irrelevant...

I read this and look back on my life and though it was very bad, we at no point, ever, ate rats. Where I come from its common to eat rabbit or deer during hunting season but rat? I suppose it is ok in some parts of the world but just the idea that a child is pushed to this extreme is very aggravating. I agree though, the system is broken. I have seen it firsthand being my parents never really acted like parents. When it came to the raising part they didn’t do a good job. We had food stamps growing up, but even at a young age I was forced into giving up birthday and christmas money from family members ‘to put food on the table’ and constantly told of how we didn’t have the money to pay bills. When I was older I found out it was because my parents were both drug addicts and the food on the table was really just a way to guilt me into giving them my money so they could buy more drugs (Or actually pay bills because they already spent the money on drugs.)

They didn’t pay bills often though and they were always behind. Couple that with a very abusive father. Growing up, the worst part about it was we were homeschooled for years, no one to turn to for help. My parents, when they did get food spent most of the money on snacks, soda and what not. My mother became very lazy and often it was fend for yourself food time and if my dad ever saw any of us eating it was all out war. “Did you ask to eat? Who told you you could eat anything? Your to fat you don’t need food. Go buy your own food if your so hungry. Etc..” ( I was 13) She did make suppers because my father would rage if he didn’t have food ready when he came home from his job. But I always remember the daily “we need help, we are soo broke, I don’t know we will make it this week” lectures.

Turns out it didn’t matter there was no one to turn to, they were reported to child services but nothing was done. When I was allowed to go to school the councilors knew how bad it was, they did nothing even though I had asked. I was kicked out often from 14 till permanently at 18, and I had no real world knowledge. Trying to get food stamps and a job just to survive and in the county I lived in I got nothing but a cold shoulder. It was so frusterating and I didn't understand how I couldn't get any help. Finally, I ended up working at a local meat factory, where they hired immigrants from Somalia as well and I was able to get on my feet a little. Then come to find out the somalians got paid half of what us US citizens did and the government paid for the other part of their paychecks somehow. They got full food stamps and most had brand new cars or they bragged about saving all the money up so they could go back to their country and live wealthy. After everything I had gone through, when I really needed help and I couldn’t get it... yet they did and they really did not need it…. Not saying it was just somalians that abused the system, but it is one case in my point.

Yea the system has some major flaws. I think case workers and social workers need to evaluate and investigate how people actually live who are recieveing government assistance. They should watch what people by with food stamps, you can’t be that hard up if all you’re buying is soda pop and sweets and you have a brand new car sitting out front. It also really does come down to parenting, and I get the system is overcrowded with foster children as is and people deserve their privacy, but that should be no reason to leave a child in that type of situation. And if your so bad off you need to go to the government for help, they should know why they are helping you and what is going on with your finances.

Weed out all the abuse, save possibly millions in tax dollars and get help to those who really do absolutely need it. Save children from being pushed to those extremes. Things need to be fixed.

humm...i don't know about this report..I have a "friend" that has a link card. They are a family of 5 and get 800 bucks a month on that card. That's a lot of groceries! We are a family of 4 and spend about 600 bucks a month..we don't buy junk and try to purchase whole foods...so what exactly are these people buying that they still don't have enough on their cards at the end of the month to feed their kids?

I think a lot of people need to be educated in budgeting their money and personal responsibility!

how easy would it be to farm enough food for the whole population??

or better yet, teach ALL citizens how to properly grow their own foods, and what's healthy etc...

the way the whole country is designed, it seems obvious they just want to drole out everyone's lives until we die and make room for the next set of idiots who can't be self-sufficient, or have enough backbone to tell the govt to screw off when it needs to.

God help us all - while they bale the Banks out 48% of Americans are on food stamps and people resort to saying it's a good Country because you can get food stamps. Yes, thank God you can get food stamps as many third world Countries don't have any safety net at all and sift through rubbish heaps to scrape a living. Or their children are forced into Prostitution to feed the family.

Similar stories are coming out of Greece too and it won't be long before others in Europe fall to the same fate.

The gap between the Western World and the Third World is closing fast while Wars rage across the Planet and American Children end up eating Rats - No matter what the cause is - no matter who is at fault here and reading some of your posts it sounds like the so called Safety Net has some really big holes in it and nobody is bothering to mend those holes.

But you know what I find more frightening and horrifying than the child eating the rat is how divided everyone is - Ordinary people who come to a site like this - always trying to get to the bottom of the many issues confronted here to find out what is behind it - can't see the obvious.

As already pointed out by another member - while we're fighting with each other and blaming each other - our eyes and ears are focused on each other and not on those who are inflicting this upon us all - IN EVERY COUNTRY - so nobody is there to stop the child eating rat or the child forced into prostitution or the child in some forgotten land who picks seeds from the ground because he/she is an orphan or the child drinking dirty water and I could go on and on - I'm sure you could all add to the list - and this has happened throughout the world for centuries;

But now because reality is hitting the Western World - hitting the middle classes who once walked past the poor in disgust only to find themselves threatened with the same fate now. Now we have a slight and I mean slight understanding of what it means to be poor.

Unfortunately we have a way to go yet before true abject poverty rears it's ugly head - you think you know hunger do you - no none of you do - even the child eating the rat. When you've gone a week without food and the next week you know will bring no relief and you resort to stealing just to stop yourself from fainting - then you know hunger.

Perhaps then people of different nations will come together as the ordinary people they are. Perhaps then our basic needs will be seen as equal no matter what religion, culture, colour and stop fighting with each other.
And don't give me the # about - it's our Governments that send us to fight. Don't give me all that proud Patriot spouting - every Country can make the same claims. IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT OUT THERE IN THE TRENCHES It's YOU.

Please for the sake of all of us - come together and FIND A WAY!

I'm too old now - but many of you are intelligent and astute - come together and listen to each other - God gave us two ears and only one mouth for good reason.

I disagree with the poster that implied there was no reason for children to go hungry in the US.

I know a lot of poor children and no, the resources are NOT always there.
Yes, there are food stamps but they only go so far- food has been going up but there's no raise in food stamps- and when you don't have access to cooking facilities, and you have to buy ready to eat, they go quick.

I will tell you about a set I know.The family is all broken up, I can't figure it out, but there's a mom and dad who are divorced and remarried- each to several different people- each marriage producing 1 or 2 kids. So the kids - there's a lot of them thrown in the mix. In either household, about 4 underage kids. 2 teens, 2 growing kids. Then older teens, 18, in each household- who can't find work and no money for college, so still living at home.

Ok, so the dad- he was making 50k or so a year and lost his job. They fired him on some technicality rather than lay him off, so no unemployment though he'd worked there 12 years or so, making about 50k per year. He's a mechanic.

They used all their savings just paying for the house and living- tight. No tv, internet, phone. Food stamps gave them 400.xx a month to feed 6 people. 3 adults, 2 teens- 18, 13,12 year old, and a baby.

After over a year, the mom and dad found work- as janitors making 1k a month to clean this place up on 2nd shift. That's for both of them, and it is contract work, which means taxes will cut out of that at the end of the year. The 18 year old got a part time job at a burger joint but can't drive b/c no car and can't afford insurance.

The girl, 12, tells me that food stamps just don't go far enough. She tells me that no one ever gets more than one serving and they run out at the end of the month. It is better now of course that they have the 1400 or so coming in, but the mortgage and bills take that.

This family is struggling and working. The school lunches leave a growing teen very hungry.

My family has taken to watching the kids off the buss and feeding them after school and often they stay until 10pm or so.

Recently, they started bringing other kids with them. Now, my family is not rich, we are making less than 18k now ourselves, but we used to make more and I stockpiled then and we have 2 greenhouses- and that's helped- but I cook from scratch and garden and have chickens and really- that's a form of food wealth that is very important to us.

These kids will stuff their pockets full of food to take home.

Now, I don't much care for their parents- they aren't really my kind of people- but they aren't lazy.

-----------------------------
I went to a flea market this morning and a young woman was there with her husband selling all his old video games and nice clothes. I had heard her tell him back behind the van to bargain with people b/c they need the money. She had a 13 day old baby there. They were barely kids themselves.

I bought some clothes from them that won't even fit. I'll cut them up and use them for wicks in my self watering planters. Said a prayer that baby doesn't catch a cold around all those folks in that cold weather.

I don't believe in blaming people all the time or yelling lazy, no good.

I can find - if I look- blame with everyone, myself included. Sometimes I am lazy, sometimes I've made horrid decisions. I'm not even Christian but when Christ said let he among you without sin cast the first rock, he was saying something major there, wise words that should be listened to but that don't seem to be anymore.

Rat doesnt taste that much different than "tree rat" aka squirrel, depending on what its been eating. And Id wager its WAY more nutritious than say a school lunch chicken nugget. What say you to the families that get fresh roadkill deer from the sheriff? Is that a horrible situation if the kids set down to venison stew? I dont begrudge your point that the US isnt maintaining its citizens, but the other side of the coin is a lot of people are just too damn lazy or apathetic to even raise a garden, sprout some beans etc. They want what the Jones have, even if the Jones make 300k a year and they make 20k. The world is not fair or equal...deal with it. And as far as wild game as food goes, it truly amuses me the amount of people that will turn their nose at a deer steak or roast rabbit yet think venison or hare at a restruant is classy and upscale. We live in a world of morons.