There is a great big gaping hole in the safety net Mitt Romney claims takes care of the very poor, and innocent young children are slipping through it in horrifying numbers. Spend a day in a high poverty school and you will see what I mean. I spent five years volunteering daily in one such school and I want to tell you about a child living in that safety net. His name is D_ _ _.
The first day of kindergarten is supposed to be an exciting day for most children and their parents. We, like many other families, had picked out a nice new outfit with our daughter and beemed with pride as she got herself ready and slipped her arms through the straps of her brand new Winnie the Pooh backpack. My husband took the morning off work so we could both be with her on her first day of "big girl school." Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the school to see a young boy with vacant brown eyes and a mischievous grin flipping us the bird outside her classroom.
This wasn't going as planned.
That young man was in my daughter's class through second grade and over our five years at the school I got to know him as well as any volunteer and almost as well as any teacher at the school. He had a younger brother at the school, as well as, an uncle who was a grade behind.
D_ _ _ lived with his grandmother in a public housing complex with eleven other relatives. Technically, they didn't live there. They slept there. It was a one bedroom apartment. During tutoring sessions he told me about the mice and bugs that lived in the apartment too. At night, as many of the kids as could find room, crammed into the one bed while others slept on the sofa, in chairs and on the floor.
That is, when they could sleep at all.
Some nights they all wound up on the floor. Those were the nights they could hear gunshots in the complex. D_ _ _ wasn't the only child from the neighborhood to talk about the gunshots. It was shocking to hear the stories, but what was more shocking was the way the children talked about it. No big deal. Happens all the time. I guess when some of us are teaching our little darlings not to talk to strangers, others get to teach their children what to do when they hear gunfire at night.
This luxurious public housing apartment is part of Mitt Romney's safety net.
After trying to sleep in a crowded bed, D_ _ _ would arrive at school with puffy eyes, unkempt clothes, and most days in dire need of a bath and toothbrush. Like many of the kids at this school, D_ _ _ received a free breakfast. Before you roll your eyes and whine about taxes, let me tell you about breakfast. The food was certainly adequate, but the kids were shuffled in and out of the cafeteria with teaching assistants constantly barking at them to be quiet, eat quickly and get to class. It was very common to hear a child say they didn't get to finish their breakfast and many of those children had not eaten dinner the night before.
This is the safety net for the very poor, Mitt Romney isn't worried about.
Through the years I spent a great deal of time tutoring D_ _ _ and his younger brother - both tough guys and almost always in trouble. Some days it was hard to feel sympathy for this kid who seemed to be quite skilled at breaking rules, but other days his tough little shell would crack and it was heartbreaking.
There was the day, D_ _ _ came to school with tear tracks on his cheeks. He told me his mom had come to see them at his grandmother's apartment. I thought that was wonderful and said so. I didn't understand why that would make D_ _ _ cry and he didn't seem to be able to tell me what was wrong. I quietly asked another student who I knew lived near D_ _ _ and she explained D_ _ 's mother "did things for men" and the kids on the bus were teasing D _ _ and his brother about that by calling their mother a whore. At the time, D_ _ _ was in second grade. His brother was in kindergarten. How do they even know what a whore is?
There were other tears, but most were shed over things easier to tackle - dirty clothes, ashy skin, bad breath. D_ _ 's teacher and I often sent shampoo, lotion, toothpaste and brushes home with D _ . We would buy the jumbo size at discount stores since so many people shared the apartment. We couldn't keep up with demand. There were hundreds of children at this school with the same needs.
Life in Mitt Romney's safety net.
One of my toughest memories is of the class Holiday party in second grade. The students were exchanging handmade gifts. Most of the children took great pride in their gifts made with construction paper, glue, glitter and yarn - things many families have stored away for craft projects. D _ 's family wasn't one of them.
I remember the look of confusion on the little girl's face when she unrolled the lined notebook paper to find a dirty old Matchbox car. She held it in her hand and pointed out it wasn't handmade. It didn't seem to bother D _ _ as he showed her he had colored it where the paint was missing. D_ _ _ had wanted so badly to participate in the gift giving, he had dug the car out of the common area in front of his grandmother's apartment and brought it to school where he applied orange crayon to the sides and wrapped it in notebook paper.
Something as simple as glueing glitter to construction paper is out of reach for many kids. Life in the safety net means you don't spend money on craft supplies.
I know life isn't fair. I know we can't equalize everything for every child in need. That doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge more needs to be done if and when we can. Even when the money isn't there to fix the safety net we can still show some compassion toward those who survive each day with help from that net.
My problem with Mitt Romney isn't his lack of concern for the very poor, it is that he is completely unaware of how inadequate the safety net is for many families. My problem with Mitt Romney is his complete lack of compassion for the children who will pay the heaviest price for having been born into poverty.
I doubt Mitt Romney would last one night in the safety net. He wouldn't think to drop to the floor and cover his head at the sound of gunfire.
Cross-posted from Democratic Muse