My daughter is inquisitive and most of her conversations are a series of questions. Usually, I can answer her questions, which revolve around day to day activities. When are we going to swim lessons? When can I get up? Do I have to take a nap? Can I have two popsicles, instead of one? I am pinging answers like I am playing tennis and I know I’ve won a certain round of a conversation when she reaches a two minute silence point. Of course, I know she is just gearing up for more questions to ask.
There are those questions that she asks that I can’t answer. Because I don’t know how to answer them.
My daughter and I were walking near a street, where she saw a man laying on the ground. My first inclination was to distract her, hoping her mind would catch something else. But it didn’t. She saw the same man I did. We have all seen him. Thin, tattered clothing, the obligatory grocery cart and sign decorating his corner of the street. He doesn’t have a home.
“Momma, why is he sleeping on the street?”
“He is a little tired, I think.”
“You think he is hungry?”
“Maybe.”
“Why can’t he sleep in his home?”
“He doesn’t have a home.”
“Why doesn’t he have a home?”
“I don’t know.”
The conversation ends there, but I am left with lingering thoughts. I’ve probably had a handful of encounters with the homeless. I’ve volunteered at a soup kitchen, given money to charity and have passed out dollar bills to the random homeless people on the street. I say to myself that I am doing my part, but I know I am not.
3.5 million people are homeless in the United States. Of that 3.5 million, 1.35 million are children who will experience homelessness. There is probably a little girl about the same age as my daughter who is asking a different set of questions: When are we going to eat? Where are we going to sleep? Will the shelter take us in?
And that for me is hard to stomach, but I live in the land of the suburbia bubble. I think of homelessness in the passing, when I am forced to answer a question for my daughter.
Why doesn’t he have a home? I still don’t know. But worries me is that as an adult I am not asking that question anymore. I am immune to this reality. And that is a scary thought.
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How do you tackle difficult questions with your children? Have you become immune to the sight of homelessness? Do you think you live in a bubble?
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
When our kids were little we volunteered through our church providing winter shelter at the church for the homeless for a week each year. We worked through Scouting for the Food Banks and shelters. Volunteering was a way we were able to show them and help them develop compassion for those less priviledged. They learned that many of those homeless people were intelligent and talented but were homeless due to circumstance and sometimes choice. I am sad to admit that I am now more like to donate money than volunteer my time, and that is something I need to change.
My daughter asks the Big Questions sometimes, too. She is usually satisfied with a short, matter-of-fact answer (like yours). We talk about the children that will get her old toys that we no longer want/need. About how lucky she is to have all of the things she does, because some families don’t have enough money to buy those things. Or food. Or even homes sometimes.
When we saw a homeless man on the street recently, she had the same questions as your daughter. When I said he doesn’t have a home, she suggested that we invite him to our house. THAT was hard to answer, too! How sweet. I explained that there were many other people who were also homeless and we didn’t have room for everyone. But there are shelters where they can go to get food and a rest. Oh, the heartbreak.
Yes, I do live in a bubble. I choose to ignore these things rather than confront them or do anything about them. I should do more. Really.
Living where we do homeless people are not something we ever encounter. But if we got in our car and drove for less than an hour we would find them. There are so very many reasons why people become homeless, nearly all of them so very tragic. I also think there are very many disadvantaged people – over 20% of American children go hungry, over a third start school without basic pre-reading skills because there are no books in their homes. You can go on and on. I think you have to pick one or two causes that touch you the most – for me it is the two I have mentioned here – and determine how best to help. At the moment my help is monetary but once my daughter starts school I intend on doing a lot more by volunteering with the organizations working to assist hungry and disadvantaged kids. Now I have a child of my own I cannot bear the thought of other children having to live the way so many do.
Before my son was born, I taught GED and job skills to formerly homeless people who were in transitional living. After I was a mom, that job became harder to do. Instead, I began volunteering my time — and his.
9 years later, it’s a family affair. We make and serve food, run clothing/shoes/food/supplies drives, share our time and energy with the local free clinic and food kitchen, etc. I’ve found that through this, my children have been able to ask questions and explore the answers in practical, real-life ways. The questions are still there, but the answers are easier to come by and both children know they are part of the solution.
Talking about it with your children is the best way to open that door. Who knows what will be on the other side.
The very act of thinking about it and writing it here is an important thing. You are opening the door on conversation and your considering the picture you want to paint for your daughter. That’s huge. There are so few who would even bother. You can’t solve these problems, but you can raise awareness one person at a time, and influencing any little bit of action is a step in the right direction.
I struggle with the hard questions from my son too. For me it’s about honesty, always honesty. I admit when I don’t know like you did, and I offer knowledge as best as I can when I do. I hope to continue to fuel his curiosity.
Sometimes it takes a child’s innocent questions to wake us up to the gruesome reality that surrounds us. I’m glad Nanu is inquisitive and forces you to look at things through a different lens. And I’m glad you force us, your faithful readers, to think about things through a different perspective.
Not immune. I’ve seen people who, by no fault of their own, became homeless and I’ve seen alot more people who prefer to live off the system. In our town, we have a huge community program. Every day of the week a homeless family can get a meal. There are shelters for the homeless. Financial help, too. There are also the very angry who manage to get into your face if you try to help them out of the situation and into the road to recovery to getting a roof, a job, and food on the table. The help is there. I can’t help but think of that guy they made a movie on, “Happy.”
He has a website. He is trying from what I briefly read to help others get off the streets.
Alot of homeless are dangerously addicted to drugs and alchol (be careful of cash). They sell sleeping bags they are given to pay for their habit instead of a warm place to sleep. Some homeless have warrants for thier arrest.
Someone might say not to judge but it’s reality no one wants to see because they can’t imagine from their suburbian life of wanting to live on the streets. Some chose to live on the streets. They want nothing more than to live there. Others made some mistakes and warrant the help.
My sympathy lies with the children. They didn’t have a choice.
I guess my point is: use careful discretion when giving out money. If you wish to help, give money to some outreach programs. They often are careful not to enable, but are making a small difference without aiding in a bad habit.
It’s pretty bad that I live in a city where I encounter so many homeless folk in my daily commute that I become numb to them. Not only that, I’ve devised a filter where I will give them a dollar if they are or do X, Y & Z. I’m not proud of it; I do want to help but with so many of them, I just have to be a little more discerning.
If Little Miss does ask me about them someday, I honestly wouldn’t know what to say. I think you did well – sometimes children will have to understand that adults don’t have all the answers, and “I don’t know” should be acceptable, especially when it’s the truth.
I think it’s the tough questions that my children ask (and that I can’t answer on the fly) are the best ones. They’re the ones that shake me out of complacency. And that’s a good thing!
So well said! It is a good thing that those innocent questions and incidental experiences “shake [us] out of complacency” and push us to confront what’s awkward, sad, and humbling. I think it’s important to know what we have that others don’t – whether it’s a home or all the school supplies on the list this fall – so that we might share more, and take less for granted. Talking and writing about it propels that awareness.
My son also noticed a homeless man when we were in San Diego, and shouted “THERE’S A HOMELESS MAN.” It is a tough concept to explain. This past Christmas we “adopted” a family and shopped for food, gifts and necessities for them. The kids were involved and went to the house to deliver the stuff. I also had my son collect food for a food pantry in lieu of birthday gifts this past year so he could get an appreciation for others who don’t have as much as he does. Not sure if he’s old enough, at 6, to understand.
It’s tough. I believe the majority of the homeless are children and the elderly. It makes me incredibly sad, and yes, I think sometimes we are immune to it.
Great post, Rudri! And I’m STILL not getting your blog in my feed. I don’t know why!!