Young families: characteristics and support systems

¶ … child is safe," Edelman states, "Young families of all races, on whom we count to raise healthy children for American's future, are in extraordinary trouble. They have suffered since early 1970s a frightening cycle of plummeting earnings, a near doubling of birth rates among unmarried women, increasing number of single- parent families, falling-income and skyrocketing poverty rates." Other sources support Edelman's belief that poverty is a significant problem for many of America's children. Poverty is a serious problem for our nation, and one that will not easily be solved.

Both individual states and the federal government, concerned about the rising cost of welfare payments, have attempted to force people off welfare by adding restrictions. For instance, in some states, the guardian parent of children (typically the mother) can only be on welfare for a finite number of years. While the policy is understandable, it does not reflect the reality some poor mothers face. In Missouri, for instance, a young woman living in an area with no public transportation lost first her job and then her babysitter within a couple of days. She had been on welfare and reluctantly re-applied for it so she would have some way to support her children, but was turned down. Because of previous periods on welfare when she could not work, she had met the state's five-year total limit (Friedlin, PAGE).

This mother is not an isolated case. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported that more than half of the children living in Philadelphia county between the ages of 5 and 17 live in poverty (Philadelphia Tribune, PAGE). Poverty by itself might not be a crisis except that childhood poverty correlates with other significant societal problems. Research shows that children from poor families have fewer educationally-related materials at home, such as books; are less likely to go to community sites and events that could broaden their background knowledge, and that they are likely to be allowed to watch a lot of television. They are more likely to achieve poorly at school and more likely to develop secondary difficulty such as withdrawal behaviors or conduct problems (Corwyn, PAGE).

Clearly, then, our country would be better off if we could help families out of poverty, but closing the door on welfare to needy families may not be an effective approach. The woman mentioned in Missouri has to get by on food stamps and child support, and the child support payments are sporadic and unpredictable (Friedlin, PAGE). Her children are at risk.

Jill Duerr Berrick, in her book Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare, points out that the stereotypes many hold about who is on welfare don't hold up to scrutiny. She points out that women on welfare include women like the one in Missouri, needing emergency help for a difficult time, mothers with disabilities that preclude them from gainful employment, and women who would have to overcome multiple obstacles including lack of education and training as well as difficulty finding adequate health care, in order to get off welfare. She demonstrates that many mothers on welfare have actively made that choice so their children would have medical care as well as food and shelter (Berrick, p. 148).