My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving woman, a mother in pain,
giving birth to the future, where my babies
have the same chance to thrive as anyone.My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my husband leave –
he chose to, and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is though, there isn’t a job base
for all fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my children pay the price.My name is not “Problem and Case to Be Managed.”
I am a capable human being and citizen, not a client.
The social service system can never replace the
compassion and concern of loving grandparents,
aunts, uncles, fathers, cousins, community –
all the bonded people who need to be
but are not present to bring children forward to their potential.My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”
If the unwaged work of parenting,
homemaking and community building were factored
into the Gross National Product,
My work would have untold value. And why is it that mothers whose
Husbands support them to stay home and raise children
Are glorified – and why don’t they get called lazy and dependent?
This is a beginning of a poem by Julia K. Dinsmore. Her book took me back to my short experience in Detroit. The injustice, the lie called the American Dream, the difference between neighborhoods, the blatant racism, the systematic violence, the corrupt system, and the working poor stuck in a cycle of poverty, all is there in Mrs Dinsmore’s poetic memoirs or at least I sense it there.
Thoughts after reading the book My Name is Child of God … Not “Those People.”