This weekend I taught at Write Canada, the Canadian Christian writers' conference. I love going there and just networking with people, and it's a great getaway. But I don't always go to the sessions; I usually just hang out in the lounge and talk.
Anyway, on Friday night I decided to go, and I'm so glad I did, because Tim Huff, a man who works closely with the homeless and who has just written some award winning books, was speaking.
I have to admit to having my guard up a little bit, because I often don't agree with "poverty advocates". They say we need more homeless shelters, more money spent on single mothers, and in general just more money for everything. But the facts don't bear this out, because in the places where they have spent more money, homelessness has increased (just look at San Francisco). Nevertheless, most poverty advocates do this.
But Tim didn't. He said something absolutely brilliant.
You know how sometimes there's something you instinctively know, but have never been able to put into words? That's what he did. And here is what he said:
The problem of poverty in North America is not one of poverty of resources. It is one of poverty of relationships. We have plenty of money and plenty of stuff. What we don't have is community. And he pointed at a man in the audience, whom he knows well, and he said, "If tomorrow Larry were to lose his company, and lose his store, and the bank foreclosed on his house, Larry would not be homeless. I would not let Larry be homeless. I would say to Larry, "come and stay at my house. I won't have you living out on the street." And there are dozens of others who would say the same thing, because Larry has supportive friends and family.
But some people don't have that. And so they end up on the street, or hopeless and on welfare and really struggling.
But the government doesn't understand that. And he said, "we will never cure poverty by trying to address poverty of resources. We need a mindshift where we look at poverty of relationships."
He's so right. I know a 20-year-old young woman who got pregnant this year (sort of on purpose, if you know what I mean). She is living with her parents, who are going to care for the baby while she takes a two year degree program at a college so she'll be able to get a decent job.
But take a 20-year-old woman who is just out of foster care, or whose parents are both on their third live-in relationship this year, and she's not going to have that kind of support. She'll be on welfare with no job training and little chance for anything else in her life.
And it struck me: this is why I do what I do. My girls and I have done some soul searching lately, because there are some in our church who are very good at reaching out to the marginal, and seeing new people become Christians (though whethre they grow in their faith is another story). We are more on the other side: trying to keep those who are Christians close to God and close to their families. I've dedicated pretty much all of my ministry to marriage; to trying to keep families together.
And I think that's an important piece of the puzzle, because it's attacking the problem of poverty of relationship. We need close families to provide community, so that people do have a social safety net. The government can never provide that adequately, because the government can't make up for family. And in a safe family you learn how to have close relationships, and how to serve, and how to grow. And you're not nearly as hurt in your soul as those who grow up in very dysfunctional homes.
We have a major problem with poverty of relationship. I have close friends who live next to an elderly woman with a quasi-abusive son. She has no other friends (she's an immigrant and doesn't speak English well). She's a widow. She really has no idea how banks, or the government, or anything work. And she was being really taken advantage of. They've stepped in and stopped her son from taking all her money, and started getting her involved in their social network. Suddenly she has people to talk to and she has a church to go to again. I just can't imagine that woman, living all by herself, in that house, with no one noticing or caring.
That didn't use to happen because people felt a responsibility to their neighbours. I think we need that responsibility again. We need to feel like we are a community, because that's how we grow and share. And so I'm wondering: how can we start to solve this problem of poverty of relationship? Have you ever done anything on your street, or in your community, where you've reached out to someone who really was alone? Let me know in the comments, and let's talk!
There's been a lot of talk over my post last week criticizing the 3 meals a day, 365 days a year feeding program Michelle Obama is attempting to expand. I said it was terrible, because government was taking over a parent's job.
In the comments, some agreed, some didn't, and some were noncommittal. The issue for many was, what else are we going to do? We can't remove kids from their homes, and we have to feed them.
I agree, but I want to step backwards for a moment to see why this is the wrong thing to do.
First, I think this idea--that poor people can't feed their kids--is extremely insulting to poor people. My mother was abandoned when I was 2 years old. She had to get an apartment, get a job, and work her way up the ladder. It was tough. One month she didn't have enough money for rent. The church found out and lent her some. The next month she paid it back. She refused to accept charity, and she wanted me to know that she raised me herself.
She grew up in a house with no running water--even well into the 1960s. And yet she did well for herself, as did her sisters. Her parents coped.
There are readers of this blog who are on food stamps. I know some of their stories. One month one woman was desperate because the food stamps arrived late and she was worried. But it never occurred to her to not feed her kids. She visited a food bank temporarily, and then all was well again. They're getting back on their feet after a period of unemployment.
I have another friend who is in subsidized housing with her five children. Her money is extremely tight. But she cooks from scratch and they never, ever go hungry. They may not have cable, but they have food.
Many studies have shown, too, that those with the least disposable income are not those on welfare or at the bottom of the income scale. It's the "working poor", those who don't qualify for welfare, and thus don't qualify for Medicare in the US or the drug/dental plan in Canada. They don't have the government income supports, so they have to pay for everything. And they end up with less in their pockets than many who have such subsidies. But they press on because they want to raise their children themselves.
To say that the poor, who have access to welfare, food stamps, food banks, and churches, cannot feed their kids is excusing the poor from a basic responsibility. Our main responsibility, as parents, is to feed our kids first. And the income supports and charities are there, if one is motivated enough to find them. To not feed your kids is to not do one's most basic responsibility. It is not a problem of poverty; it is a problem of culture. I am reminded of some of the prophecies in Isaiah, where Isaiah repeatedly says that the famine will be so bad in the city that people will eat their own children. When I was a child myself and a teen reading that, I thought, "Oh, my goodness! How could anyone ever be that poor?" You see, I thought the passages were a description of their economic hardship.
What I only realized later, once I became a mother, was that those passages were not meant to describe how poor they were but how depraved they were. Honestly, would you ever be poor enough to eat your children? Nope. Inconceivable. If they were, the problem was not their poverty but their culture (which is probably why they were being judged by God in the first place).
We are in the same situation now. The problem is not income but culture. People would rather let the government feed their kids because then they have money for other things that they want more. And the more this happens, the more it becomes ingrained, "I do not have to do basic parenting functions. That is up to the government."
If people stop doing some basic parenting functions, what makes you think they won't stop doing more? Once you stop thinking of yourself as primarily responsible for your kids, and think that the schools are, or the government is, then you will stop doing all kinds of things that kids need you to do.
Being poor is not a crime. Most people who live in poverty do care for their children, and to say that the poor can't feed their kids is an insult to the very hard-working and proud people throughout our continent who are struggling in this horrible economic time, but who are not giving up on their role as parents.
The culture is the problem. And by doing these feeding programs, we are only ingraining a culture that says, "somebody else should raise my kids." How is that good for children?
If government stopped, people would be forced to feed their children again and take over some basic responsibilities. And if they didn't do that, then yes, I think government should step in and take those kids.
Perhaps that's stupid of me to say, because I know there aren't enough foster homes, and I know many foster homes are horrible (although all the foster parents I know, and I know quite a few, do such a great job that the kids want to stay). But until there are consequences to not doing a basic job as a parent, we are not going to see the culture change.
A better idea, I've always thought, is to stop giving money in welfare cheques to single/teen moms, and instead set up homes where women live in community, with social workers. Say 10-15 rooms, with a woman and a baby in each, where they learn to cook together, balance the budget together, and play with their kids together. They would get some job training, too, and then after a few years they would be expected to fend for themselves.
To give a 17-year-old a welfare cheque that allows her to live in her own apartment if she gets pregnant is just stupid. If a 17-year-old knew that if she were pregnant, she'd have to go live in a home and actually work, maybe we'd see fewer kids becoming single mothers.
But that's just my idea, and perhaps that's naive, too. I don't know what the solution is. But I do know there is something sick in our culture when the government thinks it has to feed 2,000,000 children 3 meals a day because parents can't/won't do it. That's not a poverty issue. It's a cultural issue. And we must, we simply must, change that culture.
UPDATE: A reader sent along this link for a volunteer group that's not just running a soup kitchen; they're teaching lower income people how to prepare produce, to help learn healthy eating. I think this is a far better model (private charity) than government help, and if someone were to individually want to help, this is a great place to start. I just don't think government should have a role in it.
Probably like most of you readers, I've always been a sucker for disaster stories. Everytime I watched TV as a teen and a story about some massacre came on, or some typhoon, and I saw children suddenly orphaned, my heart went out to them.
I wanted to adopt a ton of them. I wanted to go there. I wanted to help.
Today, I'm in a position to help, at least financially. We've travelled to an orphanage in Kenya several times, and we're going back this year to help with medical work and with microbusinesses. I believe in trying to help people.
But, at the same time, I'm quite aware of the complexities of aid. I believe, for example, that giving money to corrupt governments only makes governments more corrupt, and actually ends up worse for the people in the country. I think most charitable giving should be through NGOs that train people how to care for themselves.
That being said, I've also read a ton lately about how some areas of the world are just write-offs. They don't do the basic things for themselves, and then expect people to come and help them. They make it harder for aid workers. They become violent, and then put the aid workers at risk. We're seeing it in Haiti right now, where many people are shooting doctors and aid workers and creating such a risky security situation that some aid workers have to pull out.
And I've read a number of articles (and been sent a number of articles by email) about how Haiti really is a basketcase, and what it needs is tough love. It needs to smarten up and take care of its own problems, because it's never going to get better when other people keep rescuing them. I've read the same thing about Africa: we should stop helping, because by helping, we're making it worse. We're enabling Africans to stop caring for the orphaned children, because they know we'll step in. So we're absolving them of all responsibility, and we're perpetuating the cycle. And not just that: we're allowing a society to continue that in all likelihood will become a threat to the Western world in a number of decades.
Isn't that depressing?
I mean, honestly, I've been heartbroken by the earthquake in Haiti, and I have given money. I have friends in the military who are there right now.
And I find it very difficult to read these essays saying that we should make them look after their own problems. Now, to be fair, in the case of Haiti, most are arguing that we should tend to the basic medical needs, and then get out. They're not saying we shouldn't help in the immediate aftermath. They're just saying that's all we should do. That at some point the nation needs to learn to care for itself.
I understand this. I really do. But it seems to me that what this fails to take into account is that people can't just care for themselves and improve things when there honestly isn't any money and worse than that, their fellow countrymen are oppressing and abusing them. What is an 8-year-old child, alone on the streets, supposed to do? The answer I get when I ask people that question is that it's tough to leave that 8-year-old, but we must, because the more we step in, the more we absolve adults of responsibility and perpetuate the cycle.
What makes them think, though, that if we left the country alone, it honestly would improve? I don't think it would at all. I think it would disintegrate into horrible war and genocide. But they think that's okay, because the people are doing it to themselves.
I've never been able to live with that. It seems to me that if someone is hurting, and we have the capacity to help, we have a moral obligation to do so. God has given us these resources for a reason. And yes, they may grow up to be horrible people. They may grow up to be very anti-Western and to pose a threat to us. But how do you stand by and let children be raped, or abused, or starved?
To me, it's analogous to an abused child here in North America. We wouldn't leave them to fend for themselves, arguing that when they grew up they'll likely be violent anyway. We try to help them because it's the right thing to do. And the reason it's the right thing to do is because it's the loving thing to do. And I would always rather err on the side of love.
I do know it's complicated, and much aid that's been given to the world over the last few decades has exacerbated the problem. But I think the people complaining about aid to these places don't see the changes that are occurring, especially in Christian ministries. The focus of most aid, and of the missions teams I've been involved in lately, has been to build indigenous businesses; to help people with microbusiness loans, and teach people how to support themselves. It's not just giving money away; it's training people.
It doesn't always work, because the culture in many of these places has to be changed away from pessimism, irresponsibility, and, dare I say it, laziness. But the churches on the ground are doing a great job of that. I heard some of the most amazing sermons in Nairobi, berating the congregation for not getting involved in politics, for not trying to change things, for not staying faithful to their spouses, and getting too caught up in materialism. It was great!
Jesus said that the poor would always be with us. We will never solve poverty. We will never solve these natural disasters that occur with amazing frequency and severity. But perhaps the reason the poor will always be here is to remind us that we have an obligation to love. And we need to love. We need to love strategically, and we shouldn't do anything that exacerbates problems. But I do believe in love. And when I'm standing before Jesus, I don't want to give Him all the reasons why I didn't love--because it was such a basketcase it deserved it, and it was to teach the people a lesson, and it was to let the state fail because it was already a failed state--I want to simply be able to tell Him that I did what I could, because I knew I was His hands and His feet here on earth.
Maybe that makes me naive. Maybe it makes me part of the problem (I've been told that numerous times lately, too). But I'd rather err on the side of helping children than err on the side of being disengaged because it makes me feel intellectually superior.
I hope that makes sense. And right now, I will say a prayer for the children of Haiti who are lost, and without parents, and hurting. It is too much pain to bear, I believe. I'm glad we have a God who does not turn His face, and who does not treat us as our sins--or our nation's sins--deserve. We have a God who loves and cares, and may He always be our model.
Across Canada, starting today, World Vision is hosting the 30 Hour Famine.
And what is the famine? Teens choose not to eat for 30 hours and then get pledges to raise money for World Vision.
My daughter and my nephew are participating in this, and they're really excited (though they're about to eat a whole ton of waffles for breakfast to get them ready)!
Africa has touched Rebecca. We've visited an African orphanage there twice, and it made such a difference in the way she sees the world, and her compassion for others. I've had to really teach her to save her money recently because she's so prone to donating all of it away. I guess that sounds like I'm bragging (perhaps I am), but I'm just very proud of her.
Most kids haven't been to Africa, but the Famine is such a wonderful idea because it gets the kids thinking about what they have here in North America. And it gives them an inkling, if only for a few hours, about a part of what these kids go through.
Of course it's not the whole story, and Rebecca knows that. The childen she met in Africa weren't just hungry; they were also abused, and abandoned, and scared, and alone before they were rescued. Many had been without food for days, too, but during those days they'd also had to walk miles and miles to a different town, looking for work. They had to use energy. It truly is heartbreaking.
The whole thing starts at noon today, and if you live in Canada and want to donate, even $5, you can do so online securely right here. I know Rebecca would really appreciate it!
And in the meantime, I'm going to watch her try to fast! Starting tonight she'll be at our church, playing games, watching videos about poverty, and talking about the world's needs. We'll pick her up tomorrow night. I hope she makes it!
I have written before about the Mulli Children's Family, an orphanage in Kenya where my family and I have travelled, and where my mother is now.
Remember the pad party video that I posted a while ago? That was all to benefit these girls in the orphanage.
Anyway, my mother is on the board of the charitable foundation in Canada that raises money to help the orphanage, and she sent an update over the weekend of what she's seen. For reference, the Mulli Children's Home is located east of Nairobi, but up north, in Eldoret, there's a refugee camp that started after all the violence in that country a year ago. The orphanage was instrumental in starting relief work there, feeding 3000 people a day and setting up an impromptu school for 1000 children. Three hundred teenage girls were taken from the camp to live at the orphanage, because many had been repeatedly gang raped each night. That was a year ago; they now have several hundred babies at the orphanage, too.
MCF, the orphanage, is doing very well because they believe in self-sufficiency. They've started an elaborate farm and greenhouse operation that feeds the thousands of people there almost entirely, and exports to Europe to bring in cash. They have a fish farm, and a meat farm, and they have a construction company and they start small businesses. It's quite the enterprise, and it's entirely Kenyan run. They don't just take donations from the West for food; they take donations really to build their infrastructure so that one day they will not need donations. And it's working really, really well.
But in the meantime, the need is just so great. My mother sounds very burdened after seeing it all. Here's a bit of what she wrote:
We are all safe and sound but heartbroken...Somewhere this week we flew to Eldoret. MCFCF had raised considerable funds for emergency relief in the IDP Camp and we felt part of our audit should include seeing the site and facilities. There are still about 3500 people living there although the camp was officially closed last July. MCF pulled out in December because they had run out of all funds. As we arrived and starting walking about the camp people gathered. Mueni Mulli was accompanying us, but they also had the MCF Pastor who spent the last 5 months in the camp with us.
We were walking about and one or two women invited us into their tent and told us their story. Richard was able to video this which will help in telling the story, but you cannot imagine the hardship these people are facing. They have not had food since MCF pulled out in mid December other than what the children are able to beg on the streets of Eldoret during the day - and it is a long walk from the IDP Camp to town.
One woman came up to me and asked if we could help her neighbour. The woman had given birth two days ago and neither she nor the baby had anything to eat or drink since nor did she have any help. I told Mueni and she and the pastor went to visit the tent. Apparently Richard got a photo so we can tell the story. Later Mueni explained that she would give the Pastor some money to buy some food for the most desparate situations we encountered, but we all know this is not a solution. Nor can you ignore the reality of the situation. What to do.
The absolute irony (I am not sure that is the right word) of the situation is that, after returning to Nairobi and showering, we took the Mulli family out to dinner that evening. We had a wonderful time with them and heard more about the challenges MCF is facing, but what a contrast!
When we think of the economic hardship we are going through here in North America, it really does not compare. Imagine having to live in a tent, and having no way to protect your teenage daughter from rape. Imagine giving birth all alone, and not having any food.
We are suffering now because as a society we spent what we had frivolously. How much better if we could share what we have with those who need it, in ways that it will actually get to the people who need it (and not go to corrupt governments!). Despite the grim economic news, I am reminded today how much we do have, and how grateful I am for what God has given me. And as soon as my mother gets back, we'll start another round of fundraising, selling all the neat African stuff she's importing! I'm excited.
I'm in the middle of writing a column about the importance of family dinners, and I really wanted to include some of the amazing observations of Theodore Dalrymple (real name Anthony Daniels) who has worked as a psychiatrist in the British penal system.
He has written an essay on family meals, "The Starving Criminal", that can be read here. Unfortunately he didn't make the cut. When you have only 700 words to work with, you can't always be as profound as you may wish. But what he wrote is worth further attention.
Here's part of his take on the link between criminality and family meals:
In fact, he told me that he had never once eaten at a table with others in the last 15 years. Eating was for him a solitary vice, something done almost furtively, with no pleasure attached to it and certainly not as a social event. The street was his principal dining room, as well as his trash can: and as far as food was concerned, he was more a hunter-gatherer than a man living in a highly evolved society.
Far from being unique, his story was typical of those that I have heard hundreds—no, thousands—of times. Another young man, also expelled from home at an early age because his new stepfather, only a few years older than he, found him surplus to requirements, had been obliged to drift from friend’s house to friend’s house for six years. Unfitted by training or education for any particular job, he had worked only casually, for a few weeks at a time, and so never had the financial stability to pay rent on a place of his own (in conditions of shortage, public housing goes preferentially to young single women with children, and he had made the situation worse by having two children of his own by two young women). Needless to say, he had no domestic skills either, never having been taught any; and his friends, coming from the same social milieu, were just as undomesticated. They too ate in an unsocial fashion and expected him to fend nutritionally for himself, which he did by eating chocolate, the only food he could remember having eaten with any consistency over the last few years. Apart from his time in prison (for stealing from cars), he hadn’t eaten a meal in a decade. It can’t be long before someone suggests that the solution to a problem like this is to fortify chocolate with minerals and vitamins.
There is a cultural phenomenon going on here where food as a socially positive ritual is abandoned. I'm going to go out on a limb and say something for which I have very little socially scientific research (if there is such a thing), but I feel it in my gut.
Food is what separates functional families from dysfunctional families. Think about it this way: in order to cook a decent meal, you have to know how to read a recipe. You have to be motivated enough to go to a grocery store. You have to actually cook the meal and serve it. Then, you all have to sit at a table together (Dalrymple claims that 34% of British families do not own a dining table) and eat it. It provides time for you to connect, to talk, to learn that others care about you, and to learn important manners. That's what I'm talking about in my column next week, so I'm not going to dwell on it here.
But if you cook home-cooked meals, you're more likely to be healthy and less likely to be overweight. In other words, it means that parents care about the children's health; are organized enough to give the children a schedule; are careful with their budget; and want to connect as a family.
Too many families don't cook anymore. They reheat frozen food and that's not the same thing. It means that the families aren't giving priority to something that is so conducive to family togetherness.
Interestingly, I think one of the reasons many people are poor and stay poor is that they lack basic food skills, like cooking and scheduling, and they lack the motivation to go acquire those skills. I taught myself to cook from a cookbook. I read tons of cookbooks when I was in university. I used to get them out of the library. And that's how I became a good cook. It didn't cost me anything; money wasn't the issue. It was motivation combined with some basic life skills.
I have a friend who is a dietician, and when she worked for the Public Health Unit she often put on information nights called "2 can dine for $1.99", and stuff like that, where they taught basic recipes and cooking for inexpensive but healthy meals. They advertised in the welfare office, in the unemployment office, and with Children's Aid. And you know who came? Homeschoolers with their parents. Their parents thought: hey, great way to teach my kids some extra life skills! So they missed their target audience entirely because their target audience didn't care.
And because they didn't care, they were in that bracket of her target audience. If they did care, it's unlikely they would have stayed poor.
I know that sounds judgmental, but I think poverty and crime have become cultural issues, not economic ones. We aren't teaching people the value of relationships, and we aren't teaching people motivation, and we aren't teaching people life skills. And after a certain time, they fail to want to acquire these things.
In relation to all this, and tied in with my recent item on Learned Helplessness, I thought his next to concluding paragraph to be right on the mark:
The liberal intelligentsia has several reasons for failing to see or admit the cultural dimension of malnutrition in the midst of plenty—in failing to see its connection with an entire way of life—and in throwing the blame instead onto the supermarket chains. One reason is to avoid confronting the human consequences of the changes in morals, manners, and social policy that it has consistently advocated. The second is to avoid all appearance of blaming people whose lives are poor and unenviable. That this approach leads it to view those same people as helpless automata, in the grip of forces that they cannot influence, let alone control—and therefore as not full members of the human race—does not worry the intelligentsia in the least. On the contrary, it increases the importance of the elite’s own providential role in society. To blame the supermarket chains is implicitly to demand that the liberal and bureaucratic elite should have yet more control over society.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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