When I was in fifth grade my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I did not fully understand what this meant until my mom went into surgery. My aunt came and spent a few days with us while my mom was in the hospital. When my mom returned home everything seem to be different. She had a section of her hair shaved and a lot of stitches and she was really sick. We had a lot of casserole dinners friends and families made us and my mom spent most of the day in her bedroom. At school I had a hard time focusing and ask to go to the nurses office almost everyday. My teacher was always very supportive I would come in some days crying because my mom had a rough night. The school nurse was also very supportive I was always saying I was sick and needed to go home but instead would let me lay down in her office until I was ready to go back to class. Our family was always around to help with my brother and I while my dad had to work. It was a difficult time for me because I never fully understood until I was older, everything around me seem to be moving fast and I just knew that my mom was very sick and it made me sad to see her that way.
I decided to look at Brazil and see what are some stressors for young children. To my surprise I found that half a million of Brazilian children work as prostitute starting as young as ten years old (Kuruvilla, 2014). Some of the reasons are that most of the children are homeless,hungry, or addicted to drugs (Kuruvilla, 2014). Other reasons are the families push their children to become "sex workers" because they can make more in a week than the family can make in a month (Kuruvilla, 2014). There are many non-profit organization working to help eliminate this issue and teaming up with local police to help. These findings were very hard to hear sometimes I feel as a privilege American we forget how easy we have it sometimes. At the Sam time I know the level of child poverty is rising in the U.S. and hope that we can reverse this before more thane half a million of our children turn to prostitution to support their families.
Resources
Kuruvilla, C. (2014, June 18). Brazil battling uptick in child prostitution during World Cup 2014. New York Daily News. Retrieved from
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/brazil-child-prostitution-problem-article-1.1835059
I did not know how that children in Brazil got into prostitution as young as 10 years old. My daughter is 8 and my son is 9, and the thought of either of them feeling the need to sell their bodies just to get eat is sickening. What, if anything, can be done to help these poor children?
ReplyDeleteAlyssa,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story. It is very sad to have your mother sick and you feel like you can't do much to help. It can take a toll on a young child. Also, I didn't know that Brazil was having a child prostitution problem. Poor children, then don't know any better and I am sure the parents are desperate for money. They are putting the children in harm's way. I hope that that problem will be resolved as soon as possible.
It must be difficult for a young child to comprehend the difficulty of a sick parent. I wonder how you were able to process your emotions in order to cope with the situation.
ReplyDeleteHi Alysse,
ReplyDeleteI know your mom illness was a time for you and your family. Thank you for sharing your story because I was in a similar situation with my grandmother and it was very stressful in every way. Our children today are faced with so much and every story seems to get worst. We live in a world with cruel people and those that have been taught to think this is the way of survival.
Tonya B.