July 4th 2008
Is it a Crime to Be Poor?
I read a disturbing story today about a Midlothian (Chicago suburb) man who has been accused of locking his two very young children in a cage, in the back of his truck, while he worked collecting scrap metal. The truck was also supposedly outfitted with tinted windows and cunningly placed plywood which would prevent passers-by from seeing the caged children.
“Shocking allegations” (as the reporters in the accompanying news clip put it) indeed. Journalists and police and probably most of the people reading/watching reports of this incident are “disgusted” and thinking: What kind of parent puts their child in a cage?
At the risk of being called a bleeding heart liberal, I’d like to offer a possible answer to the above question:
“A poor one?”
(To those who are rolling their eyes right now, let me point out that I don’t think that putting children in cages and leaving them unattended (in a vehicle, at that!) is ever acceptable. If you read this blog post thinking otherwise, that is your problem, not mine. I don’t like inept parenting, particularly when children are endangered by it.)
But I’d like to ask another question. What alternatives did these parents have?
- Both parents were employed. The father was salvaging scrap metal and the mother was working as a dental assistant. Neither job is high paid, and this family was probably barely scraping by on both parents’ wages and likely could not afford child care.
- The family had got into trouble with the Department of Children and Family services before for leaving one of the girls “home alone”. The family was offered “supportive services”, though this apparently did not include continuing child care.
- The children were not simply left alone in the truck, but were caged and strapped in so they would not “run away”. While this action clearly offends the sensibilities of the local constabulary and the media, it is probably preferable to leaving the girls “loose” so that they could escape the truck and go out exploring.
- The television news report makes much of the fact that the truck had tinted windows and a plywood barrier that prevented outsiders from seeing the children. But if children are going to be left alone, wouldn’t it make sense to conceal them so that potential kidnappers and molesters cannot see them?
- There is no mention in this story of any evidence of physical or sexual abuse. Evidence of such may be forthcoming, but the problem so far seems to be that the kids were left alone because their parents (who already had reason to be fearful of the child welfare authorities) couldn’t afford child care.
- It should be noted that, as poor as this family is, both parents are working. If they weren’t working (and thus looking after the children at home) the same people condemning the father for securing the girls in his truck while he worked would be condemning the parents for being “lazy”.
So now these children are in foster care and away from their parents. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that they are probably more traumatized by being in foster care than they were in a cage, in the back of their father’s truck. While they shouldn’t have been there in the first place, I am wondering what putting the kids in foster care is supposed to solve. Clearly these parents need some, ahem, help in caring for their children appropriately, but given their circumstances, it sounds like they may have been doing the best that they could.
They are poor. They are caring for their children the way the poor have always had to care for their children, which involves few resources and even fewer choices. The police and caseworkers and media are quick to condemn and arrest and confiscate, but one wonders what they were willing to do to help a family, who, despite both parents holding jobs, could not afford a baby sitter.
Is it a crime to be poor?
Is it?
