The phrase “child poverty” is cause to squirm — poverty is poverty, regardless of whom it afflicts.
That is not to dump on the B.C. New Democrats’ plan to boost the family-bonus program and raise income-assistance rates, but to couch the issue in terms of “child poverty” threatens to push it into that realm where it will keep company with things like “family friendly” and “world peace,” noble concepts whose shine is sometimes dimmed by the grime of politicking.
And there’s the pity, because the problem is real.
For a few years, we lived on a street that was a sort of dividing line — average suburban neighbourhood on one side, a row of low-rent townhouses on the other, homes for a crowd of kids my wife called my fan club. Seldom could I tackle yard work without two or three or four gathering around with offers to help and much chatter about what was going on in their lives.
I heard far more than I wanted to hear.
“I don’t want to go home,” said one youngster. “My dad yells at me and hits me.” His expression told me that more than a scolding was involved.
I told a cluster of kids they couldn’t play on our trampoline because if they got hurt, their moms and dads would be mad at me.
“I don’t have a dad,” one said. “Well, I do, but he’s in jail.”
Another youngster, pedalling furiously down the street one day, stopped by our yard to catch her breath. She had just seen her father, who, she confided, had been ordered by the courts to stay away from his family. She was fleeing to the comparative safety of her home.
They told me of their dreams.
“We’re going to move,” said one. “My mom bought a ticket for $50 and she’s going to win a brand-new house.”
One evening, long past the time for children to be on the street, I suggested to a pair of youngsters that they should go home, that their mother was probably worried.
“Naw, she’s at bingo,” one explained.
I lost contact with my “fan club” when we moved away from that street, but I often wonder, with not much optimism, how they fared as they made their way into adulthood.
“Child poverty” evokes images of Oliver Twist and children begging in the street, and it’s easy to believe that’s something from Victorian England or a Third World country, but it’s a Canadian problem.
In 1989, Parliament voted unanimously to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Yet today, according to the Conference Board of Canada, more than one in seven Canadian children live in poverty.
As if one act of Parliament could sweep away a host of ills. Child poverty is not a problem, it’s a complicated tangle of problems, and the solutions are not simple.
In this rich country of ours, we should do whatever it takes to ensure no child goes hungry or has to endure winter without adequate clothing. But until we go deeper, and work to correct the problems that make children poor, there will always be poor children.
On the surface, it seems ridiculous to ask what causes poverty. Lack of money is the obvious answer, but it’s not the complete answer.
Had someone given a pile of money to the parents of the kids in my “fan club,” life would not have improved substantially for most of them. They were poor, yes, but thanks to government assistance, they had clothes and shelter and were not starving, except for attention and affection and guidance.
What those kids really needed were things difficult to deliver through government programs. They needed parents to read to them, take walks with them, discipline them with love and kindness. They needed stable families, with reasonable role models to guide them, not a series of “uncles” who came and went with the seasons. They needed to be taught from birth that education, training, hard work, integrity and respect are important ingredients of happiness, as well as the path out of poverty.
We need to provide food, clothing and shelter for those in need, but the worst kind of child poverty is about more than lack of money.
