Choosing between bad choices

From the New Jersey Poverty and Economic Reporting Project blog:

This story from The Times of Trenton today is not about parenting, though that is the frame in which it is being reported. The story is about the difficult and dangerous decisions poor parents are forced to make everyday and the consequences they often face.

At issue is whether a mother’s decision to move with her two children into a storage locker amounts to neglect, or whether it was a somewhat logical if misguided response to her situation. I would argue that, while the woman made a bad decision, we as a society helped to create the conditions within which she was forced to choose from a list of bad options — storage locker, the streets or homeless shelter.

For the full post, read here.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet