Alone in a Quiet Room....What's Really Going On?

I’m grateful to be alone in a quiet room. In my room I have a heater that works and a comfortable bed. I have a place to relax, unwind and reflect after a busy day. Outside of my window I can see the park and kids ice skating on a pond of ice they made out of melted snow. I can see them jokingly compete against each other as they enjoy the joyful innocence of childhood. My ivy is thriving next to the window and every morning the sun pours in and coaxes me awake. Each day, I wake up with a sense of security, feeling excited about what the day will bring. I have everything I need. I’m fortunate.

The children in the park are fortunate, too. They are able to enjoy their childhoods, unlike children whose families live in one room and share the same bed. Maybe they know that parents struggle to feed their children or their own families may even rely on outside assistance to fund food, but I am willing to bet that one way or another, the junior hockey players have enough to eat. Unfortunately, low-income children in large cities have a tougher time receiving the necessary assistance to ensure proper nutrition. In addition to dealing with easily preventable health issues, they may be sent to schools with lackluster standards of education or have parents who don’t advocate for them.  Many of these children will be lucky if they graduate high school and in the article, High School Dropout Rates For Minority and Poor Students Disproportionately High, the Huffington Post reports that even though the NCES revealed in October 2011 that the number of high school dropouts has decreased five percent in the past decade, children from low-income families are five times more likely to drop out than their middle-class peers.

Young girls from impoverished homes are also more likely to get pregnant than females from middle or upper-class families. National data posted on The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy website, one-third of women will be pregnant at least once by age twenty. It’s sad when innocent children are immediately disadvantaged if they are born into low-income families but it is a crime that they often never receive the necessary resources to fulfill their potential. It is reasons like these, the things that are really going on in the United States, that I feel blessed as I sit in my large, comfortable room.

References

High School Dropout Rates For Minority and Poor Students Disproportionately High. Huffington Post. 20 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2012.

National Data. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy.  Web. 19 Jan. 2012.