a fruit cup for dinner

With the electricity shut off, Nariah, 3, ate a fruit cup for dinner last week in Kansas City, Mo. Her mother, Nicole, 22, may soon have to pass a drug test to maintain state aid to her family.

(NYTimes, 10/11/2011)

This photo nearly brought me to tears today.  There is a girl in Missouri eating a fruit cup for dinner.  Her mother won't read her a pigeon book before bed because she doesn't have electricity.  She will probably not eat breakfast at home.  Does she go to daycare?  Pre-school?  Will she get there in time for school-provided breakfast?  How will she learn with no fuel for her brain?

There are children in this country having only a fruit cup for dinner.  Small pieces of cut up fruit in a sugary syrup.

I know that there is poverty.  I am not naive, I am not blind.  Maybe it is because I am now a mother that the image of this little girl, even right at this moment, makes me cry.  How can she succeed?  If she is hungry, she can't learn, she won't do well in school, she might make bad choices.  Will she finish school? Get a job?  Her mother is 22 and has 3 children.  We say that we care about children and family in this country.  Do we?  We care about fetuses, then we cut welfare, cut public education funding, cut family planning programs and then more children are born to eat fruitcups for dinner by candlelight.  Do we not elevate parenthood to a level that is revered and sacred?  It is not ok to have kids as a kid.  What is going on?

I am a bit surprised at my distress over this photo.  What can we do?  

I obviously don't have a solution, I was just so moved by the photo that I had to share it.  More than most days, I am tonight so thankful for my family, how fortunate we are to eat great food on a daily basis and raise our child in a beautiful neighborhood with so many opportunities for education and achievement.  And now I wish she wasn't asleep because I just want to squeeze her and kiss her little face.