1

Blisters & Bright Stars:

Understanding Rural Children Growing Up Poor

By Barbara Webster for the EMT Group, Fall 1999

2

Introduction Story: The Table Where Rich People Sit, by Byrd Baylor Meet the California Mentor Initiative, the EMT Group, and the

presenter Logistics and housekeeping for today’s workshop Materials, references, and resources

Handouts Reference list Local information and experts Personal experience

Participants introduce selves and share either “When I think of a poor child I picture . . .” or “I remember a poor child once telling me . . . . ” or “The story that comes to mind when I think of children and poverty . . .

”

3

Today we will be exploring . . .Our Perspectives

What we think and feel about rural poverty and children

Some Facts & Figures What we know about rural poverty and children

An Old Theory, A Contemporary Understanding, and the Difference It Can Make The concept of culture and how it relates to our understanding of poverty

What It All Means For Our Work on Behalf of Children & Families The challenges and rewards of working with people with very different lives and

perspectives than our own

4

Dimensions of a child’s lifeaffected by poverty

Physical Health Food Housing Possessions Transportation

Activities Education Extracurricular activities Work Travel

Relationships Self-perception Self-expression Peers Parents, siblings, other

family members Authority figures outside

the family

5

Group Exercise:Range of effects of rural poverty on a child’s life

Count off by 3’s and break into groups Group 1: Physical Group 2: Activities Group 3: Relationships

Brainstorm for 5 minutes without discussion, considering full range of possibilities

Record brainstorm on flip charts Discuss your thoughts about your brainstorm in your small

group for 5 minutes Report back to full group

6

What we know about rural life, poverty, and children

Who is poor? Where are the poor? Why are they poor?

What does being poor affect in a person’s life? What are the unique dimensions of rural poverty?

What are the unique dimensions of childhood poverty?

7

Some disclaimers about the facts

Much of the research and public discourse focuses on urban poverty

Studies of rural poverty geographical focus largely on the areas with the most density of the problem: The rural South, Appalachia

Studies and their results still take a long time to be published, so data tends to be older than is helpful for the recognition of change and trends

Establishing cause & effect and other relationships between factors in people’s lives is tricky, and many conclusions based on research are often questioned or refuted with further research

Looking at statistics, it is tempting to generalize, but each individual is different: We are all formed by a unique combination of personality, experience, education, genes, culture, and family influence

Statistics, it has been said, are “people with the tears washed off.”

Ruth Sidel Keeping Women and Children Last

8

Some facts about rural poverty and children: Part 1Primary Source (except where noted): Rural Poverty in America, Edited by Cynthia M. Duncan , 1992

Rural Californians are more likely to be poor: 2.2 million rural Californians live on 95 million of California’s approximately 100 million acres. The other 27.8 million Californians are residents of metropolitan areas. Rural Californians in 1989 earned about 25% less in per capita income, and the rural poverty rate was 62% higher than the urban rate. (From California Department of Economic Opportunity, shown in Bradshaw, 1993.) The rural poverty rate has exceeded the urban poverty rate since 1979.

Children are 37% of all rural poor people, roughly the same percentage as non-rural. In rural areas, poor children are about equally divided between households headed by women and those that are not. According to the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (1991) children in poverty in California are often go hungry. Hungry children are more likely to be tired, irritable, unable to concentrate in school, and more susceptible to illness and infection. They are less likely to receive adequate – or even minimal – health care.

Most of the rural poor are white (71%) reflecting the fact that whites make up 90% of non-metro populations. However, if you are not white and you live in a non-metro area, you are as much as 3 times as likely to be poor (35%-44%) than if you are white (14%).

A distinguishing characteristic of the rural poor is how many work: 20% of heads of households in poor, rural families work full-time, year-round. Nearly 65% of non-metro poor families had 1 or more workers in 1987, and almost 25% had 2 or more workers. A significantly larger percentage of the rural poor who did not work reported that they were ill, disabled, or unable to find work. More than half the long-term poor live in families headed by persons who were elderly or disabled at some time in the decade of their poverty. Surprising numbers of children – 1 in 6 of all children and 42% of long-term poor children – live in such households.

Poverty is typically a transitory problem at the individual level. People move in and out of poverty as a result of events in their lives. It is estimated that as many as 60% of all poverty spells end within 3 years, and only 1 in 7 lasts as long as 8 years. The majority of long-term poor in rural areas are children. Most live in families where the head of household did not complete high school (a major predictor of poverty, regardless of household structure).

9

Some facts about rural poverty and children: Part 2Primary Source (except where noted): Rural Poverty in America, Edited by Cynthia M. Duncan , 1992

Largeness of family has long been known to be one of the principal causes of poverty. Families with 3 or more children are about 3 times as likely as families with only one child to fall into the lowest 10% net income. Families with 3 or more children comprise only 22% of families with children, yet they contain 40% of children -- and are the source of about 60% if children in the lowest 10% of net income. (From: Cheal, 1996)

People can work and be poor for two reasons: They may not work the entire year due to loss of a job, illness, disability, or seasonal jobs. Seasonal jobs are more

common in rural areas than in urban areas. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (1991), in general rural residents are not as healthy as urban residents, especially among the poor, and poor rural people generally use health care services to a lesser extent than do their urban counterparts. About 37% of poor non-metro residents who are not elderly lack health insurance.

Even full-time workers may not earn enough to keep a family, particularly a large family, out of poverty. The rural occupational structure is heavily weighted toward low-wage, low-skill jobs. In 1987, 42% of rural workers had low hourly earnings . Low earners are individuals whose hourly wage would leave them below the official poverty line for a family of four. In 1987, less than one-third of rural men were low earners but over one-half of working rural women were low earners. Women comprise about 47% of the rural labor force.

Types of jobs: The service sector has been the growth industry for rural jobs since the 1980s, when nearly all major rural industries simultaneously experienced job losses (agriculture, mining, timber, manufacturing, and other natural-resource-based industries). 54% of all rural workers have jobs in consumer or social services, and 56% of all rural low earners had jobs in these industries. Because agricultural jobs do not employ a large percentage of rural workers, agricultural jobs comprise only 8% of rural low earners even though 76% of agricultural workers are low earners. The share of management, technical, and professional jobs is less than half that of metro areas.

Poverty rates are higher in rural than in urban regions of the U.S. yet the rural poor are much less likely to receive welfare assistance. One reason is that the rural poor are more likely employed, more likely to be headed by a married couple, and are more likely to have assets that make them ineligible. (From: Rodgers and Weiher, 1989)

10

Theory, the concept of culture, and our understanding of poverty

Theoretical explanations of the causes of poverty The rise & fall of the theory of “a culture of poverty” The meaning of the term “culture” A different theoretical approach to understanding the causes of

poverty The most common mistakes we make when we think in terms

of “the poverty culture” Limited ways that thinking about culture can helps us learn to

understand poor children and families Regardless of differences, our goal in working with children

and youth is the same: Building resiliency

11

The rise & fall of the theory of “a culture of poverty”Primary Source: The Culture of Poverty: A Critique” edited by Eleanor Burke Leacock (1971)

A theory of a “culture of poverty” was propounded by social scientist Oscar Lewis in the 1960s

Lewis describes the culture of poverty as “a culture in the traditional anthropological sense that it provides human beings with a design for living, with a ready-made set of solutions for human problems.” (Lewis, 1966)

Primary elements of the theory: Poverty results from characteristics of the individual poor person that influences his or her

success; A virtually autonomous subculture exists among the poor, one which is self-perpetuating,

self-defeating, and passed on to children in values or motivations that are set by about age seven;

Characteristics of poor individuals believed to include a sense of resignation or fatalism and an inability to put off satisfaction of immediate desires in order to plan for the future. Laziness, stupidity, lack of ambition or motivation and inadequate preparation for an occupation are often linked to these characteristics.

The theory first defined by Lewis and subsequently applied by others has been heavily critiqued and largely debunked in the decades since by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and other social scientists

12

The Other Theory: Poverty is caused by problems with the economy or within society

Primary Source: The Culture of Poverty: A Critique, edited by Eleanor Burke Leacock (1971)

The poor are poor because they do not have reasonable access to good jobs, education, health care, adequate housing, and insurance;

Contributing factors may include labor market segmentation, discrimination, or both. Realistic attempts to deal with objective conditions vary from one class and set of

conditions to another. Non-poor people interpret the behavior of the poor in terms of unstated middle-class assumptions of what is sensible and worthy.

Some causes of middle-class misinterpretation of the behavior of the poor: The Interaction Situation is Unrepresentative: The middle-class interact with the poor only in limited

situations yet may assume that the behavior observed or attitudes tapped represent the range of their behavior and attitudes;

Sample Bias: Primary data upon which inferences have been based have been statistics drawn from records of people who are dependent upon or in trouble with the authorities;

“Sociocentric” Interpretations: The middle class person tends not to become engaged with a lower-class person in relationships that involve such acts as a common sizing up and interpreting of situations and events or a mutual weighing of alternatives and considerations of means, so the middle-class person may believe that such behavior does not occur among the poor. Interclass relationships are largely defined in terms of authority and control of resources on one hand and dependence, servitude, or employee status on the other. The middle-class person experiences the poor person in these roles as either easy-going and not very “deep” or as hostile or guarded or whatever the situation may dictate.

13

What is culture?

Culture is a set of mental rules for survival and success that a particular group of people has developed.

Culture is that part of the environment made by humans; it includes customs and values as well as material objects.

Cultures are learned and communicated consciously and unconsciously to subsequent generations.

Cultures are multifaceted, including factors like family structure, spirituality, language, technology, organizations, law, art, body image, parenting practices, concepts of growth, aging and death . . . and many, many more.

Cultures are dynamic; that is, they are characterized by continuous - though sometimes incremental - change;

Culture is a way of life that makes a group of people unique; We have multiple, overlapping cultural identities. The culture and sub-cultures of my

religion, my ethnic heritage, my gender, and the dominant culture of the geographic region where I grew up or live now, for example, may inform who I am, in different ways. Practically speaking, no person is the product of one culture alone.

Furthermore, my individual personality strongly affects my life -- and even how I interact with and understand my cultural identities.

14

The most common mistakes we make when we think in terms of “the poverty culture”

Connotes one unified set of values and mores

Suggests the ways of the poor are passed down from generation to generation

Implies intractable differences, making the poor “the other”

Starts from the belief that middle class behaviors are the appropriate standard

Helpers can feel paralyzed by the belief that either

It is inappropriate to try affect change for someone whose way of life is different from the helper’s own

It is impossible to affect positive change for someone whose life is different from the helper’s own

15

One way that thinking about culture can be helpful to us when working with the poor

Intercultural understanding and intercultural communication skills are now widely promoted and taught, and can contain some insights applicable to socioeconomic differences.

Your handouts include several pages from The EMT Group’s Mentoring Plus Workshop “Training Mentors In Relationship Building” module on cross-cultural mentoring relationships that may be helpful.

16

Building Resiliency: A goal that transcends differences Resilience Research: The study of how individuals throughout the human lifespan have

successfully transformed risk and adversity to become competent, confident caring adults As a result of this research: Prevention programs for youth have changed from risk reduction

model (focusing on what’s wrong in the life of a child or family) to healthy development (promoting resilience traits and supporting environments that promote resilience).

The research shows where and how change clearly starts: With the adults belief in the innate resilience of a youth – in his or her capacity for

healthy development External assets or protective factors that generate positive developmental

outcomes: We can provide these (See Prevention Tactics, page 3) Being cared about Being believed in Having opportunities to participate and contribute

Desired outcomes: Internal assets or resilience traits. We can support these: Social competence Autonomy/identity Problem solving skills Sense of purpose and future

17

“We all have the capacity to transform how we see

ourselves and our lives. This is a capacity we tap

when we are in environments where we experience

safety, belonging, respect for our autonomy and

identity, mastery and power, and a sense of

meaning.”-- Bonnie Benard

18

Review, refresh, and reframe key communication skills

Self-knowledge matters most“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an

equal distance into the world within.” -- Lillian Smith Explore one’s own experiences of poverty and plenty, of wants and unmet

needs (Personal inventory exercise) Sharing How it feels for me to talk about money and related concepts: Talking about

money brings up all kinds of personal, social, and cultural issues and ramifications

Key communication skills Listening Reflecting Pacing Matching styles

19

The challenges and rewards of working with people whose ways or values differ from our own

Individual exercise Challenges Rewards If I could ask 3 questions . . .

Group discussion What are some of the challenges and rewards you identified? Regarding the asking of three questions:

What answer, if any, might you get? Would asking the question elicit a meaningful response? Why or why not?

20

Conclusion Key Points

Poverty has profound effects on a child’s life The ways that we cope with our different day-to-day realities can masquerade as

differences in our cultures Ways to Apply What We Have Talked About

Know your own values as truths that work for you Respect the individual Recognize and promote resilience

Reflections of an adult who was once a poor rural child . . . I remember: Christmas A broken arm Work Worry Weariness Being together and outdoors

21

Blisters and Bright Stars

© Barbara Webster, 1999

Lukewarm water cuts cool trails in our dusty throats stale java flavor seeps acrossmy ten-year-old tonguefrom the brown-stained plasticof that ancient mug and no nine p.m. breezelifts our hair   Stop picking at ithe saysor it will never heal. But I like touching them: today’s full soft and brightnext to the dry rough toughness of the old.   I pushmy spine and headagainst the cord of wood,curl my toes around the tailgate edge raise my eyes with his to the heavens and knowthe stars coming soon into claritywill unknothis voice.