I can definitely look at the information (the statistics) on Mississippi and admit that the state is inexcusably below the expectations of the U.S.A., but I guess I still have a hard time buying that it is worthy of comparison to a third-world country. Alas, the number, I suppose, do not lie.
I have mentioned several times that I am a born and bread Mississipian—my picture of my home state is biased by the life I have enjoyed here… but then, that’s in Hattiesburg, MS and then Oxford, MS where I still reside. Oxford (as Chris Curran’s girlfriend said) gives one an unrealistic view of Mississippi. While I work in Holly Springs, I enjoy my life in Oxford… and Holly Springs is NOT the Delta in terms of “third-world” country comparisons. So, I suppose I only partially encounter some of these issues daily.
However, there are many things that I do see: teen pregnancy is no big deal. It is almost expected. I teach eighth grade (for anyone who may be tuning in for the first time) and I had one male student write in a paper that he planned to be a father by the time he was eighteen. I just stared at him in disbelief as though he was pulling my leg… he was serious, and I just can’t understand how that is appealing. At twenty-two, I have ideas of ONE DAY potentially having a family, but it is in such a distant place that I have no desire to put an age on it… eighth grade?...boy? This is not even a little girl playing house—it is a child who is so used this way of life (zero family unit for most) that this is his expectation for his life.
Perhaps life expectations—and not life-span expectancy—is the greatest similarity. It is an expectance for certain things, and if there are goals, they are unrealistic.
I am digressing at this point, so I will take this expectations point into the next blog.
a another one of you panhandlers,you do know that missisipi already gets more federal money per person then any other state,...go steal from someone else you nasty little socailist....
Posted by: ken | 10/23/2009 at 11:23 AM