Blogs

Kids on the Road

Submitted by allisonmaggy on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 22:51

Kids on the RoadKids on the RoadThere was something very haunting about You Have Seen Their Faces. I recently read a similarly haunting article in the NY TIMES: Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways.

With the recession, more children are running away from home. In this class, we’ve kind of discussed and personally I’ve been focused on the fact that this Hobo lifestyle in the truest sense of the word doesn’t exist anymore and we are all on this sort of journey to recreate the essence of the Hobo generation with road trips and camping trips and so on. However, the number of children on the run is growing. And not college students or recent graduates trying to find themselves, but children and teenagers. Some are barely 13. Some leave in search of adventure. Some leave because their parents beat them or have extensive problems with drugs and alcohol.

The article focuses on Clinton Anchors, now 18, who has been on the road since he was 12, escaping the clutches of his meth addict mother. He looks out for new runaways, teaching them how to be street smart. His first words of advice: Go Home. If you have somewhere safe to go or someone who can take care of you, go there.

There is no way to directly link to this video, but everyone should check out the video in the middle of the article.

Thanks for linking to this.

Submitted by raphael on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 23:19.

Thanks for linking to this. Its a very important article about a growing problem in America. It also seems like a very hard problem to solve. Some of them really should not go back to the homes they came from. Some aren't able to at all. I think that this has been going on for some time unpublicized. Instead we focus on the orphans or runaways in far away places like africa and the middle east. I don't mean to say that these children and families are also in desperate situations, i just mean to point out that we have not done enough in acknowledging our problems at home, so they continue to get worse. It is easier to say send 5 cents a day to help a child in some country you never heard of then to have to think about the people you went to school with, or their kids.

Either way it is problems like this that really makes one appreciate what they have.