Poverty as a Childhood Disease

Beginnings Workshop in the May/June 2013 issue of Exchange includes four articles addressing the impact of poverty on children.  The seriousness of this issue was highlighted by a recent New York Times article "(Poverty as a Childhood Disease)" in which Perri Klass observed...

"Poverty damages children’s dispositions and blunts their brains....  Poverty in this country is now likely to define many children’s life trajectories in the harshest terms: poor academic achievement, high dropout rates, and health problems from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, substance abuse, and mental illness.

"Recently, there has been a lot of focus on the idea of toxic stress, in which a young child’s body and brain may be damaged by too much exposure to so-called stress hormones, like cortisol and norepinephrine.  When this level of stress is experienced at an early age, and without sufficient protection, it may actually reset the neurological and hormonal systems, permanently affecting children’s brains and even, we are learning, their genes.

"Toxic stress is the heavy hand of early poverty, scripting a child’s life not in the Horatio Alger scenario of determination and drive, but in the patterns of disappointment and deprivation that shape a life of limitations."

Contributed by Kirsten Haugen

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