Growing up poor isn't so bad. Most poor kids don't even notice it, since it's unlikely that their friends and neighbors are doing any better. But being accustomed to poverty doesn't excuse its existence.
As a child, it never struck me as anything other than normal that my brothers and I wore patched jeans.
I didn't care, but in retrospect I know my mother did. She took the time to sew the patches on the inside of our pants and used a darning technique to make the patchwork less visible.
It never bothered me that I always took a sack lunch to school. Mama's sandwiches were always superior to any cafeteria fare.
And if I wanted ice cream, I could earn 10 cents by selling a slice of my mother's cake that she always put inside our lunch bags.
I was a teenager before I even thought about my family's financial situation. My father had died, and the ladies of our church had chosen us as the poor family in the housing projects to take a Thanksgiving basket. I thought it was odd.
I'm not sure what my mother thought. She was a proud woman, so much so that she refused to go on welfare after my dad's death. She said social workers asked too many questions.
We lived on the Social Security benefits that my father had earned until Mama supplemented that income by doing domestic work.
Bringing these memories to mind is the latest Census Bureau report showing poverty in this country has increased 3 percent over the last decade. More than 46 million Americans are living in poverty, the highest level on record in 52 years.
The poverty rate rose from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent in 2010. The poverty rate for children rose to 22 percent from 20.7 percent. That's 16.4 million children living in poverty.
Republican leaders accuse President Obama of inciting class warfare by asking for higher taxes on the rich. But with one in five children and one in three women heading households now living in poverty, they should be more afraid that the wealth disparity in the country will spark a revolution.
And not all the turmoil will be in America's cities. Poverty in the suburbs has reached its highest level since 1967. Nearly 12 percent of suburbanites are classified as poor, up from 8 percent in 2001. The urban poverty rate is 19 percent.
With 20 percent of all American children now living in poverty, a new organization called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is warning that the consequences might include an increase in crime down the road.
