by Monica Palmer
I got an email from my son’s first-grade teacher a few weeks ago expressing concern about my son’s “behavior issues” in class. Behavior issues? Surely she wasn’t talking about MY sweet angel!
I guess the perfect child that went forth from my arms each day, remembering all of the wisdom I had bestowed upon him in his seven years of life, was just a figment of my imagination. As it turns out, my son is a regular boy…behavior issues and all.
The shock and surprise I felt upon realizing this fact intrigued me. I have worked with children in some capacity for a good chunk of my life. I know full well there are no perfect children. So why did it surprise me that my son wasn’t perfect? Maybe I couldn’t see it, because I didn’t want to see it.
I think we Missourians have a similar disconnect when it comes to hunger in our state.
We don’t see the problem, because we don’t want to see it.
We can read statistics like Missouri is SEVENTH in the nation for food insecurity and SECOND for Very Low Food Security, and it doesn’t register as fact, because we don’t want it to be a fact. It’s ugly, and it makes us feel ashamed. Plus, we look around at our microcosm of fenced in backyards and social media circles, and we don’t SEE hungry people.
Feeding America has recently updated the Map the Meal Gap tool, which allows you to click on any county in our state or in the country and see that there is no place untouched by hunger. Hunger is real and it is everywhere.
I challenge you to use this tool, find your county, and allow yourself to understand that there is a problem. After we recognize and acknowledge the problem itself, then we can work towards finding a solution.