Handing Down Poverty, Mother To Daughter
Religion & Liberty Online

Handing Down Poverty, Mother To Daughter

The New York Times unwittingly highlights many of the points from the Acton Commentary, Maria Shriver’s Big, Big Government Rescue Plan For Women. In a piece entitled “Sarah’s Uncertain Path,” the Times takes a  look at poverty in America, focusing on a pregnant 15 year old girl.

Sarah’s family certainly has a rough go of it. And the Times would lead us to believe, just as the aforementioned Government Rescue Plan, that Sarah’s family and those like them are victims:

There is a myth in America: if you have a strong moral compass, work hard and make good choices, you will have equal opportunity. But after two years of listening to and documenting low-income families in rural America…we have witnessed a starkly unequal playing field.


Yet we see a family with an absent father, a mother with little education who must be away from her seven children for long stretches while she works, and a 15 year old girl who now faces repeating the cycle of lack of education, raising a child at a young age, and dependence of government programs to make ends meet as the norm. How can this possibly be an example of a strong moral compass and good choices? Rather, it seems as if this family is adrift with no steering mechanism and no way to discern a good choice from a devastating one.

Read “Sarah’s Uncertain Path” at The New York Times.

Elise Hilton

Communications Specialist at Acton Institute. M.A. in World Religions.