CHILDREN: Poor kids don’t recognize labels
CHARISSA WEBBER; Puyallup
Re: “Lawmaker sees kids ‘at hope,’ not ‘at risk’” (TNT, 1-13).
The thing that’s most laughable about the whole at risk/at hope debate is this: Are the kids even aware of any labeling? Just who is using those terms with them?
When I was growing up, I don’t recall ever even hearing the term “disadvantaged” or “at risk.” If I had, I would never had guessed those words applied to me. They would have been meaningless. I did know my family was poor, and no amount of verbiage was going to change that.
Fortunately, because of our family’s low income, I qualified to get a job through the J.O.Y. program (Job Opportunities Youth). That’s a nice euphemism, but it didn’t blind me to the fact that it was a program geared to the poor.
What a sad waste of money it would be to spend it on something that is most likely never to really be noticed by the ones state Sen. Rosa Franklin wants to “help” – the children.
