Student reacts to the Poor Kids documentary from FRONTLINE

One of our assignments in the first few weeks of class was to watch an online documentary. The video was a Frontline documentary called, “Poor Kids”. The documentary has changed my outlook forever on how children are especially affected by poverty. This video was the second part of a documentary that follows children in poverty from a young age to young adulthood. The documentary was broken in two halves. The first half gives a recap from the 2012 documentary of when of Brittany, Kaylie, and Johnny were small children facing the struggles of poverty in America. The second half updates the audience on where the families of these three poor kids are in 2017. The ability to watch Brittany, Kaylie, and Johnny grow into young adults and to hear their stories of struggle, was fascinating to me. All of these families were the victims of unfortunate circumstance that lead them down the path of poverty.

Brittany is a young girl from Illinois whose family struggled to make ends meet. Her parents had another baby on the way in the first film and were worried about how they were going to support another child. Brittany was aware of the fact her family was poor and that her father had just lost his job. Necessities such as a hot water in the winter was not available to Brittany’s family. The hot water heater was shut off due to failure to pay the bill on time. Examples like this are so common for families living in poverty, they often go without one necessity to keep something else running. Brittany seemed to be aware at a very young age of the financial struggles her family faced. She knew that they had to move from their old house because her father lost his job. She knew that most of her belongings in storage were thrown away due to failure to pay the bill. She knew that the cable and internet would be next to shut off. A conversation between Brittany and the camera man stood out to me. She tells him, “you have money now but, in a few months, you could be poor, you never know”. It amazed me how this little girl’s comment put so much in perspective for me. What we have today is not promised tomorrow. Most of what Brittany says in the video is negative and its probably because she is constantly surrounded by a cloud of negativity looming over her every day. It is not shocking that as Brittany becomes a young adult, she battles depression and anxiety. When the film picks back up, Brittany is now fifteen-years-old. She says that middle school was a rough time for her because she got picked on for being poor. She was expelled and held back, she states that was the lowest point. Her highest point was completing middle school, something she was very proud of herself for. Graduating from middle-school is an accomplishment that many take for granted. Instead of seeing it as an accomplishment, other students see it as just the next phase in life. Brittany’s stress has remained a constant battle in her life because of poverty.

Kaylie Hegwood lives in Stockton, Iowa and in 2012 she was ten-years-old living with her mother and brother. She starts her segment of the video by complaining how hungry she is and how this hunger affects her throughout the day. Kaylie lives in poor town that has been run down with little job opportunities and little resources. Kaylie and her friends go “canning” to make money. Five cents for non-squished cans and two cents for squished cans. Her family moved to a motel room where their sink was filled with ice and used as a refrigerator. The one bed room was home to Kaylie, her brother Jordan, and their mother, Barbara. Fast-forward to 2017 and Kaylie’s family is still struggling. She is almost sixteen-years-old and has moved around a lot in the past several years. Her family has lived at their current house for two years with the help of their Grandmother who also provided Barbara with a car and a phone for Kaylie. Her Grandmother has battled cancer along with her mother who is currently battling ovarian cancer. Kaylie admits that she is not sad about things that happen to her and her family any longer, she has gotten so used to it. This realization is hard to swallow for a girl that thinks she only has a 50/50 shot of making something of herself in the future.

The documentary shows a boy named Johnny and his family. In 2012 Johnny was thirteen-years-old with high hopes of becoming a football star. His family went from living in a 3-bedroom house to living in the Salvation Army Shelter after his father, who repaired houses, couldn’t find work while in the recession. Johnny is a bright young boy and blew me away with his mature thoughts. He says that he is a realist and knows that if he doesn’t make good grades, he won’t go to college and have a career to provide for himself and future family. He also wants to play professional football and knows that playing his favorite sport will be over in four years if he doesn’t try hard to achieve his goals. Johnny has both optimistic and realistic plans for his life and its admirable. His mother and father try to work hard but can barely provide for Johnny and his siblings.  As the years go on however, Johnny does find himself hanging out with the wrong crowd and eventually ending up in jail. He chooses to move in with his Grandmother in Chicago and is now trying to get back into playing football in college. The second half of the documentary focuses on his sister, Jasmine and his mother and father who are currently living in a hotel until her mom and dad can find somewhere to live. Jasmine is wise and grateful for the family she has. I couldn’t help but shed a few tears at her statement, “I wouldn’t choose this life but it’s kind of showing me what can happen. I will take this experience and use it to make myself a better person by learning from it and knowing what not to do. My hope for the future would be to have a house with my own room and my own space but you can’t really have everything you want.” This tore my heart that the simple pleasure of having your own room was something I took for granted growing up.

I grew up in a single mother household. We struggled and sometimes did not have enough to eat, or my siblings and I had to wear clothing that was too small for us. My mother held a steady job and she kept the same roof over our heads for 18 years. My experiences are nothing compared to these three children and the overwhelming number of poverty-stricken families in America. I struggle to fathom the number of kids that I went to school with that were living a life of poverty. From elementary school through high school I don’t think I ever took the time and noticed my fellow students who may be struggling at home. Kids I rode the bus with, kids I was partnered with in a group, kids that I sat by in the auditorium or lunch table, could have been homeless. I believe that this documentary and more like it should be shown in middle schools around the United States. This will allow other students to relate more to other students and to show compassion and understanding to those who have different home lives.