The Underprivileged, Truly so

By Andrew Pate

It is, I observe, a widely held view in the USA that our underprivileged children live in the cities, in very poor families and in communities which lack the privileges most Americans enjoy, like access to good schools, well-maintained playgrounds and easily accessed Walmart stores.

More properly, it should be quickly added, “Well, that WAS the case.” but is no longer the accepted understanding to be held and worked through. about those who lack the real privileges which have substance and are consistently lived out.

Indeed, our truly underprivileged are lacking, but more so they are without consistent morals that work and have too few role models who are sexually and intellectually mature.

By contrast, those among us who consider ourselves to have been blessed as children of true privilege have much in common:  we possess similar backgrounds:  our family life was stable enough; the basic moral understanding drilled into us was the simple difference between what is right and what is wrong. Also, growing up, we had friends routinely in and out of our homes; we, like most folks, were regular church attenders and we made rotating visits to our respective grandparents on holidays.  We usually attended the public schools where we lived for most of our education, pre-school through high school, which was usually all in the same school district. We were not sent off to live elsewhere; and we did not have highly expensive gifts bestowed on us by our parents as signs of their love for us.

And there’s more:  Today's truly underprivileged not only lack the stable influences cited above, but they also have little interest in people who are different, least of all in people who speak a different language, are of a different skin color and follow a religion unlike theirs.

The truly privileged children of yesterday are the mature adults of today.  They accept responsibility.   They reach out to others and convey sympathy to those who need it when that sympathy is needed.  Most of all the mature adults of today love life and want life…for everyone, from pre-birth to after-death, and they passionately want redemption for all the bad buys.