Parents With the Least Must Do the Most
But That’s Their Super Power!
In the four decades I’ve worked with families experiencing homelessness, I’ve never met a slacker mom. Instead, I’ve been awed by what they manage to do despite the challenges they face.
Speaking of faces, a super-mom I know, MelissaN, has been battling excruciating dental pain for a couple of weeks. In addition to trying in vain to find relief for her agonizing pain, which in Florida seems to be impossible unless you have money (which she doesn’t), she’s fighting a mountainous bureaucratic battle to keep her son in school long enough for him to graduate (a long story for another day). How she can concentrate on anything is beyond me!
Meet the Three Melissas Force!
I’m honored to introduce the Three Melissas who will occupy our Substack space. The threesome will be sharing their wisdom in a book that’s in the works: The Three Melissas Practical Guide to Surviving Family Homelessness (Making Bad a Little Better). They also want to reach out in other ways — a podcast, blog, and who knows?! — which will be highlighted here.
If you’re wondering about the need for a book like that, trust us, the need is humongous! Family homelessness gets the short end of the media stick, or schtick. Our federal government bungles the job of quantifying the scope of family homelessness, minimizing the issue as not to have to spend money on solutions.
Available resources certainly don’t meet the needs of literally millions of kids and parents without a place to live. To no surprise, homelessness has a brutal racial aspect to it, as attorney Fran Quigley points out. Congress has a few pieces of helpful legislation they may consider, but don’t hold your breath.
Family Homelessness 101
When you think about it, what does any parent know about stumbling into homelessness with their kids? For a good sense of what “the average” family encounters in rural communities, this article about Colorado families gives an accurate depiction. My HEAR US videos offer even more. Imagine yourself in those circumstances. What would you, without resources, know about what to do beyond day-to-day survival?
Some astute researchers used their direct hands-on experiences to conger a different way to look at families struggling with the bleak hand they’ve been dealt. They recognized that parenting quality is of utmost importance for the development of young children experiencing homelessness. This report flips the way the system looks at families, recognizing that
“Parents are experts about their children, and families’ perspectives on their own experiences accessing social-emotional health services should be placed at the forefront of service planning and policy making.”
Build on parents’ strengths. What a welcome change!
My new home state of North Carolina is fortunate to have discerning leaders in the field of early childhood, focusing on the 32,000+ little ones without homes here in NC. Their determined group, Yay Babies!, compiled an action plan to guide the state in efforts to give these little kids half a chance to come out of these hardships with a chance to be functioning adults.
Mama Kai, one of the parents who worked on the NC plan put out a challenge,
“Taking progressive action to fund and implement this plan, we can create a state where every child is given the opportunity to tap into the genius they were born with. We will see all children develop into the brilliant, engaging citizens the state is desperately in need of.”
Our Three Melissas’ guide will help parents avoid the mistakes that make them more homeless, prolong their homelessness, or cause unnecessary and additional suffering. These three women have scads of experience surviving various forms of homelessness (shelters, cars, doubled up, motels, and worse). They were willing to look back at those painful memories, dredge up the things they wish they knew then, and share their cogent concepts to save others learning-the-hard-way lessons.
My co-author, Diana Bowman, with decades of experience leading a national technical assistance program (National Center for Homeless Education), jumped at the opportunity to work on this book with me. She’s grasped the importance of what these three courageous women have to offer. We’re the instrument, they’re the force. Unleashing their super power will, as the subtitle of the book proclaims, “make bad a little better.” If you’re a family without a place to live, a little better is sadly a major improvement.
We need to do better by the millions of kids and parents in our country who have so much to offer. They’re becoming the majority.
