can try to help. According to the US bureau of labor statistics, 26.8% of people in the US volunteered during 2009. That's actually a lot more than I expected, and that doesn't take into account exactly how many hours or what types of organizations people worked for. Still, imagine if that number doubled, or tripled. Imagine twice as many people giving time to mentor and tutor youth, or working to build up our communities, lobbying members of congress for educational and healthcare reforms, and not just reforms for those of us in the middle class, but for the poor and the lower class too. Imagine we all stand up and demand social justice and equality. OK, OK, I know, that sounds simplistic and idealistic, and naïve. But still, ask yourself if you have 1 hour a week that you could spend as a youth mentor, or writing a letter to your congressmen.

But here is a rather simple, and feasible suggestion, albeit one that might be controversial to some. I believe one of the best ways to combat poverty is through comprehensive sex education, and free and easy access to family planning services, for everyone, and especially for the poor. I will proudly profess my status as an ardent pro-choice supporter. That means I support CHOICE, as in choice to decide not only whether or not to have a child once you are pregnant, but also be right to be educated enough to be able to make the proper choices regarding sex and birth control and contraception, so that unwanted pregnancies never happen in the first place.

Much of the poverty I see chronicled in Kotlowitz's book is exacerbated by too many people having children at very young ages, like 14, and then having very large families that would be difficult to support even for a middle class family with two working parents, let alone a single mother on welfare. The family chronicled in the book has 8 children, and not to mention that when those children get older, they have their own babies at young ages, and you end up with people who are grandparents before the age of 30. One young woman in the book had 4 kids by the age of 18, and then with her 5^th pregnancy wanted an abortion, but could not afford it. And many of these young parents drop out of school, ensuring that the cycle of poverty will continue ad infinitum.

Fewer teenage pregnancies will mean fewer high-school dropouts, which means fewer people destined to a life of continued poverty. Yes, it is still only one part of a huge problem of poverty, but at least it is a single action that could have far reaching positive consequences.