Growing Up Empty

Growing Up Empty: The Hunger Epidemic In America by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

I had read Ms. Schwartz-Nobel's previous book,  Starving In The Shadow Of Plenty, many years ago and it moved me very much.

It's all fine and well to help the people in third world countries who are without food but what about those who are right here? Here in America?  Who might be your neighbors, kids you know, elderly people you know, people who's pride and shame and circumstances are not obvious?

It's a shameful thing to be poor and need help with anything in America. 

How do I know this?

I've been there.

I had written about this when it was going on in my life and took it down not because I was ashamed but because a certain malicious nasty group twisted my words, manipulated the circumstances to their advantage and basically, ridiculed me and my family and oh, yeah, let's not forget, my daughter was called the N word by these allegedly caring people who proclaimed themselves Christians.  Like my daughter's racial background had anything at all to do with anything.  You call my daughter that outdated racial slur, that tells me more than I need to guess about you.

Anyway.

So I took those posts down.  They were heartfelt and served the purpose at the time but poof, they are gone.

Anyway.  Back to the book.

Hunger is rampant in America.  RAMPANT.  Lots of allegedly "middle class" people struggle with feeding their families.  Single parent families?  Almost the norm.  Kids do not flourish if they don't get good nutrition and if there is not money for food, they don't eat well.

I'm not going to go into all the stupid Welfare To Work bullshit programs (Helloooo they WORK SO WELL,  just look at the proof!).  I'm not going to cite statistics or anything else (we all know I'm not about this but it's all in the book) but I will say this:

If you need help feeding your family in America, the SYSTEM pretty much makes sure you have to be nearly homeless, with no assets at all to make it happen unless you depend on independent charity, like food kitchens or a chruch and the church and independent charity can provide only sporadically, depending on donations.  If you turn to the system, there is no safety net for anyone who has lost a job, run out of unemployment, suffered a financial blow from a sickness due to our great health insurance system, etc.  In other words, if you are like my family is, and you lose a job that pays over $100,000 a year because your company decides it can do business cheaper elsewhere and you look for a comparable job and it doesn't happen, and you try every other job you can apply for and then you get sick, you pretty much have to give up everything before this country will help you feed your family.  Is this right?  In a country that has so much surplus food?

Why are people going hungry here?

If you have an EBT Food Card, there is a possibility you will get treated like you have a huge dog turd hanging off your shirt, as well.

There are children here, in our country, who go to school every day and it's very possible the only meals they can count on are their school breakfast and lunch.

But dear and gentle readers, just listen to what Dubya has to say.

"It should be acknowledged that soon after the war in Afghanistan began, President Bush took to the airways and, in an admirable and compassionate gesture, he spoke openly of hunger and homelessness.  His speech was effective.  The need was dire, and his power to lead was obvious.  Within two weeks, more than 1.5 million children had each sent a dollar to help feed the hungry children...Of Afghanistan."

I am still aghast after reading this book.

Comments

[vero]

We don't quite have the feeling in this country, that it is the government's job to look after us.

[Donna]

I own a resale store in Holly Twp and people are coming in here everyday now telling me they have just lost their jobs. They are all about 26 weeks(unemployment) away from hunger, foreclosure, and major stress related illness with no health insurance. Remember the old saying from the 1980's recession? Will the last one out of Michigan please turn off the light.

[Beth Miller]

To begin with Lisa, anyone who could look at that beautiful child and see ANYTHING but beauty isn't worth the ground they walk on. And those who use the N word have absoultely NO class what-so-ever!

As for hunger in America, it sickens me to think that anyone has to go hungry! We have so much WHY is anyone going without? No child should be hungry or allowed to go hungry. As for EBT food cards--before a person passes judgment on someone using them they had better be thankful that circumstances aren't reversed!

[JP Merzetti]

Isn't Loretta just a beautiful writer? I had to pause 2 or 3 times through Growing up Empty - just overwhelmed at what I was reading.
I'm a lucky man. I was hungry with my boy exactly one weekend in his life. That's it. Scared the crap out of me, and made an impression I'll never forget.

I love the quote - something about how a woman stealing food to feed her child, would be prosecuted through the court system, go to jail, and her child farmed out to the foster care system.
Here it is folks: the total cost of that - would subsidize a decent rent, feed her and her child, and probably educate that child all the way through college graduation.
Would this not be a better use of the funds?
Talk about a face that wants to cut its nose off to spite itself!

What really intrigues me about Loretta's follow-up in 2002 (20 years later) is the new middle class crowd showing up. The writing is indeed, on the wall.

No nation on earth sits with such an oppulence of absolute plenty - and hedges the surpluses so brutally.

Shall we now return to Tudor England, and emulate the sins of Henry?

As I sit and write this, public radio is talking about child poverty right now - and the growing rage.
Something has to give...

[Debbie]

Both Loretta´s books are fantastic and I learnt a lot about real life in the US. Even in countries where the government takes some responsiblity - Germany for example - the six million recipients of the equivalent of Welfare (Welfare to Work) have to live on the minimum and a schoolchild is given under three dollars a day for food and school supplies. The equivalent of ramen noodles.