Gonna Be like My Daddy
Essay by Paul • May 10, 2012 • Essay • 547 Words (3 Pages) • 1,591 Views
Who do you want to be like when you grow up Devon? My daddy, he says, and what does your daddy do? He's in jail. I've asked questions of children like these many times and every time the answer churns my stomach, not because of a terrible crime being committed or anything but because these children are looking and needing someone to look up, someone to show them the way and many of them only have their parents to look up to or a neighborhood thug o relative that knows no better themselves or have lost themselves before even finding themselves or realizing who they are to be. Parenting is a serious undertaking in this and any world to be imagined but the reality of being a parent reflects on the person you are early on but in later years the world sets in and it becomes the parent. No matter how you guide and try and teach they have their own way of doing things but parenting keeps on forever no matter how they turn out. But when the parenting stops due to incarceration especially at early ages, it creates serious issues for those children. These children are sentenced along with their parents. The parent(s) get ten years the child (ren) gets the same time. And the effects of it last well past when the actual sentence is over. If the parents are staying together during the incarceration the child has to visit that parent at their new home on Saturday mornings or whenever visiting time and days are.
According to the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents...
* The number of minor children in the U.S. who have experienced parental incarceration is unknown, but estimated by the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents to be at least 10 million.
* About three quarters of all female prisoners and two thirds of all male prisoners are parents with an average of 2.4 and 2.0 children each, respectively.
* On any given day in the U.S., there are over 2 million minor children with an incarcerated parent.
* A significant but unknown proportion of the children of incarcerated mothers also have an incarcerated father. According to the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents...
* The number of minor children in the U.S. who have experienced parental incarceration is unknown, but estimated by the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents to be at least 10 million.
* About three quarters of all female prisoners and two thirds of all male prisoners are parents with an average of 2.4 and 2.0 children each, respectively.
* On any given day in the U.S., there are over 2 million minor children with an incarcerated parent.
* A significant but unknown proportion of the children of incarcerated mothers also have an incarcerated father. http://extension.missouri.edu/fcrp/lifeevaluation/magnitude.htm
With numbers like these do we need to wonder why our children are lost, why they
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