The Impact Of Poverty In The Bean Trees

As mentioned by Ruane and Cerulo in Second Thoughts, harsh realities of poverty affect children’s lives in profound ways. Children lack any power in improving their circumstances and depend on adults to gain access to basic necessities. Access to proper healthcare, education, and basic nutrition continues to be an obstacle for children. Poverty impedes children’s aptitude to learn and contributes to poor overall health and mental health. Perhaps most important, poverty becomes a cyclical nature that is difficult to overcome. Children who experience poverty when they are young tend to experience persistent poverty over the course of their entire lives. According to the Child Welfare League of America, the national poverty rate for children

“My grandparents didn’t come all the way from Germany just to see it get taken over by immigrants. Not on my watch.” (Donald Trump). The thinking of aA privileged American, one such as Donald Trump, who has the net worth of four billion dollars, wouldn’t know the challenges that immigrants experience. The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, highlights some of the many issues immigrants face when living in America. In The Bean Trees, the character Taylor decides to makes a life changing decision to leave her hometown for good. However, she had acquired a child, whom she names Turtle, and she is suddenly faced with the hardness of a mother in a land filled with social injustices that is constantly tripping her. She is able to overcome the obstacles

In the novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith Francie is shaped the individual struggles she faces through life. Throughout the novel Francie is experienced to different life lessons. Poverty restrains Francie and her family with what they’re able to do. Having one parent figure not only drags Francies family into a deeper poverty, but it also brings emotional distress into the household. The environment Francie lives in exposes her to different religions, ideas, and hardships. Franice is shaped by poverty, one parent figure, and her environment.

In The Bean Trees, Taylor is consistently faced with a lack of choice. She decides to leave home, but on her way she stops at a bar and a woman puts a child in her car and leaves before Taylor can stop her. When she gets to a motel “[she] pulled off the pants and the diapers there were more bruises. Bruises and worse.” (31) The child abandoned had been sexually molested, making raising her a much harder burden since the child had experienced “a kind of misery [Taylor] could not imagine.” (31) Yet although the child, who Taylor names Turtle, is “just somebody [she] got stuck with” (70), she cares for her and she becomes like her own child. However, finding work and raising a child isn’t easy and “[she] was starting to go a little bit crazy. This is how it is when all the money you have can fit in one pocket, and you have no job, and no prospects.” (66) Taylor also realizes “that [her] whole life had been running along on dumb luck and [she] hadn’t even noticed.” She hadn’t been making any choices, just running with whatever life threw her way. Taylor finally realizes her luck has run out when she learns “[i]f a child has no legal guardian she becomes a ward of the state.” Turtle was not legally adopted by Taylor and therefore she could be taken away. Taylor now has the choice to either fight for Turtle or give up, but Taylor is convinced she doesn’t have a choice at all. Her friend Lou Ann calls her out on this, claiming “there’s got to be some way around them taking her, and

differences in her character "I was liking Lou Ann a great deal these days. In

Write a composition based on the novel you have studied discussing the basis for and impact of individual choices. What idea does the author develop regarding choices?

In the first chapter of The Bean Trees, the main character Taylor Greer (a.k.a Missy or Marietta) is introduced and begins her adventure. Taylor is a gallant, cordial, and courageous young woman that was raised in an agrarian sector of Kentucky. She decided to leave her hometown in a spontaneous manner, however, this didn’t go as well as she would’ve liked. During her move, she stopped in Oklahoma and ended up with a baby that was given to her by a stranger. The only thing she has in common with this baby is having Cherokee blood in their veins.

The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a story about characters coming of age. In life, people try to plan out their futures. But no one can really “tell the future” because he or she will grow and achieve self-actualization. Many characters in The Bean Trees go through this transition and become the complete opposite of what they were in the past. Whether the characters reach adulthood by leaving their home state, or their husband leaving them, they change for the better. Two characters that succeed this idea are Taylor and Lou Ann, who become the best of friends.

The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, tells the story of how life is all about the journey, and not always the destination. The book revolves around one main character, Taylor Greer. Her life has not always been easy, and one day she decides to start over and leave. The reader follows her journey, and eventually meets other characters like Lou Ann Ruiz and Esperanza. These three women all want a clean slate to start a new life. When their journeys come together, a community of women forms that is full of support and love. Kingsolver tells the story of three women, and how their lives drastically change. Each journey is represented by their own symbol; something that explains these journeys with just one object. In The Bean Trees, three main

When analyzing children growing up in poverty a lot of factors come into play such as their physical, psychological and emotional development. To grow up in poverty can have long term effect on a child. What should be emphasized in analyzing the effects of poverty on children is how it has caused many children around the world to suffer from physical disorders, malnutrition, and even diminishes their capacities to function in society. Poverty has played a major role in the functioning of families and the level of social and emotional competency that children are able to reach. Children in poverty stricken families are exposed to greater and emotional risks and stress level factors. They are even capable of understanding and dealing with

As the American population grows, more and more children are born into poverty. Even in the world’s wealthiest nation, you will find 45.3 million people struggling to put food on the table. These are families of poverty - families with children who do not have the appropriate basic resources to properly raise their children. The official U.S. government poverty threshold for a family of four is currently set at $23,021. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in the United States alone, the percentage of children living in families below the poverty level increased from 15.6 percent in 2001 to 21.4 percent in 2011, and has continued to increase. Now, there are 16.1 million stunted in the rut of poverty. That is 16.1 million children are unable to properly grow and develop into a healthy member of society because of unsatisfying environmental factors. There is little information about the may mental health implications of spending early years in poverty. There are many consequences of growing up in poverty. Depression, communication issues, and academic issues are just the tip of the iceberg. My research will be focusing on how living life in poverty has an immense impact on children’s social interaction skills.

Being predisposed to poverty may create a contradiction between what children should know and what a child is exposed to across a variety of different environments when children are growing up.

Poverty can lead to serious effects. Children who grow up in poverty are likely to have frequent health problems than the children who grow in better financial circumstances. For example, infants who are born into poverty have a low birth weight, and they grow up with mental or physical disabilities. Not only are they sick, but they are most likely to die before their first birthday. Children who are raised in poverty might miss school often because of their illnesses, and they have a much higher accident rate than the other children. Nearly a billion of the world’s population can’t read nor write. Poor families experience stress much more than a normal family does. They are more likely to be exposed to negative events such as illness, job loss, death of a family member, and depression. Homelessness is another effect of poverty. Homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition, protection and they experience more health problems. Around 1.4 million children die each year from lack of access to safe and clean water and proper nutrition. Homeless women experience a high rate of low birth weight infants as well as miscarriages. Families who do not have homes receive much more stress than other families. They also have disruption in school, work, friendships, and family relationships. There are other effects of poverty such as drug abuse and addiction, child and woman abuse, debts pressure, and increase in crimes.

Socio-economic factors are widely acknowledged as important determinants of poverty. If an individual experiences adverse living conditions in childhood, majority of them will have inadequate income and result in low socio-economic status as adults (Carroll et al, 2011). Children born in poor households have difficulty in accessing the basic needs (e.g. food, clothing, and good living environment) and this can affect their learning ability at school, unable to focus. In other words, they have a higher chance of dropping out of school or lower education attainment, unable to provide appropriate qualifications when they move onto adulthood, seeking for job opportunities. These children are finding day-to-day life tough, they are living in cold, damp houses, do not have warm or rain-proof clothing, their shoes are worn, and many days they go hungry (Children's Commissioner, 2012). Often this has taken place over a long period of time, impacting on their development, behaviour and physical health furthermore limiting their potential as they grow into adults.

Poverty is a considerable social problem; with a significant impact on those who suffer within. Growing up in poverty “reduces a child’s chance of growing up to be a healthy, well-adjusted, and contributing adult in our society” (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 59). Poverty is families having to struggle to afford necessities. Poverty does not know where your next meal is coming from or having to choose between paying rent and seeing a health care provider. The impact of poverty affects one’s ability through physical, social, emotional, and educational health. Even though individual overcome poverty it still extends across cultural, racial, ethnic, and geographical borders. Children represent the largest group of poverty in the United States. “Growing up in poverty places a child at a profound disadvantage and substantially lowers the chances that the child will mature into a well-adjusted, productive, and contributing