Hard to learn.

"If men were angels, there would be no need for government."

-Federalist Paper no.51

I was good kid.  That is, I never required much discipline or supervision.  If you're asking yourself "where did it all go wrong"... shuddup!  I was a good kid, my parents will tell everyone who asks them about my childhood.  I have always been an introvert and am quite happy to be by myself.  I read books, play video games, take naps, and never complain.  I am a middle child and the only boy.  And in the usual way, my parents loved us all dearly... but I was my momma's favorite.  I know I was the favorite because my momma and me were always together when we didn't have to be apart.  A momma's boy, for sure.

My father was a soldier when I was born and then for my early years.  I am named after him (and he named after his father) and I've always had a good relationship with him.  But my little sister was my dad's favorite.  You might think all the favorite talk is silly.  I understand it is too.  It's for lack of better word, of course.  Perhaps it is true that there are no favorites.  Whatever the case might be, I felt favored, a sweet rest from expectation or disappointment.

When my father was stationed in Italy, my mother took a job on base to help with the bills.  And so, my mom let our neighbor baby sit us over at her house.  She had 2 boys of her own about the same age as my older sister and I (baby sister wasn't born yet).  So it seemed to be a good idea.  I have only vague memories of this time because I was so young, and I don't remember this particular incident, but from what I was told, it went like this...

My mom got off work early.  This was before cell phones so surprise arrivals were apart of life.  When my mom came over to pick my sister and me up, I was sitting in a corner of the living room, sobbing. Immediately, my mom knew something was very wrong.  I was a good kid, remember?  I didn't throw fits, or make problems, or whatever.  She was also something of an empath anyway.  I've never been good at communicating my feelings.  But mom seemed to always be keyed into how I was feeling even before we were in the same room sometimes.  "I don't know what's wrong with him" the neighbor said, "he's been over there crying all day and won't talk."  Without replying my mom took my hand and we all went home. Apparently, I couldn't explain to my mom what was "wrong" with me.  I just kept sobbing and repeating "nothing" whenever she asked.  Mom asked, "What would make "it" better?"  She said I asked for a hug, which of course I got, then dried up and went to my room to watch cartoons.  Later that night, when stripping me down for my bath, my mom noticed wide welts across my back, buttocks, and legs.

She quit her job and I never had another baby sitter again.  My mom would always got teary-eyed when she told this story... being a parent (I imagine) comes with a great weight of guilt...  Because children are so vulnerable and so powerless and the responsibility of their trust so great... but the heartbreak is inevitable because one of those life lessons that can only be learned the hard way, is that not everyone we trust will do the right thing with that trust.

*****

I sympathize deeply with those who struggle with issues of trust and control.  These are no small matters.  Yet, people who have these issues are often delt with unsympatheticly.  Despite my sympathies, I am guilty of this too.  In a way, it is a kind of intellectual bullying.  To taunt and make a spectacle of someone we deem deserving of such humiliation because they refuse to take their place in the intellectual pecking order.  Those who refuse to submit to the better judgements of them more capable.  People who bungle any attempt at grasping the complex issues they have drawn their embarrassing conclusions on.  Simple minds only apt at rejecting what they don't understand and parrot what they are foolish enough to believe.

The reverse scenario can also be the case too.  That the trusting of authority is the behavior of little children for a reason.  The gullible adults are the ones who are truly the intellectually stunted.  Unquestioned and unexamined acceptance of authorities and ideas is itself unnatural behavior because one must reduce oneself to the level beast and not of upright man.  People who are little better than hollow shells that have the merest semblance of autonomy.  Ones who out of fear of being confounded, allow their minds to be shackled.

Then there is another group.  Who are to me still more confusing.  They seem to pinball back and forth between the marginal extremes.  Nether unconvincable skeptic nor pius believer, but somehow both.  A Schrodinger's visionary, except when you open the box, nothing is inside.  They want to convince everyone waiting that they are both shitting and are off the ideological pot.  Anyway... you get the point... they like the term "moderates"...

But, as I say, these are no small matters.  What we determine to be trustworthy and to what extent we give or maintain control are important issues and a great responsibility.  These processes and methods (or lack thereof) are what assigns our values, our identities, and what we impart to our children.

I would like to say that I am apart from the herd on these matters.  That I only objectively examine all information and critique and organize all methods of data collection and conclusions drawn from them.  That I am some kind of disinterested computer program that was created by processes free from human biases.  But, sorry to say, I'm not...  no one is.  We are all the products and heirs of flawed people using imperfect processes.  And like those before us, we are thrust into the grinder with only confusing past results and anxiety about how (or even if) we can improve on them.  The lesson about trust we all must learn the hard way is challenging because the conclusion is so hard to admit.  That trust requires patience.  Being wrong is usually embarrassing (at best) but being prepared to look foolish is always the first step in seeking understanding.  It can be hard to believe (no matter how often it occurs) that there are those willing to forgive you for being wrong.  Usually, this is hard to believe because it can be so hard to forgive ourselves for being wrong.  It is almost always the case that guilt and doubt are what make the fundamentalist fanatic, after all.  Patience, on the other hand, allows for new ideas, new perspectives, attempts at new processes, and for those of us capable of being wrong to pick ourselves up and try again.

Hell... we should probably be patient with moderates too..

*****

When I was in the third grade I did what little boys sometimes do and attempted some acrobatic feat that made no sense to even consider.  Except, I did this while playing on the monkeybars at recess, and broke my right arm.  I didn't know my arm was broken but I did know that my arm hurt really bad. I have always felt shy about complaining.  I'm not completely sure why, except, I feel like it's rude for me to do.  So when the coach that was watching us came over and grabbed my arm as asked if it hurt, I politely responded, "No, ma'am."

It wasn't until I was back in class that my teacher noticed I could barely hold my pencil to write.  She had me explain that I fell on it at recess then she asked me to do things like hold my arm out in front of me and squeeze her fingers.  Which I did like a God damn trooper!  She wasn't fooled though.  "Right after lunch, we're going to see the nurse."

It wouldn't be after lunch though, because during lunchtime my arm was too weak to hold up the lunch tray.  In the nurse's office, she suspected the arm was broken and called my mother to take me to a hospital.  When my mom arrived at the school, she was a like whirlwind.  "I could have told you he wasn't crying!  Why do YOU think that matters?!  You're the adult, you're supposed to know better than 9 year olds and if you don't then what are you here for?!"  My mom really let into the recess coach.  I felt bad because I was trying to hide how much pain I was really in.  Looking back, I don't think it really mattered though.  My mom was yelling at herself, the coach was just an opportunity to do it.

From then on, my mom and I would go on car rides every Sunday.  We didn't "go" anywhere, just rode in the car, listened to the radio, and joked and chatted about whatever came up.  We called it "Mother Son-day."  It might be fair to say she was what we call a "helicopter parent" nowadays.  But I don't think she was trying to smother or protect me from anything in particular.  We were just able to unwind and recharge together and in this way, take care of each other.

*****

It is traditionally considered indecorous to talk about politics and religion in public.  Partly because of the passions those topics inspire, and those passions are rooted in the importance of trust and control those topics deal with.  Well, in politics it is trust and control... religion uses the words faith and authority... but these are just roses by another name.  The point being that disagreements seldom come easily.  It is also true that conversation in either can quickly reveal one's prejudices and self-importance.

I think it is these feelings of prejudice and self-importance that are probably the thing that is really trying to be avoided.  Perhaps that is why these things are so seldom recognized in ourselves and left to permeate until it becomes too late to productively address anymore.  What a shame.

In truth, feelings of prejudice and self-importance are a natural part of the human condition.  It is important to commiserate about them with honesty and concern.  Typically, we have no problem admitting when we are angry or frustrated with ones we love to some friend or support group.  We offer it up as an appeal to help and affirmation that we aren't alone in our more uncomfortable feelings.

What seems to happen instead, the feelings fester unchallenged until it seems to us that we must simply be right about them.  Some even go so far as to assume that people who seem similar to themselves must naturally feel the same ways.  Growing up as a white protestant male in the conservatively religious south, I can attest that truly awful things have been said to me (unsolicited) in the same manner some discuss the weather.

Though, not always so extreme, sometimes these feelings simply keep us from accepting any notion that institutions like government or religion can ever be functional or trustworthy.  Only criticisms are true and any report of praise is fantasy.  To allow any trust or measure of control in either, is foolish.

Being left to reconcile some of our more difficult feelings ourselves almost always leaves us stunted and suspicious.  We project our disappointment on to others who become the targets our insecurities.  Obviously, a vicious cycle ensues.  A society of socially distrustful and fundamentally/spiritually divided people.

*****

My parents moved our family to Atlanta when I was approaching my teenage years.  Both got jobs at the airport and slight increase in income as a result.  Though, the increase in the cost of living in the city soon made clear that we hadn't really "moved up" at all.  We still struggled just as we always had.  When the one rotten car we had broke down, we did atleast have a public transit system to use for getting back and forth to work.  About once a week at least, one or both of them might sleep in the airport after working a double because by the time the bus reached their stop, they would have maybe 2 or 3 hours before they had to catch the one to work.

In those days, mom and I had our time together in the early mornings.  She would wake me up when she started getting ready for work and I would make us coffee and cereal.  We would sit together and watch the traffic and weather reports, sometimes silently or sometimes talking about whatever came up, until it was time for her to leave and I would walk with her to the bus stop.

We didn't always get this time together.  Sometimes she would wake up late or get called in early.  Still, she would always wake me up to kiss the top of my head and say goodbye.

One day, that's exactly what happened.  I started to rise to said we had some eggs I could make.  She stopped me, kissed the top of my head, and said "No, no.  Not today, go back to sleep.  Momma loves you."  And I did.  That morning my dad called us all into the living room.  He had a couple papers in hand, and in shock, anger, and humiliation, explained that mom left a letter saying she was not happy with their life together and she had met a man on the internet living in another country and she had gone to start a new life with him.

I couldn't believe it.  It didn't sound right at all.  My sisters cried, my dad grieved, and I went back to my room assuming she would be back that night.  She wasn't.  I kept hoping for another day or two until it started to sink in.  One night, I jumped out of my bed at the realization that, she probably wrote me a letter too!  That must be it!  It'll explain everything and put all my fears to rest.  "She probably hid it because she didn't write my sisters one and didn't want them to feel excluded!" I thought.  I turned my room upside down and became more frantic as I looked for what wasn't there.  It was so unbelievable to me that she would just leave the way she did... I was her favorite, after all.

She would eventually call when she thought we (the kids) would be home alone.  I was so mad, so hurt, so confused, yet when I talked to her, all I could do was tell her I missed her and asked if she was going to call more often.  "Of course" she said, reassuring.  But seldom did we ever hear from her after that.  For a few years, she would at least call on my birthday.  Then the phone calls became Facebook messages.  Then nothing at all...

Maybe it goes without saying, I had some issues with trust and self-worth after that.  It would be a long time before I could be honest out loud with how mad I was at her, and how hurt.  For so long, I projected that anger on to others.  The shy, sensitive boy with mommy issues, I was given the "school shooter" treatment by many, kids and adults alike.  The whole world felt uncomfortable to be in.

*****

I don't mean to try and make it seem as though we should all be more tolerable of intolerable things, because you never know what someone is "going through."  I only mean to point out that we are all subjects of circumstances we don't always understand.  Fear, uncertainty, grief and guilt are just some of the factors that drive us when comes to directing our anger and our trust.  No one is a island, however, and less we are able to express our insecurities and or try to understand each other's fears, the sicker we all get as individuals and a society.  It is, after all, this underlying acceptance that there are good reasons to hate people that hate groups exist all.  It's the acceptance into the group, not the opportunity to hate, that is typically what is valued.

Nor am I trying to make it sound like all the woes of the world can fix through honest conversation.  In any case, there will probably always be some bad actors in the world... God knows there will always be moderates...

I'm only trying to say that I think are all capable of trying to understand ourselves and each other better.  That even though we all experience our own hard lessons in our own way, we all share similar experiences.  There is a great and valuable thing that too often gets neglected there.  An opportunity to ask "help me understand" or offer "let's try to figure it out together."  To trust, forgive, and be patient with ourselves and with each other.  At least, we could try anyway.

Sweet home, Alabama? Pt.2

 "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -Frederick Douglass

I was working a warehouse job while I was in college.  I started out in the "pick module" packaging orders as they came in.  It was hard work, and surprisingly dirty.  The turnaround rate was headspinning.  Those who lasted more than a month after hiring were rare.  Hardly surprising though, the hours were brutal and the pay was almost criminal.  The hours got even worse as workers began dropping when the company began random drug testing.

The first time anyone ever asked me if I was "clean" was when my friend John was being sent for a drug test.  "This is the only place I've ever worked that doesn't send someone from the company with you."  He says, relieved, as he hands me a sippy cup to urinate in.  "Don't worry, I won't get caught, and if I did, I won't say nothing."  I wasn't worried, John was good people.

It was about a week later that John wasn't at work for a couple of days.  I asked the supervisor about it and got the bad news.  "You didn't hear this from me, but, he's in the hospital."  He said, putting his finger front of his mouth in a gesture to keep it between us.  "His trailer caught on fire and he was burned pretty bad... his mom died in it."

*****

In the United States, more than half of the 18-24 year old demographic live with their parents.  A statistic that has been increasing over a decade.  Unsurprisingly, the lower the rate of income, the more likely a house hold will have multiple adult generations living together.  Even in states like Georgia (around 11th most in the country) where cost of living in lower on average (about 6.8%).

Poverty makes these multi-generational homes a necessity, and in some cases, an inevitably.  Children growing up in poverty conditions are less likely to graduate high school (about half the rate of graduation of low-poverty schools).  Food insecurity, development of chronic health conditions, stunted social skills development, and self-image issues increase with lower levels of completed education.  Likewise, rates of sexual/physical/emotional abuse tend higher, along with criminal/gang influences, and drug/tobacco/alcohol abuse as well.

Teen pregnancy rates are also higher among the impoverished.  Even if the best case scenario (a single child with both parents at home) teen pregnancy usually results in a three generational household.  For parents who are both working, having a child tends to demand one parent remain at home with the newborn.  With average childcare prices (around $800 a month) being out of reach realistically for parents around poverty level incomes, if both parents are to keep working then a family member (usually a grandparent) may be asked to help raise the children.  In some cases, young children may be left home alone for hours while their parents work.

Being shamed for living with a parent as an adult is a typical go-to for people on the internet, less often face-to-face.  The idea being that someone who hasn't "left the nest" by adulthood, is a failure.  As if this choice is always a realistic one.

Even as the upper crust of society is approached, costs of caring for elderly family members can be too much for two middle-class income workers to bear.  They may find themselves caring for one or more parents and one for more children at the same time, a so-called "sandwich generation."  Childcare and elderly care are a luxury that relatively few can afford.

*****

"We need to buy five mattresses by noon tomorrow!  We have a generous seller willing to give a big discount but we need donations to get them.  Please, if you can, every little bit helps, and we can keep this family together."

This was an appeal given by a senior student in the cafeteria at the private christian college I was attending.  He was an associate pastor at new church being planted in a small town in the Georgia back 40.  The situation was pretty obvious, a family under his ministry was facing the prospect of losing their children who they clearly didn't have enough beds for and his budding church did not enough funds to help out directly.  

I had $4 and some change in my car that I went out to get.  When I brought it back to him I asked if he thought he could get enough money in time.  "Honestly, that's not what I'm worried about.  I'm worried, even with the beds, it won't be enough."  He said slowly in a tired voice.

I had to leave for work at the warehouse, and in the car, couldn't help but ache for that family and for John.  I decided to call the hospital to see if I could reach him.  I did.  Though he was so drugged and delirious he kept forgetting who he was talking too.  I told him to get better and I hope too see him soon.

*****

Child neglect is a serious issue.  Perhaps, one of the few instances most people see a clear need for the influence of the state.  However, in many cases, for the children involved, state influence only delivers them from the frying pan and into the fire.

Children in foster systems have surveyed abuse rates as high as 30%... that is often well below the official number of reported abuses.  Of course, those are abuses of children at the hands of adults.  Less is known about abuse at the hands of other children.  Official rates are always report lower than the rates shown in surveys.  Not surprising when you consider the pressure on these often underfunded and overly bureaucratic institutions.  Abuses are seen as failures of the system, and rightly so, but those systemic failures are a threat to the jobs of those in the system and the politicians who advocate for them.  You would have to have a serious case of mistrust to believe all abuse cases are reported or addressed.

The horror of abuses aside, wards of the state are also victims of insecurities resulting from psychological and emotional trauma of being separated from their families.

Families living in squalid conditions are often thought of something far away or in some place altogether unimaginable.  Those conditions they may imagine happening in their own backyards are usually thought of as battered women's shelters or homeless families.  A phenomenon that is too few and far between for the average laborer, with concerns enough of their own, to worry about.  This mentality takes these families from the realm of possibility to the realm of ideas.  A little trick of the mind to put itself at ease that whatever problem exists, it exists only as a statistical certainty, as an unavoidable calamity.

In the US, nearly half a million children are in foster care or some sort of children's residential home.  These children are (throughout their lives) among the most vulnerable in our society.  So much so, even the state itself sometimes can't help but exploit their desperation and lack of oversight.  In 2009, Joshua Fry, a US Marine was arrest for possession of child pornography and unauthorized absence from duty.  Fry was then 20 years old, autistic, and literally recruited out of his group home for the mentally disabled.  The incident was characterized as an outlier and the circumstances being what they were because there was a war going on... but then, isn't there always?

*****

John would eventually return to work.  He was surprisingly upbeat and was very glad to see me.  "You were the only mother fucker to call me the whole time I was in there."  He told me about the burn victims ward in the hospital and the horrors of hearing the children in so much pain.  He told me about how they took the skin off the back of his thighs and buttocks to graft on his back.  "You got ass on your back?"  I asked as we both laughed at the untimely joke.

I didn't know it at the time, and I didn't asked, but John needed my urine that day to cover his opioid addiction.  After his stay in the hospital, his addiction would only get worse.  It's difficult for me to blame him.  He was, everyday, living in the worst psychological and economic conditions we could fathom.

About a year after I stopped working there, I was told by a mutual friend that John had left the state when he failed to show up to a court hearing over theft charges.  I worried about my peculiar friend for a long time, until he showed up alive and well on my Facebook feed one day.  Against all odds, he seems to have kicked his addiction for now, and scrapes out a living as best he can working for pay under the table.

*****

More frequently, we've been hearing in the media about "diseases of despair."  These are usually defined as drug addiction/overdose, liver disease, and suicide as a result from behaviors associated with the hopelessness of conditions ever improving.  

These diseases of despair are particularly prominent in the Appalachia region of the US.  This is probably unsurprising to those from that region.  What is considered, socially, to be "improving" is done by generational comparison.  For those living in multi-generational homes, those changes in conditions become blurred at best.  Quality of living becomes situational damage control.  Obesity, for example, is often the result of poor eating, rather than overeating.  But food prices are what dictate what can be bought, for better or for worse.

Time is also a matter to despair over.  Time spent not earning money is a tradeoff cost.  Spending time on self-care, cleanliness, or leisure, even without direct costs, will come at the cost of not spending that time earning.  Activities like traveling, exercising, and education become too time consuming to be viable.  It's little wonder then how those suffering this despair have poorer health, poorer education, and less understanding of complex real world issues.

It is also not so difficult to understand how drug, alcohol and nicotine addiction can become rampant in those conditions.  These chemical dependencies are sometimes the only source of escape or comfort from desperate conditions and harsh realities.

What really drives people in these situations to these downward spirals of despair, is guilt.  While it may seem obvious to the outside observer, that much of their situation is not necessarily of their own making, the guilt of feeling like they are "stuck" because they have done something wrong is difficult to avoid.  It might be difficult to imagine, but not difficult to understand, that coming home to dirty homes, hungry mouths, sick children/parents, broken appliances, and permanently broken relationships after working long hours can create a lot of self hate.

The burning question is, of course, what can be done?  This question, sadly, tends to make the poor social, economic and political pawns.  Mostly because there is no silver bullet answer.  Either because one may not be aware, or it isn't advantageous to mention, but with every solution comes some kind of tradeoff.  A fact that the poor themselves are not unaware of (and part of the guilt that comes with being poor).  But this shouldn't mean that nothing be done, or that emotions should rob us of our reason.  Being able to work with people we may not ideologically agree with is going to have to happen at some point and to some degree.  Because we must know that we simply can't do nothing, and that we are all in this together... also things the poor know too well...