The Kids Nobody Loves

by my son Bill

I am submitting this report in hopes of bringing the problem of throwaway children to the attention of America. Throwaway children are children who have been neglected or rejected by their families for one reason or another. With an estimated 2.4 million homeless teenagers on the streets of America, I hope that this report will help bring aid to these children.

There are many reasons for throwaway children: parents who don’t care, broken homes; physical, mental or sexual abuse. While writing the report, I found that not all children are just too difficult to live near. These children commit unnecessary crimes and turn the average teenage rebellion into a major hostility encounter. The breakdown of the nuclear family is cited as the most frequent cause of throwaway children.

In the report, I also recognize the aid that exists to help these youngsters. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Runaway Switchboard are two of the major organizations designed to help these children. I also recommend several new ways to reach these children, including classes that can teach parental skills to young children and work programs to aid those children who take care of themselves.

Researching the report was very heart-warming and touching. Realizing that there are over two-million homeless children on the streets of America was very difficult. I am thankful that there are organizations trying to help these children. I only hope that this report will begin a new movement to help our homeless children.

Abstract

Throwaway children are children who have been neglected or rejected by their parents for some reason. These throwaway children live on the streets of America. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are 2.4 million of these children. A vast number of these children come from broken homes and homes where at least one of the parents is an alcoholic. More than half of these children have been physically abused and an increasing number are reporting some form of sexual abuse.

The reason for selecting this subject is to bring the topic of throwaway children to the attention of those people who can help. If one more person reaches a caring hand out to a homeless child, this report will be worth the research.

The majority of data was comprised through personal interviews and phone conversations. Phone conversations with the National Runaway Switchboard and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are accountable for more than half of the data I collected. Discussions ranged from the source and reasons of throwaways to the different ways of reaching these children. Many people are aiding in the struggle to save these kids from pain and death. Brochures and pamphlets are available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the subject of throwaways. The remaining data was comprised through personal interviews and related printed articles. Many books are available on the subjects of runaway and throwaway children. Most of the data from these books was in the form of parental to teenager relationships. These books explained many reasons for throwaway children and supported ideas presented by the National Runaway Switchboard and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The major organization of the report was created from the common points of reference found in the set of data. The personal conversations with June Bucy (National Runaway Switchboard) and Tom Onorato (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) weighed the most during the collation of data.

Introduction

The purpose surrounding this investigation is to bring attention to the problem of throwaway children. These children have been neglected, rejected or abused by their families. They are condemned to aimless, desperate, often criminal lives, their days spent searching for things most of us take for granted—food, shelter and an affectionate relationship with a family we love.

Background: There are thousands of these children wandering the streets. Throwaways, like runaways, usually take to the streets because of problems at home, and social agencies often treat the two groups of unhappy youngsters as one. But there are important differences: While runaways often have a home to return to and a family waiting to work out problems, throwaways are not welcome back home or simply have no home to return to. They are frequently the product of fractured families unable or unwilling to provide even the minimum of care to society’s most vulnerable members.

Scope and Limitations: The problem of throwaway children has gone unrecongnized for many years. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are at least 2,400,000 throwaway children in the U.S. alone. While it is nearly impossible to help all these children, community service and federal aid programs are aiding in reducing the number of throwaway children. Family breakdown has been noted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as the key to the problem of throwaways and runaways. With a breakdown in the family unit comes more anger and frustration for those teenagers needing or wanting the role model images of parents. More than half of all throwaways come from households where only one biological parent is present. Divorce has resulted in either a single-parent household or the remarriage of one parent. The only limitation to the amount of help that can be distributed to these children will be the number of people willing to sacrifice time and effort for these children. Many senators and congressmen have been fighting to increase federal funding for the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA). Since 1977, Congress has provided funds under the act to support 273 runaway and homeless youth shelters across the nation. Through its annual budget has increased significantly over the years, in 1985 RHYA received only $23.25 million—one of the smallest appropriations of money granted to any federally-funded program. The increase in funding, approximately $15 million in 8 years, is surely a blessing to these children; however, the appropriation per child has decreased due to a significantly higher throwaway/federal-funding ratio in 1985 than in 1977 (Statistics were not available for 1987).

Analysis

Families in Trouble — Statistics on Throwaways: There is no typical throwaway, but authorities have been able to draw certain statistics about the group.

• According to the National Runaway Switchboard (NRS) the average age for boys is 17, while the average age for girls is 2-years younger at 15. (The population is evenly split between males and females.)
• Throwaways come from all ethnic groups, all fifty states, and from both lower-and middle-class families. This is according to a poll taken by the NRS.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services quotes that the majority of throwaways come from families in which only one biological parent is present. Divorce has resulted in either a single-parent household or the remarriage of one parent.
• More than half of all throwaways come from households where one or both parents are alcoholics.
• At least half report having suffered incidents of physical abuse at the hands of their parents, and an increasing number report sexual abuse. Others complain of neglect, of poor or strained communication between family members and of violent clashes over rules of behavior.

Case Study: The NRS performed a study on throwaways in New York City. Here they picked a youth, Ricky, to follow for several days. Ricky, age 16, never knew his real father, and when his mother remarried, Ricky and his stepfather argued bitterly about his choice of friends, his grooming and his grades. His stepfather began beating Ricky. Finally, the tension got so bad that Ricky’s mother, afraid her new husband would abandon her and her three younger children, ordered Ricky out of their house, warning him not to return. The NRS reports that Ricky is now living in the Port Authority Bus Terminal. A sad and lonely young man, Ricky wanders the streets of the town that has a major hand in the world economy. For Ricky, like other throwaways, salvation is around the corner in shelters setup to feed the homeless. When the bus terminals are full, Ricky finds shelter in abandon cars, under bridges, or in vacant buildings.

Reasons for Throwaways — Parental: Why does a family like Ricky’s unravel so much that children become bothersome loose ends or, worse, targets of such anger and frustration that they are frequently abused and ultimately rejected? June, executive director for the National Runaway Switchboard, had a few comments on this subject. Economic pressures (such as unemployment) and alcoholism are two of the problems that can strike a family and severely erode healthy relationships. There is also the staggerinly high number of divorces (a fact in one out of two American homes), which contributes to leaving a full quarter of our families with children under 18 haded by only one parent. Of those families, June says, 42-percent are living below the poverty line. Even without the financial pressure of being a single, the emotional cost of divorce is high. The stress involved in a single parent household is enough to devastate the relationships between parent and child. Counselors, including June, across the country site the breakdown of the nuclear family as one of the surest explanations for the problem of throwaway children. “Some parents are just inept,” June says. “They can’t handle their own problems, so they expect their kids to help. But most kids are so busy growing up that it’s a pretty rare adolescent who has the emotional energy to hold up a parent as well.” The parental role model is the key to these children. Mothers who are drug additcs and fathers who are alcoholics usually don’t make the best role models for the children in their lives.

Children: No one pretends that parents are the only ones to blame, however, when family relationships go awry, some children, June admits, “are hard to live with.” Teenagers who break the law, use drugs or befreind a rough crowd of kids can push even conscientious parents to the breaking point. And not all parents who order their children out of the house do so without regret: Some just decide that they are not getting enough cooperation from their child to make the anguish the whole family is suffering worth it. Although, occasionally a child is thrown out because of a recent conflict caused by the growing pains of independence, most often the rejection is a gradual process. The rebellious stage of teenage growth seems to take on a form of hostility in many children. This hostility is usually directed at the parents of the child. As Tom, a counselor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has described it, a throwaway “may well have been living iwth intolerable conditions over a long period of time. Conditions that were created in some form or another by that child himself.” In fact, throwaways frequently have a long history of seperations from their family that become more serious as the child gets older. The final separation, says June, “is sometimes a violent fight that is the culmination of years of hostility.”

Throwaways and the Law: Our legal system has tried to anticipate situations involving homeless youths. By law, no child should ever find himself or herself homeless; state-run institutions are designed to function as a safety net for children whose parents have shrugged off their children. In most states, children can choose to leave home at the age of 16 (in other states, at age 14 or 18), and the state cannot legally coerce them to return. A youth can, however, be arrested for running from a court-ordered placement, but it is an open secret, according to June, that social-service agencies don’t really care if older children are returned to assigned placements, because their age makes it almost impossible to them permanently with a family.

Foster Homes: Children usually end up in foster homes if their parents turn them over to their state’s child-welfare agency when they feel incapable of caring for them. Sadly, it is not uncommon for children to encounter apathy or more abuse at the hands of some foster parents. Others, for whom transience becomes a way of life, have been in scores of different foster homes and institutions by the time they reach adolescence. It is this population of children, “in the system until the caring runs out,” as June puts it, that constitutes a large portion of homeless youths on the streets. Throwaways, experts agree, often become criminals within two to six weeks of landing on the street. Because most throwaways are too young to hold jobs, laws designed to protect them operate to keep them from legal earnings. As a result, panhandling, purse-snatching, and selling drugs become sources of income; prostitution, of course, is the most obvious way to make money. According to the National Runaway Switchboard (NRS), more than half of the throwaway prostitutes are under the age of 16.

Helping the Throwaways: The most pressing concern for throwaways is shelter. As a result, coast towns are big draws for throwaways because beaches provide free shelter. Big cities also have much to make them attractive to homeless youth: subways, all-night theaters, bus terminals, railroad tunnels, and abandoned buildings and cars. When no place is available indoors, there is always the street, and stealing sleep in doorways, on park benches, under bridges or curled in alleyways is not uncommon among these youth. The National Directory of Runaway Programs lists nearly 350 shelters for runaways and throwaways across the nation, many of which try not only to feed and house thorwaways but also try to get them back into school orinto job-training programs. Efforts to find solutions are being made across the country. The value of outreach programs, in which counselors go out to find kids on the street, rather than wait for them to walk into shelters-is being recongnized. And when federal funding has fallen short, foundations, corporations, civic and religious groups, and individuals have stepped in to take up the slack. Additionally, several states, New Your, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma, have allocated money to aid throwaways and other homeless youths. But much more remains to be done.

Conclusion

I concluded from the evidence given, that there are many reasons for throwaway children. Parents who don’t care fo their children is one of the major reasons. Other reasons include divorced parents, alcoholic parents, drug addicted parents, and parents who neglect their children. These reasons can be summed up in one complete statement. Agreeing with June, the breakdown of the nuclear family is the major underlying cause of throwaway children. This study shows that not all throwaway child is the result of uncaring parents. Some throwaways have created their own destiny by purposely defying their parents. This particular group of throwaways have broken the law or in some other way made life quiet unbearable for their parents. The parents of these throwaways usually are unable to deal with the situations their child may create.

Help Is On The Way — Appropriate Role Models: The lack of proper role models for throwaways is an issue of major concern. Fathers who drink and mothers who use drugs are not role models that most children look up to. It is for this reason that I concluded that society is trying to provide needed role models for these children through foster parents. For those children who are unable to find foster parents, social workers try to find them institutions and shelter-organizations that can accommodate them. It is this kind of care that will ultimately diminish the number of existing throwaways.

Bring Back the Nuclear Family: I concluded from the Ricky’s case, that throwaways seek love and care for the streets. They live in pseudo-families (families made up of other throwaways). This gives them the sense of love and care that makes it worthwhile to continue living. They support each other in all that they may do. They are always willing to help other throwaways. In this way, the throwaways create their own nuclear family. This family simulates all the things a normal American nuclear family takes for granted: loving parents and caring siblings. Throwaways are trying to help themselves by creating these families.

Recommendations

I suggest that we restructure our social structure so that we involve children in our society to a greater extent from and early age. We should rely less on parents who are ill equipped or unwilling to raise their children. We need to place a higher value on surrogate parents and recruit good people for jobs that are now, unfortunately, not highly valued. There are many governmental agencies that are trying to help these throwaway children. The National Runaway Switchboard and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are just two of these agencies. More emphasis needs to be placed on these programs. Most people have forgotten that runaway and throwaway children exist. If more people knew about these problems, more federal funding would be available for the programs designed to help these children.

Ways Schools Can Help: The one aspect of life that all children have in common is school. I recommend several programs that can be put forth in schools to reach potential throwaway children. If a child is still in school, there is at least some hope of reaching that child. Reaching this child could save his life from becoming void of loneliness. We can involve children in society at a younger age by initiating programs that would allow children to legally work for their earnings. By setting up work programs in schools, we would not only allow children to earn money, but would also encourage children to reamin in school. This would help throwaway children to survive without a life of crime and would perpare them for a bright future. I also recommend forming parental skill classes in schools. These classes would teach parental skills at a very young age. By initiating these classes we would reach children at younger, more impressionable ages. This would allow them to more fully understand exactly what a parent is supposed to teach their children and would also allow the children attending the classes to understand why their own parents restrict them, thus, reducing some of the hostile rebellion of teenage growth. My final recommendation is that teachers be taught the skills to recognize potential throwaway children. If teachers could catch these children before any harmful damage is done, then social workers could help the family rebuild its relationship. Teachers should be on the lookout for troubled children or children who start skipping classes frequently (this is noted as a beginning sign of family trouble by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).

Summary

There are many reasons for throwaway children. Several of these reasons are alcoholic parents, drug-addicted parents, abusive parents, and parents who neglect their children. The parent is usually blamed for the throwaway child; however, there are many children who are very difficult to live with. These children may commit unnecessary crimes and purposely defy their parents wishes. This is usually too nmuch for most parents to cope with, thus, they tend to alleviate their problem by throwing the child out of the house. With the increasing number of throwaway children roaming the streets of the U.S., it is necessary to try to reach some of these children. To aid these children in their struggle for survival, many federal agencies have set up programs that provide food and shelter. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Runaway Switchboard are two of the leading organizations that help the throwaway child. In the report I have mentioned several additonal ways to reach these throwaway children. Establishing classes in schools to teach youngsters the skill of parenthood would be very beneficial in reducing the number of throwaway children. Also, instructing the teachers to recongnize potential throwaway children would be very helpful in aiding the problem of throwaway children.

Bibliography

June, Executive Director, National Runaway Switchboard, Washington, D.C. Personal interview (11/87).
DeRosis, Dr. Helen A. The Book of Hope. Canada: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1981.
Ginott, Dr. Haim. Between Parent & Teenager. New York: Avon Books, 1971.
Hamilton, Dr. Lous. Raising Positve Kids. Tennessee: Oliver-Nelson Books, 1985.
Onorato, Tom. Advisor/Counselor. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Washington, D.C. Personal Interview (11/87).
Troy, Dr. Kevin. Just In Time. New York: Howard Books, 1981.

© copyright 1998. All of the works printed here are covered under a copyright held by my son Bill. None of these works may be copied, printed, or otherwise distributed without prior written permission.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and, when he is old, he will not depart from it. — Proverbs 22:6

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