Kristoff on Poverty

From Kristoff’s recent column:

ONE delusion common among America’s successful people is that they triumphed just because of hard work and intelligence.

In fact, their big break came when they were conceived in middle-class American families who loved them, read them stories, and nurtured them with Little League sports, library cards and music lessons. They were programmed for success by the time they were zygotes.

The part that comes after “read them stories” is complete and utter shit as well as really crappy writing (to nurture with sports, cards, and lessons, seriously? Is that even English?), but the part that comes before is valuable. It would be completely self-evident but in the US actually acknowledging that parents have an impact on their children is an unheard-of, truly shocking revelation.

After this rare flash of intelligence, Kristoff tries to twist and bend his argument to convince his readers that it is necessary to have money to love one’s children and that we should all immediately start feeling sorry for those who weren’t loved by their parents because that will magically help them to heal the damage.

Of course, we also need to remember that parental responsibility ends when one becomes an adult. No matter what kind of damage or trauma has been inflicted on a person (and it is often really, really horrible damage), it is up to every single one of us to choose whether we will allow the trauma to consume us or whether we will overcome the damage.

Look, I know this woman (let’s call her Mother) who grew up one of six daughters in a very poor family. She had to leave home at 15 because her family didn’t have the resources to keep her in school. The father drank and terrorized everybody in the family. And what do you think? Unsurprisingly, the woman’s five sisters went on to marry men who either drank or abused them or did both. Except this woman. She made a conscious decision to have a different life.

“I decided that I was going to live differently,” she told me. “I knew what I wanted and I set out to get it.”

So she married the kindest, gentlest man ever to live on this planet who couldn’t raise his voice to her to save his life and who is indifferent to alcohol. Hers is not a perfect life or a perfect journey. Still, she isn’t abused and her own daughters never had to solve the problem of abusive men in their lives. I should know since I’m one of these daughters.

There is always a moment in one’s life when one can either go with the flow or assess one’s starting point and proceed to repair the damage in search of a better existence. The bad news is that this is hard, hard work. But the good news is that it is never too late to choose to be happy. This is the nature of human existence: in every life there is hardship and tragedy, every single one. But at the same time, every single one of us can choose to overcome the trauma, the circumstances, and the legacy of pain.