Nagivating a Frozen River

I just watched the film Frozen River with Melissa Leo in her academy award nominated role. Her role portrayed with poignancy the dilemma facing many families in America today--poverty and the ethics connected with being able to provide for one's family. Ray, Leo's character, is the mother of two boys and living with a runaway husband, who takes with him the little money they had saved for a double-wide mobile home. The home represents her dream to have a three bedroom place of her home. Unfortunately, she makes a series of bad decisions relating to illegal immigration in order to get money for the final balloon payment. As a professional person, I would like to say that I have never needed to consider what I might do in such an instance. I would like to say that is true, but it is not.

Since my mother was a single working mom, I had seen her struggle through the years financially. Many times as a child I got up in the morning to see the tips on the kitchen table--rarely a dollar among them--couched in a sea of small change: quarters, dimes, nickles, and even pennies. These tips were basically our source of daily income. To my knowledge, my mother was always honest in her life with the use of her money. I do remember, however, that she did take gifts from her boyfriends through the years--groceries, Christmas presents for my sister and me, dancing lessons for a short time for me, and so on.

My husband and I chose to work in non-profit institutions for the majority of our working careers, and we knew that making ends meet would sometimes be a challenge. One Christmas when we were the most cash poor, I remember driving around in Fayetteville two days before the holiday and considering pawning my wedding set in order to provide gifts for the children. I eventually wrote a hot check for what I wanted to buy in a small shopping center. Since the check was for over $100, I figured I would be turned down once a call was made to the bank. It happened though that the clerk was one of my former students who simply put the check into the drawer without that call. I guess he at least saw me as a person who would never violate his trust. I knew that my husband's check would be in the bank the day after the holiday, and it would be covered.

For mothers and dads in the U. S. today, it is a particularly difficult time since the "greatest recession since the Depression" continues to plague our economy. Blue collar and white collar crime rates are increasing on a daily basis. We do not have any assurance from the government that the recession will end soon. I pray daily for these mothers and fathers who need jobs and ways to support their children. They need somehow to be able to nagivate the frozen economic river engulfing them.