This post is part of a series on childhood poverty in the United States in partnership with Save the Children and Julianne Moore. Moore leads the organization's Valentine's Day campaign, through which cards are sold to support the fight against poverty in the U.S. To learn more or to purchase the cards, click here.
When we were kids, my mother -- Eunice Kennedy Shriver -- asked my siblings and me the same question at the end of every day: "What did you do to make the world a better place today?"
It's a question to which I usually didn't have an answer. But, reflecting back, she wasn't really looking for one. It was a question that answered itself.
She was telling us to get off our butts and do something.
She knew what she was talking about. Among her many accomplishments, she founded the Special Olympics. And she shared a common bond for action and social justice with my dad, Sargent Shriver, who founded the Peace Corps and led the War on Poverty for President Johnson.
They were relentless in their pursuit to make the United States a better and fairer place.
Not a lot of people know this, but the War on Poverty worked. Until we surrendered.
Before President Johnson and my dad started making deep investments in anti-poverty programs like Head Start, about one quarter of all children and the elderly lived in poverty.
Ten years later, that number dropped to about 15 percent for both groups.
The elderly poverty rate kept decreasing and is now at a historic low of nine percent. But the percentage of kids living in poverty today has returned to mid-1960s levels. I believe that's so because kids don't have access to the political process the way other Americans do.
Childhood poverty doesn't just cause misery for the most vulnerable of us, it sets them up for failure in school, in their health and, frankly, for the rest of their lives.
Kids living in poverty are developmentally a year and a half behind other kids at age four, they're less likely to be reading at grade level in elementary school and, as they get older, are more likely to drop out of high school and commit crime and domestic violence.
Alternately, The Brookings Institute found that a meaningful investment in early childhood education -- the key to a lifetime of learning and success -- would add $2 trillion to our gross domestic product within a generation.
We need more heroes today to reverse the childhood poverty crisis that threatens a new generation of kids.
President Obama has committed truly meaningful new investments for early childhood education and First Lady Michelle Obama is fighting the obesity epidemic that is disproportionately affecting kids living in poverty, for whom empty calories are cheaper and more easily available than nutritious ones.
In my daily work, I see heroes around me every day.
In the boardroom, there's Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, Ernie Herrman, the President of the TJX Companies, and Jerry Storch, the CEO of Toys"R"Us, who have made fighting childhood poverty here at home a top priority for their companies.
I see colleagues like Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, Bruce Lesley of First Focus, Cornelia Grumman of the First Five Years Fund and Irwin Redlener of The Children's Health Fund.
There's the staff at Save the Children, who are on the frontline in nearly 200 of the most impoverished communities in the U.S., like Clay County, Kentucky.
I get to work alongside some of the strongest leaders in Congress including Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Congressmen Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and Todd Platts (R-PA).
There are so many more to name but there are three others who are very important to me. They are talented and dedicated artists who serve as ambassadors for Save the Children's U.S. Programs: Jennifer Garner, Randy Jackson and Julianne Moore.
Julianne's Valentine's Day project is under way right now and as she says: "We have to buy these cards for our kids anyway. Why not buy them for a great cause?"
I hope you'll order a box or two of cards right now and help kids living in poverty.
Everyone needs to be a hero since the solution to childhood poverty takes Herculean efforts, enormous investment and a driving national will. But the place to start is right here: getting off our butts and doing something.
Follow Mark Shriver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Mark_Shriver
Make healthcare affordable for adults and children.
Address Time Poverty of the working poor, including making voting dates--holidays and keeping polls open late.
Require Public Hearings to not be held during normal working hours so that regular people can attend, and not just lobbyists and retirees.
And do something about food deserts.
Legislate to shrink classroom size down to 10 students max,
And make a college edu or a trade school an affordable option.
Now kids spend all day inside with TV and computer games.
There really still is a life outside the screen.
“Although some individuals who experience trauma move on with few symptoms, many, especially those who experience repeated or multiple traumas, suffer a variety of negative physical and psychological effects. Trauma exposure has been linked to later substance abuse, mental illness, increased risk of suicide, obesity, heart disease, and early death.”[Leading Change: A Plan for SAMHSA’s Roles and Actions 2011–2014 – pg. 8] Then there is the injustice / vengeance system. The plea bargain system depends upon denying the accused the right to speak. Lawyers know it, cops know it and judges turn a blind eye towards it. The result is the contempt for the justice system, resulting in increase gang membership - and trauma that results from crime - resulting in more poverty - and more crime and trauma.
It is very easy to target help to the elderly poor. Increase benefits, meal delivery, and social activity opportunities all work and I'm sure there are many others.
It is much harder to provide help to children. Only a small fraction of increased direct financial assistance benefits the children with the rest absorbed by the parents. Teachers who have taught in both inner city and suburban schools talk about the outstanding difference in family support being far worse than any funding difference. A typical high school teacher with 125 students might be lucky to have 5 parents show up on open school night in the inner city while more than 100 do in the better suburbs.
Give me 5K per person to help the elderly and I know I could make a big difference. Give me an extra 5K per to help poor kids and I'm not sure I'd know how.
I'd love to hear some solutions that you claim work because I can't think of any. I volunteered for a decade in after school programs in the inner city and that's where I developed my sense of futility. The only time I felt I made a difference was doing math/science enrichment for the top 3%(?) kids in one middle school. Otherwise it was kids whose parent can't do basic math or read. Kids without school supplies but whose parent has a cell phone (in the early 90's). Kids left in a program from 3-7 PM but then the parents don't show up 'til 8:30 forcing two of us to stay almost every night. In 3 years of working after school with elementary kids, I don't recall one assignment being completed at home for school.
Honestly, I believe there is a solution, but one that is blocked not by the right wing but by the left wing because of concerns about paternalism. Cut (perhaps entirely) the cash given to poor families and replace it (even at a higher level of spending) with having schools and social workers provide direct material assistance. Provide them plenty of good clothing, jackets, shoes, school supplies, and vouchers for cultural activities. Let the schools provide dinner in addition to lunch and breakfast, but take away the corresponding food stamps.