I didn't grow up poor; it was a shock to learn in retrospect that I grew up solidly lower middle class when all along I thought I was middle class. A trip to the Ponderosa restaurant for baked potato and Tuesday cheap steaks night was a treat. Big occasions we celebrated at Red Lobster; I thought the deep fried seasoned hush puppies were so exotic and special.
As the daughter of college professors in a rural upstate NY college town where unemployment perennially hovered at 14% or more when Reagan took office, I experienced the conundrum of having my education-revering immigrant Chinese parents stuff me full of the grandiose superiority of 5,000 years of Chinese culture (largely irrelevant if not a liability to my schoolyard concerns) at the same time I learned that my dad's salary was less than what a unionized big-city bus driver made then.
But in our little town, I got to know well what poverty looks like. Interestingly, my parents showed none of the snobbery you'd think they'd hold and my buddies were from all backgrounds. Friends who were undoubtedly recipients of subsidized school lunches accepted me with my weird ethnic oddities and bizarre home-packed meals, kindly overlooking the slight birth defect of my "Orientalness" with the unquestioning, practical simplicity of a child with little other frame of reference. Likewise I absorbed little flashes of poverty from the way my friends lived; because our worlds were small and our play modest and circumscribed, poverty could hang in the ceiling corners like the cobweb it was to us. It had and has its smells--roach spray, stale week-old clothes--and flavors. Sounds--the neighbor's doings, always through paper-thin walls--and textures: a rubber sneaker sole worn thin as tissue.
But mostly what I could see of poverty's effects was written on the body. A limp from a knee that bent in crazy angles because no brace had straightened it in childhood. Inexplicably amputated ends of fingers (industrial accident?). And very noticeably, the neighbor child's mossy grey teeth. Or the caved, shrunken faces of adults too young to have had even one tooth/so many teeth fall out. Too young, and poor, for dentures.
I've never been poor--truly impoverished. But I know what I've witnessed from people several rungs down than my lower-middle class childhood self. And I can't help but wonder if poverty the world over, rural and urban, literally feels like a toothache: low-grade pain, flares of eye-watering intensity, and finally, loss. A slow-motion ebbing violence with a gathering force brutal enough to knock your teeth out.
* * *
In Kentucky's Teeth, Toll of Poverty and Neglect, NYT
"Mr. Anderson, the maker of dentures, said, 'People shouldn’t be ashamed to smile.'"
Dental Care for Adults Has Gaps, Kansas Citizen-Journal
"While dental care is available to low-income children in Kansas through Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program or safety net clinics, it is a different story for adults....Federal Medicaid regulations allow each state to decide whether to provide dental services to its recipients, Schwab said."
Millions of Children Have Untreated Tooth Decay, CNN
"...14.8 percent of Medicaid recipients said their children had not gotten necessary dental care because their dentist refused to accept Medicaid, which typically pays providers less than private insurers."
Most Dentists Do Not Accept Medicaid, Dental Practice and Marketing Management Blog
Boom Times for Dentists But Not for Teeth, NYT
"...publicly supported dental clinics have months-long waiting lists even for people who need major surgery for decayed teeth. At the pediatric clinic managed by the state-supported University of Florida dental school, for example, low-income children must wait six months for surgery."
Necessary Reforms to Pediatric Dental Care Under Medicaid, HHS
Sanders, Obama, Clinton, Leahy Introduce Access for All America Act, Obama Senate Office
Obama-Biden Health Care Plan for Health Care Reform, official Obama-Biden website
Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.
Great post as always and what a good topic. It really puts a image to what poverty means for so many.
Posted by: Amy in Ohio | October 15, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Thank you for bringing up this important issue. I get so mad listening to the talking heads go on and on about "healthcare" knowing that none of them are including dental care in their definition. My 26 year old brother in law has no teeth and can't afford dentures that fit well enough to wear every day. My husband broke a tooth last spring and the resulting treatment had us playing catch up all summer.
I have never understood why we need an entirely separate system for this one body part. Why on earth can't the dentist be considered a mouth specialist and be covered the same as any other specialty (podiatry, gynocology, etc)?
Posted by: Sarah | October 15, 2008 at 12:00 PM
beautifully told, Cyn, if not also heartrending.
and i echo Sarah's sentiments; why are dentists not just "mouth specialist" - in the same vein as specialists of other specific elements of the body (that, and the separation of vision out of health care coverage - which, apparently, almost no one gets anymore, even those with cherry, aka "golden ticket" coverage)?
sickening. with seemingly no end in sight to the sickness.
Posted by: lildb | October 15, 2008 at 02:55 PM
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-heather-
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Posted by: Chritina Wong | December 04, 2009 at 03:50 AM
It is unfortunate that there are a lot of people without access to proper dental care. Many people do not realize that dental health is related to overall health. The goverment needs to do something to support these people.
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Your story reminds me of my childhood...not impoverished poor, but not a lot of the extras that my friends had. But we smiled a lot...good teeth genetically.
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We were poor as kids but did not know it. There is nothing wrong with it but we just pulled ourselves up and worked hard.
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