Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
In older days the birth of a girl child was considered as auspicious. As per an Indian proverb, “A home without a daughter is like a body without soul”. The birth of a daughter in the house was compared with the advent of Goddess Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth and Goddess Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom. No ceremony was considered to be complete in absence of women. The belief was that “No home is complete without a woman.” Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Worst of all she is often killed before being born while in mother’s womb itself. This is fetus killing or infanticide. This is the gross downfall of humanity, morality and the values.
The situation has drastically worsened these days. Women suffer badly, infanticide have become widespread. Parents don’t send daughters for schooling thinking that the daughter is going to be a kitchen confined housewife. There was, hence, decline in female literacy and her position in the society. This practice is lasting till today and the killing of fetus after the sex determination is fearlessly continued.
The God has created man and woman as the two wheels of this society cart. Those two wheels are made for each other. For the human race to exist and survive, both of the wheels must be functional else the society collapses. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
In nutshell all must be kind to women with high degree of love and respect to them. There is no life without a wife and there can’t be a wife in absence of girl. Considering all the facts above, save the girl child in the interest of humanity. Saving baby girls shall minimize crime and build a powerful nation.
The underprivileged girl in the society also needs proper care. They need to be educated for the development of society. Some poor parents are unable to send their children to schools and colleges, which need to be taken care. In India the gild child is exempted for school fees in government schools and colleges. What about private schools?? Why so disparity in private schools.
The fetus killing or infanticide is also a crime and taken seriously by the law. The child labor in early days of the girl child is also a big crime and viewed seriously. To make a healthy society the girl child should be taken care of with more priority.
Anyone doing background research into the causes of child poverty will soon learn that parental income is only one of a large network of interrelated factors. To name a few; political, communal, environmental, and societal influences all play a role. As an example consider that; with the ever progressive move from a widespread agricultural, to a more localized industrial society, the number of jobs in many areas has decreased severely. And so the average number of “non-educated” workmen (or women) has subsequently decreased also. More and more Britain’s are joining the ranks of the poor each day (roughly 2,000). And with parents out of work and not earning, children will suffer as a result. Every day 1 in every 4 children is born into poverty. (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995)
This can lead to a number of consequences in children, which follows with them throughout adolescence and into adulthood. For example, children who grow up in families with a low income are more likely to experience mental health problems, and more likely to develop unhealthily. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Greg Duncan found associations between poverty and poor health, cognitive development, behaviour, emotional well being and academic achievement.
He also found that pregnant mothers who have insufficient resources such as food and warmth are 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a low weight baby, that child is then 2 times more likely to drop out of school, and 3.1 times more likely have an out of wed-lock birth (Duncan 1997).
Although short term poverty can be overcome and the effects are reversible, long term poverty can be destructive on a child’s life. Duncan found that children who had experienced 4-5 years of their early years of life in poverty, achieved a full 9 year decline on intelligence test scores compared to children from healthy backgrounds (Duncan 1997).
The standards of living associated with children from poor families can have a negative effect on their health. For example, they are more vulnerable to asthma due to poor ventilation, as well as pneumonia due to poor insulation. Interestingly, they are also more vulnerable to developing obesity since a high carbohydrate, processed diet is the cheaper option. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Those children are often excluded from participating in social activities, through both financial disadvantages as well as feeling the pressure of social stigma – which can develop from having to dress inappropriately, or through receiving charity food, books, furniture and other necessities. It leads to a loss of self esteem, can be de-motivating, leads to less elevation after the simplest of pleasures, and poor ability to cope with stressful situations. Not only are they more likely to develop psychological problems as a result, these effects last longer than in those who are well off. And this leads to a vicious cycle of depression, leading to increased likelihood of a stressful event, leading to further depression.
In Novak’s (1995) view, this can lead to long term, irreversible changes in personality, such as; self defeatist attitudes, hopelessness, helplessness, low motivation, low drive, bitterness, aggressiveness and anti social personality disorder. Children with the latter are seen to be impulsive, have high sensation seeking, but without sense of morals or justice. It is often associated with young offenders, school drop outs, and those serving long term sentences. For these reasons, it is necessary for social workers; to get into family homes, assess their state of living, their needs, risk factors, problems, difficulties and anything else that is helpful for them to make an accurate evaluation, and to give them a better understanding. Late interventions can be damaging, for the longer things are kept untreated the harder they are to change. It is important that children are given opportunities in life to maximise their potential and make a contribution to society. Without the proper guidance and support, they are likely to sink further and further. So it is clear that help is required.
There has long been argument that to tackle poverty, social work (SW) would do best to “position itself in and against the state. Workers are known to follow law, policy, the rules and regulations of agencies etc, whilst at the same time assuming a flexible role in relation to the safeguarding and supporting of individuals and families”. (Bailey and Brake, 1975; Corrigan and Leonard, 1978; Bolger et al., 1981; Becker and MacPherson, 1988; Adams et al., 1998) Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Childhood poverty holds great relevance for social workers for it defines their very existence. If the role of social workers is to promote well being in the community, and to help young individuals achieve their potential and to function in society, then those in poverty will be the people who need help most.
The Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (PSE Survey, Joseph Rowntree Foundation 1999), which collected a number of individuals portraying an average society, found that 28% of the population were in poverty. Each of them were presented with 52 cards, each revealing an object or activity, such as central heating, a computer, going to the cinema. They were instructed to form two piles; one for items they believed were vital for living, the other for those which were not. For all those items where the majority voted them to be vital, researchers concluded that every person should have at least these in their lives. Social workers may use this as a base line when assessing families, and when children lack any (or all) of these so called necessities (i.e. are in poverty) then help should be provided; for without it, children will likely grow up depressed, suicidal or conversely, aggressive and violent.
Children are vulnerable to feelings of hopelessness due to this lack of necessities.A build up of long term worries accompanying a loss of control combined with a sense of dependence, is likely to lead to distress. Chronic anxiety and even depression is not uncommon, which can be exacerbated by an oppressive society. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Children from poorer backgrounds are well recognized as they are the ones who do not go on school trips, may dress differently to the rest, not have the correct equipment in lessons, have a more definable smell (not a pleasant one) etc. For those who spend time with such children it is likely they will be excluded from social groups as a result; for they become associated with the outsider and so they themselves are now too an outsider. Society recognizes and treats differently any person (adults too) who stands out for whatever reason good or bad. Of course they are no different from the next person; however it is because others see them as different that they are made to feel paranoid. Paranoid that wherever they are people are staring at them, talking about them, thinking all sorts of thoughts. It is enough to cause any child, adult, man or woman huge distress and can affect their ability to be trusting around complete strangers.
Constantly obsessing over one’s situation will inevitably drain a child of their strength and make them feel weak, which subsequently will increase the level of stress felt. Here can be seen a vicious cycle, one which is hard to recover from without the appropriate help.
Furthermore, it is often the case that parents are made to feel just as bad, if not worse. The negativity that radiates off of a child is bound to have implications, especially when he/she cannot have things that all their friends can. Parents have failed as providers and this can lead to a loss of motivation and of despair. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
So, childhood poverty causes a “knock on effect” for the rest of the family, and therefore makes it more probable they will seek social service’s aid. For example, schoolyard bullying can decrease a child’s self esteem and affect their ability to form secure, long term relationships. This can lead to turmoil between parents and children, for parents will feel they have lost family connections. As a result, they become depressed and will seek guidance in parenting techniques.
Another example would be a child whose parent cannot afford to buy them nice things such as clothes, toys or school equipment. Daily exposure to those who do have such possessions is likely to cause the child jealousy and envy; both at those children who take luxuries for granted, and also at their parents for not being able to provide. Because of the psychological issues that this can lead to, it is likely the child grows up with a desire to steal, spawned from a lifetime of unfulfilment. If they however, grow up with certain morals and choose not to steal, it is still possible that they resort to drugs/and or alcohol as a means of coping. Coping with the consuming hatred and loathe of society that has become them.
Families in poverty are less able to provide for themselves, and so there is large chance that children will have to be taken away into care. Thus, a great deal of social worker’s time is spent “within and around those in poverty” (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995; Becker 1997; Smale et. al. 2000; Social Exclusion Unit, 2004).
Childhood poverty can lead to severe ramifications, both physical and mental, some of which people recover from in time while others can be long lasting. It is considered the universal belief poverty is as much a cause as well as an effect of mental health problems (Langner & Michael, 1963). Evidence for this comes from impoverished families from lower class areas. Not only are these areas receiving low government funding they also have little support from neighboring councils; research shows that these areas have the largest number of children with mental health problems (Department of Health, 1999b). Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
It is clear that the linearity between poverty and well being is long winded. Two possible theories however have met support, both social causation (‘breeder’) (SC) and social selection (‘drift’) (SS).
SS describes how the accumulation of adolescents suffering mental issues, who live in poor areas, is the result of a continuous drifting towards the lower spectrum of education and while losing contact with social networks. In contrast, SC describes how a neglected sociology-economic climate can have negative consequences on childhood well being to start with.
From this it is to be concluded that: poor children have lifelong experience living in high risk areas, risk defined as: high chance of unemployment, growing up to rely on benefits, of teenage pregnancies, families separated, crime, street violence, rape, vandalism, malnutrition, obesity etc. Those at high risk are more likely to experience mental problems because their minds are already overburdened with every day worry. Furthermore, those at high risk are less likely to be treated for their illness because the local medical facilities are of low quality, have fewer staff and are constantly over worked. Child poverty therefore starts within neglected communities and leads to a number of psychological issues. A further difficulty is that the increase in mentally disturbed individuals can further exacerbate the ability to cope in others. That is, exposure to stressors causes stress, therefore numbers are constantly rising.
There is large evidence for a correlation between low income and lack of support, and increased probability of contracting mood disorder. According to SC, the most contributory factor is the mental strain which results from all those issues associated with poverty so far mentioned, for example misfortune or wretchedness, death or separation within the family. “While SS explains those born with a predisposition towards developing mood disorders will drift to such low stances, and be unable to crawl back upwards” (Jarvis, 1971).
Researchers found that when children were taken from their homes and placed into the care of middle class families then the number of those children who subsequently developed mood, or any other form of mental disorder subsequently reduced. This proves that economic status (ES) is an important factor, however it is likely to be the case ES leads to numerous other contributing factors rather than being sole contributor (Bruce & Hoff, 1994). Factors include; access to a good education, support from extended family members, healthy living and nourishment, praise and encouragement from parents, etc. Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
I spoke of psychological issues that rise from deprivation. It is a sad fact that children in poverty are often the topic of conversation among others. They are ridiculed, gossiped about, and excluded from social gatherings and out of school activities. It is as if the impoverished are viewed as if they have the plague. Common descriptions, taken from national surveys include words such as “lazy, worthless, inferior, and undeserving”. This misconception of the poor being the cause for their own predicament, not only removes any possible blame from neglected political responsibilities (which contribute largely), but also creates what psychologists termed a “self fulfilling prophecy”. This theory is based on the belief that beliefs shape and influence actions. By this one means; those who are seen as inferior are likely to be treated as inferior. So much so that they actually become inferior because of the lack of social support available. Children are particularly vulnerable to the influence of their social networks, because they are still developing and creating identities for themselves. The idea of a “looking glass self” is of relevance here also (Cooley 1902), which theorises that children’s self concepts are based on what others portray. There is high chance that their actual and their perceived self identity become misconstrued, if and when evidence from external sources supports the latter. They familiarise with the concept that they are weak individuals, and the negative emotions that accompany this such as self doubt, or guilt. It is important to recognise the relevance here for social workers, because this part of society categorised as “lower class citizens” will benefit the most from services such as child support, child therapy, connexions, EMA, every child matters and so on.
And so in response to all this, SW agencies have implemented numerous partnership schemes; the women, infant and children (WIC) nutrition programme for example, which is designed to get pregnant women and children under 5 eating more healthily, Head Start provides low cost day care to children from families earning less than the 60% threshold of the average family, and many areas now even have schemes to provide low cost/free health insurance for children of all ages.
It is up to the SW to assess families/individuals and to determine their eligibility for government aid. For those who are suffering from mental health as a result of poverty, SW’s are able to put them in touch with professionals who can help and advise. For those who have very few or none of the necessities from the PSE Survey SW’s can organise for clubs where the children can go meet peers and to join in social activities. For parents who have racked up a series of debt SW’s are able to help them devise a set of preliminary steps in a certain time period resulting in a more secure financial situation (See Task Centred Practice). Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
Clients often give off negative reviews of SW because it has failed to be of any use with real concerns; state of housing, living, etc. But task centred practice can actually be therapeutic, because it is the client who becomes the changing agent, deciding which problems they want to tackle and in what order. By using this, service providers are employing a learning experience. One which relies on both self growth and skills development, whilst addressing the more important issues.
But what issues should the SW investigate first? It would be a logical idea to get right back to the start and look at what caused the families’ decline into poverty. Here lies a problem however, for there are different theories on what the main area of focus should be; some theories blame the individual while others focus on the failings of society. Because of this conflict in ideas it can prove difficult for SW’s to accurately make assessments, or come to an agreement with each other when conducting a review. Below are a number of theories on the causes of poverty, to give an idea of these so mentioned conflicts.
Firstly, explanations can be fit into three main areas; functionalist, individualistic, and Structural (Marxist). Saving Mother & Child Challenges Essay
So to start, functionalists focus on the idea that any form of poverty, be it adult, child or both, proves necessary, for without it society would not govern properly. Naturally such a statement has spawned a great deal of controversy; however the theory is conceivable because it is based on logistics. Society is viewed on a grander scale than simply the here and now. And so by applying somewhat of a utilitarianistic approach, rather than considering individuals, it looks at the whole picture. Philosophers such as Herbert Gans (1971) have made contributions to this, suggesting that “poverty benefits the non poor and also the rich and powerful, who therefore have a vested interest in maintaining poverty.” He further suggested 5 reasons why he believed poverty is acceptable.