Poverty Blog Day. OR, The Post of Lists in 3 Formats

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I know, I know, I know. I'm supposed to write about poverty today. I was actually going to re-post my very first rant on the matter in honor of the occasion, a mere week after I started blogging. All the links and numbers there are still relevant as I just wrote the post back in February.

And then I thought about linking to all kinds of articles from other bloggers.

And then I thought about some anecdote of living in poverty that I haven't shared with you.

And then I got sidetracked.

So I'm taking some liberties with this particular theme.

I read this yesterday and was flabbergasted. A couple quite literally starved their girl. Ready for this brilliant parenting? They withheld food and water as a form of discipline. She was a behavior problem, you see.

That's right.

Let's start with some numbers, shall we? (List 1)

48: how many pounds this child weighed when authorities found her. Three stone, six, is that correct all you Brits out there?*

14: Age of the child

6: ounces of water this Mother of the Year allowed her child to have every day.

2: dogs in the house that were better treated then this kid.

4: How many years the parents--step-mom and father--could serve if convicted.

Infinity: the lasting affect of this horrifying treatment.

So where's the poverty? In this case it's metaphorical, but I'll give you the laundry list (2!) just for fun:

Poverty in paternal involvement. Dad was living in the home and did nothing about the treatment of his daughter. He figured his 2nd wife and daughter could work it out. A regular Bill Cosby.
Poverty in basic human compassion. I'm not working with this family, so I can hurl all the insults I want. STARVING your kid? How completely malicious can one be? Honestly! This is the kind of stuff that happens on Lifetime TV, not in reality. Who DOES this? Those who are experiencing....
Poverty in parenting capabilities. Like duh, obviously. But I'd wager this woman, who was the primary perpetrator, needs a site bit more help than parenting classes and standard therapy. She's probably a psychopath. I'm not sure anything can be done about them.
Poverty in social capital. The child was isolated in a few ways: home-schooled, lived in a rural area forty miles outside of Seattle, and, (this last one is, admittedly, minor but I'm going to throw it out there anyway) was locked in her bedroom by step mother.
Poverty in physiological development, as explored further below.

Another list (3!), this time enumerating what happens to the body in extreme cases of malnutrition and dehydration (Warning! Medical jargon forthcoming, right up front. It gets easier, I swear.)

1)

Loss of delayed hypersensitivity, fewer T lymphocytes, impaired lymphocyte response, impaired phagocytosis secondary to decreased complement and certain cytokines, and decreased secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA) are some changes that may occur. These immune changes predispose children to severe and chronic infections, most commonly, infectious diarrhea, which further compromises nutrition causing anorexia, decreased nutrient absorption, increased metabolic needs, and direct nutrient losses.

Say you: Um, English?

Say me: Yeah. That up there basically means the body is acting like it has AIDS.

2) Catabolysis. This is the process of the body breaking down muscle and other organs (after it's gone through all the fat) to keep the nervous and circulatory systems alive (read: brain and heart.)

3) Psychological effects: hysteria, depression, hypochondriasis, and preoccupation with food.

4) Extreme fatigue

5) swollen and bleeding gums, along with rotting teeth

6) dry, scaly skin

7) poor growth

8) osteoperosis (fragile bones. Drink your milk!)

9) light-headedness and dizziness

THIS is why we have child welfare. Right here. Say what you want about the bureaucracy, and to be fair, it's a cluster, but when people take it upon themselves to turn their children into mock-ups of concentration camp victims, then it's a bit of a problem.

It's my understanding CPS was involved with the family a few years ago--the child's school made a referral because she was underweight. They came, they saw, they intervened. But the child stayed in the home. The mother, in turn, did what she had to do to get authorities off her back, and then promptly pulled her kid out of school and thus out from under watchful eyes. The child was living in what can only be described as tortuous conditions--you can read the links for details, I won't get into them here. CPS didn't know, couldn't know, because step-mother orchestrated it as such. I'm not going to bash CPS for not catching this. No one has a crystal ball. But it wouldn't surprise me if they get blasted on the local news for a while. Everyone needs a scapegoat to explain such atrocities.

One more on poverty: Poverty of understanding how someone could possibly do this to a child. ->

*I don't understand why you just can't say "pound" or "kilograms" like everyone else. Why "stone"? I guess "pound" the weight might be easy to confuse with "pound" the money. But still. And the number attached to it seems so arbitrary. 1 stone=14 pounds? Where does that come from? Why not 10, or 15, or 20? Those are much easier to add up in one's head than fourteen. Come on!