Can Children See And Know That They Are Poor?

Someone said, “I believe children are unable to discern poverty per se. They just live day to day.”

Most humans forget their feelings, emotions, and their life as a child growing up.

I haven’t.

I have memories taking me back to when I was four years old.

I discovered I was poor at seven in the second grade in Primary School. I knew something was wrong because I was always hungry and there wasn’t enough food.

In December, the schools in Jamaica would have Christmas parties for the children. Names were put in a bucket and each child would pick a name and their parents would buy a gift for that child. I can’t remember whose name I picked, but I remembered who picked mine. J. McDonald.

We would wear our Sunday best to the class party that all children look forward to. There was cake and ice cream that every child enjoyed.

My mother couldn’t afford to dress us properly. The poor children would wear their uniforms to class parties.

I was one of them.

The class party is always the second Friday in December and the last day of school. My mother gave me a small gift wrapped in brown paper. At school, it was time for gift-giving. My gift was a beautiful three-tier drinking glass set. My teacher, Miss Jones, saw the gift I got, then the one I was supposed to give.

She tore open the gift I was supposed to give in front of the entire class of more than thirty children. She shamed me for my tiny worthless gift. Then threw my gift, which was a small ball, into the garbage. Then took the gift I was to receive and gave it to the child whose name I picked.

A part of me died that day as the pain of poverty and shame sliced my internal organs into pieces. At seven years old, I learned that poverty is PAIN!

The emotional state of children is never under consideration in my culture.

I avoid class parties after that. Heck, I still avoid parties more than forty years later.

The school asks parents to contribute food items and money for class parties. My mother could hardly feed us. She couldn’t contribute anything to my school.

Poverty and I had a relationship from when I was a child. I study it and its impact on human lives and living. I hate how it separates and renders us weak.

I know it so well; I use innovation and creativity to play with it. I win every time.

Don’t underestimate children!

Many of us are aware of what is going on because we can feel the pain, and see the results and consequences of poverty’s actions, choices, and decisions. We just lack understanding of it. But we learn from what we experience and witness.

I keep the pain alive, because, with lessons learned, the pain can’t hurt me anymore. Unless I venture into poverty’s direction or do anything that would give poverty an opportunity to win.

Many successful people realized, feel, and understood the agony and lack of opportunities that poverty lives with since they were children. Then they did something to stop and or slow it down. Some kill it and make sure their generation doesn’t entertain it.

Eg. A business that has been running for 100 or more years.

Don’t underestimate children. Poverty is a pain for children and adults.

Thank you for reading this piece, I hope you enjoy it.