Births of Desperation

In the world most of us bloggers come from, the societal problems associated with unwanted pregnancy, abortion, and poverty are merely academic. We catch bits and pieces of the most recent reports and statistical data on a news talk show or a blurb on one of various radio news outlets or websites. Many of us have heard about reproductive issues so much and so often that these reports become white noise. The numbers are up, the numbers go down, the Republicans take credit, and the Democrats think we can do better. In the meantime, we flip channels looking for more titillating subject matter.

This doesn’t mean to imply that those of us operating the remote controls are uncompassionate or uncaring. Our apathy is caused by the safe distance of our circumstance in not being part of those experiences ourselves. We may imagine that unwanted pregnancy is something tragic that happens to someone very much unlike ourselves, perhaps through neglect or ignorance, and we are probably right about feeling so. Let’s face it. Educated, economically stable women have fewer instances of unwanted pregnancies and abortions that their less well-off counterparts. Every study that matches demographics to educational or economic status says so. Who am I to argue?

Now to our logic, common sense would demand that poorer people consider their economic standing to a much greater degree than would middle or upper class persons who are planning to have children. If you can’t afford it then don’t do it, right? Makes perfect sense to you and I, but somehow, in the ‘logic’ of the lower economic strata, it doesn’t work that way. I think I know why, and the reason isn’t mentioned at all in the studies or surveys popularized by the media. If they are thinking it, they aren’t saying it out of political correctness.

I don’t just read the studies or hear about them. I work with and live among those who are living in the turmoil and with the causes and results that these studies often overlook. From this vantage point, other perspectives become clear and the unspoken or unseen factors that bring about this ‘ghetto’ logic become apparent. Surveys and statistics might not calculate these variables into their results, but they are at direct cause of higher incidences of many social problems in urban areas. I see it every day.

The key word to remember is ‘desperation’. Desperate situations, perceived or real, breed two accompanying negative emotions, fear and hope. Fear drives people to take ‘desperate’ measures and hope, a by-product of fear, is the ‘logic’ they apply in the expectation that somehow the desperate measures employed will not have better than the normally expected results. This is much like the popular definition of insanity. Insane people are generally ‘desperate’ about something going on around them. Desperation also causes people to lash out against those they consider responsible for their problems. Whether based upon true or false assumptions, the effects are catastrophic to the community and hinder its ability to help itself.

So what is it that women on the lower economic levels are so desperate about that it leads to unwanted pregnancy and how does desperation cause women to unexpectedly get pregnant? For the answer we look to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom of that list are what Maslow considers the basics for survival; food, shelter, clothing, and security. The next step up on the ladder of ‘basic’ needs are the emotional sort; love, self-esteem, and social interactions. Maslow, and rightly so, does not treat love and self–esteem as luxuries. They are as necessary to human function as are the other basics, and lack of emotional stability or satisfaction, in spite of the protestations of those who don’t experience these problems, leads directly into a cycle of desperate attempts to get out of the cycle created by the very desperation inherent in the lack of fulfillment of basic needs.

Let’s put this in simpler terms. Imagine growing up and living in an area where crime, unemployment, substance abuse, and poverty are a day to day matter. No matter where you travel during the course of your day, be it to work or school, you will be coming home and reentering that world in the evening. You have a father, uncle, or brother who is in prison or drinks all day. You seem to manage every month to get the bills paid, but you have no rest and no extra money to enjoy anything more than a night out with friends once in a while or a new piece of clothing. You see basic necessities such as housing, food, transportation, and heating rise in cost beyond what you expected. You worry about your job and your kids. Maybe you’re not getting the child support you should. Maybe you are also lonely.

Poor women, black or white, aren’t whores who sleep around or try to hold onto a man to have their bills paid, but one would be operating out of ignorance to think that the attainment of those basic necessities and how they are paid for are not taken into consideration. A man’s earning potential and his ability to contribute to the maintenance of the household is pretty much a universal calculation that all women make. The problem for poorer women is that the pool of men they have to choose from is often from the same depressed economic stratus and living in the same desperate situation. So someone who is insecure, and thus vulnerable, meets a person who is no less insecure and vulnerable, and somehow this scenario is supposed to have a happy ending?

Now there is some blame to be laid at the feet of the participants. They should know better and probably do know better but, for some reason, choose not to do better, and this is where the desperation plays out on an intimate level.

Women who don’t have a lot of choices end up sometimes making bad ones. Men find it easy to control the situation when they encounter a woman who needs him more than he needs her, or that she has more in mind for the relationship than he does. Men don’t like to wear condoms, and I can tell you that at 45 years old, if I have to wear a condom for sex, I don’t even bother having sex because I won’t feel anything anyhow. A woman, desperate for love and attention, not to mention insecure about her basic needs, when confronted with a man she likes a lot and his wish not to wear a condom, might just choose to not require him to wear it so as not to lose his affection. Now you and I both know that concession could lead to disastrous consequences, but when you factor in the desperation on her part to have physical and emotional security, you begin to see why she allows him to get away without taking precautions.

If we travel one more step up Maslow’s Hierarchy, we come to the intellectual and mental health needs. There is no way that we can expect any person living without the primary basics to fulfill, to our satisfaction or standard, those levels lying above and beyond the necessities. If one has to spend their days stressed over food, rent, and love, the desperation that ensues clouds any ability make rational choices. It’s easy to stand on principle when you don’t have much to worry about.

Sociologists and public policy analysts who suggest strengthening social programs and increase funding for public assistance are often ridiculed for ‘throwing money’ at the problem. Yet, money is what is needed to provide the basics and alleviate the desperation that fosters a new cycle of problems and more desperation. Granted, the money has to be spent wisely, and for us to allocate funds that tinker around the edges of the problem is misguided. We are still treating symptoms we often misdiagnose and not getting to the disease at all. To end the cycle of desperation and bad decision making that comes from it, we must first alleviate the source of that desperation by ensuring their rights, as human beings and fellow Americans, to physical security in terms of housing, health care, education, and economic opportunity.

“The neurosis in which the search for safety takes its clearest form is in the compulsive-obsessive neurosis. Compulsive-obsessive to frantically order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear. (Abraham Maslow, 1908-1970)