MAP Book Excerpt
me and poverty
Chapter 1: Perfect parents
“Let me start by saying I am fully aware that perfect parents do not exist. Having a child of my own has only reinforced this truth. This chapter is not about longing for flawless parents or expecting something unattainable. It is about the reality of two parents who walked away.
Growing up in rural Appalachia in the 1980s, obtaining an education was not a given. For many, it was hardly expected, especially for those from families where education had never been a priority. My mother came from such a family, a long line of women who saw schooling as secondary to survival. She also came from a long line of women who had children young, as if it were an unspoken rite of passage.
For our family, the fact that my mother made it to the tenth grade was considered an accomplishment. It was further than most had gone. Mamaw often said that my mother was kind and that she had a soft heart. But she was also a troubled child.
From an early age, my mother struggled with fear, especially at night. She would hear voices, her paranoia growing stronger as the years went on. Eventually, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on medication. But treatment was not a cure, and in her case, it was never a permanent solution. This is not the story of a woman who overcame every challenge, but neither is it the story of someone who didn't care. She was trapped in a battle she couldn't win, and as much as it hurt us, it must have hurt her too.
My mother had her first child, my oldest brother, when she was just sixteen. By then, she was already experimenting with drugs and alcohol, dipping her toes into a world that would soon consume her. Two years later, at eighteen, she had her second child. When my mother had her second child, she had already begun coming home to mamaw with needle marks on her arms. It was one of the first visible signs that what had once been occasional use was becoming something far worse.
With her mental illness compounding her struggles and no real support system to help her fight, she never really stood a chance.
One summer, when I was a teenager, our mother decided to take the boys and me school shopping. It wasn’t something we did often, which made it feel significant. She wanted so badly to feel like she was providing, like she was capable of doing what mothers were supposed to do. So much so that she had saved most of the previous month's SSI checks, carefully holding onto them instead of spending impulsively as she often did. It was a rare moment of discipline, an effort to be the kind of mother she wished she could be. Her boyfriend was the one who drove us, and for that day, we were just a regular family going on an ordinary errand.
I was an older teen by then, just beginning to take an interest in weightlifting. There was something about it that fascinated me: the idea of making myself stronger, of building something solid and unshakable. Maybe I thought that if I could control my body, I could control the parts of my life that always felt so uncertain. Maybe I just liked the idea of becoming stronger than the circumstances that had always felt bigger than me.
When it came time to pick out clothes, I made a decision that felt bold in a way I could not fully explain. I spent a good portion of my clothing budget on a pair of weightlifting gloves. They weren’t just gloves to me. They were a step toward something more, a small but tangible investment in the person I wanted to become. For once, I had chosen something not just because I needed it, but because I wanted it.
By the time we made it back to the car, I reached into the bag and immediately knew something was wrong. I rummaged through it, my movements growing more frantic, until reality hit me like a punch to the gut. One of the gloves was missing.
At first, I could not believe it. I checked the bag again and then again, as if sheer willpower could make it reappear. But it was gone, and the moment that realization settled in, everything inside me collapsed.
When you grow up in poverty, loss is never just loss. It carries a weight beyond the thing itself. It reminds you of what little you have, of how few chances you get. There is no room for carelessness, no space for mistakes. One wrong move, one moment of not paying attention, and something is gone forever. My mind immediately went to the worst places.
Of course, this happened to me. It wouldn’t have happened to anyone else.
Of course, I wasted my money. I should have known better than to buy something I actually wanted.
I didn’t deserve nice things.
Poverty teaches you to see the world in extremes. It is either all or nothing, success or failure, win or lose. There is no in-between, no second chances, no way to fix what is broken. You either get it right the first time, or you are left with nothing.
I didn’t have the words for it back then, but later in life, I came across something that described this feeling perfectly. In The Mountain Is You, Brianna Wiest² explains how we often sabotage ourselves because, deep down, we don’t believe we deserve more than what we’ve always known. We fear change, even if what we know is painful. That day, standing in the Walmart parking lot, I wasn’t just upset about a missing glove. I was proving myself right. I had dared to want something, and this was my punishment for believing I could have it.
I was still spiraling when my mother’s boyfriend spoke. His voice was calm, almost indifferent as if what he was saying was the simplest thing in the world.
“I’ll go back inside and get you another pair.”
I looked at him, stunned.
It was such a small gesture, but in my world, it was unheard of. No one replaced what was lost. No one offered second chances. No one went out of their way just because they could.
I have very few positive memories of my mother or the men in her life. But this one, this quiet moment of unexpected kindness, has never left me.
Mother Knows Best?
My collection of memories starts here. This is where the story of my childhood truly begins—not with warm bedtime stories or family traditions, but with social workers watching my mother closely, waiting for her to prove she could be the mother we needed. They gave her chance after chance, hoping she might pull it together, that she might fight to keep us. But she failed. Miserably.
When it became clear that we were going to be taken away for good, my mother had a final moment of what some might call "common sense." Instead of letting the system take us, she brought us to the only safety net she had left—her mother, our Mamaw. The plan, at least in her mind, was temporary. She would straighten things out, she said, and come back for us.
Although I was too young to remember with true clarity, the story has been told plenty enough in our family over the years. My father and mother drove us, my four brothers (at the time) and me, to our grandparents' house. They assured us it was just for a night. One night. They would be back in the morning. We clung to their words because we wanted to believe them.
Life with Mom had never been easy. It meant hunger. It meant mess. It meant a house so dirty that the filth became normal, the smell blending into the air until we no longer noticed. It meant never knowing when we'd eat next or if the water in the house would be working that day. It meant being unwashed, our skin caked with layers of neglect we were too young to recognize as anything unusual.
But then, we stepped into our grandparents' home, and for the first time, we experienced something we hadn’t even known to wish for—cleanliness.
Mamaw, didn’t waste a moment. She and my grandfather gathered us up, one by one, and ran warm baths. Not the quick, barely-there kind we were used to, but real baths, filled with soapy water that bubbled and foamed. I remember the feeling of it, how the dirt lifted off my skin, how the scent of the soap was so unfamiliar that it almost felt wrong. But then we started laughing, splashing, marveling at the strange, slippery sensation of our own clean skin. It was something so simple, yet it felt like stepping into another world.
Then the next morning came.
And she wasn’t there.
A day turned into two. Then three. By the end of the week, the truth settled in, heavy and undeniable. Mom wasn’t coming back.
The phone call came a few days later. Mamaw answered, and we all watched, waiting, hoping. But it was just confirmation of what we had already begun to understand.
She wasn’t capable of being the mother we needed. Whether she gave up or was simply overwhelmed by forces beyond her control, I’ll never fully know.
And just like that, Mamaw, at forty-eight years old, found herself taking on a responsibility she hadn’t planned for. Five children of her own had already passed through her hands, and now, she had five more boys to raise. I often wonder if, in that moment, she hesitated. If she silently asked herself whether this was the biggest mistake of her life.
Because, for better or worse, our lives were now in her hands.
Note that after they left us with our grandparents, my parents didn’t walk away from each other immediately. Their relationship was messy, full of breakups and reconciliations that never seemed to last. My mother would leave, get involved with another one of my brothers’ fathers, and find her way back to my dad. It was a cycle that repeated itself for years.
During that time, mamaw did what she could to keep some connection between us and our parents. She arranged visits, hoping that if we saw them enough, the distance wouldn’t feel so final. For a while, it worked. They would show up, sometimes together, sometimes apart, giving us just enough presence to keep us hoping things might change.
But they never did. The spiral continued, and the visits became fewer. My father, who had always seemed like he was halfway out the door, finally made his exit. Around the time I turned ten, he moved to Virginia for good. After that, he was no longer someone I saw. He was just a voice on the phone, distant and fading, a presence that barely felt real.
Being from Martin County, Kentucky, it was not unusual to come from a broken home or to be raised in poverty. Eastern Kentucky had long been a symbol of rural hardship, a place where struggle was passed down like an heirloom. President Lyndon B. Johnson highlighted this reality in 1964 when he stood on the front porch of a Martin County resident’s home and declared his War on Poverty. Looking at the families struggling around him, he said, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”³ His words carried weight at the time, but for families like mine, change didn’t come fast enough.
Our situation was even more difficult because we weren’t just poor; we were also living in a home that was constantly falling apart, both physically and emotionally. My mother kept me until I was four and my oldest brother until he was ten, but the places we lived in could hardly be called homes. We weren’t just struggling financially; we were surviving in conditions no child should have to endure. The walls around us may have stood, but they did nothing to keep out the cold of neglect or the storm of addiction that raged inside.
My mother battled schizophrenia, but instead of getting the help she needed, she abused her medication, slipping further into a world where reality blurred. My father chose his own escape. Rather than raising his only son, he spent his time and money on marijuana, numbing himself to responsibilities he never wanted. Stability was something we never knew. Love, as most children understood it, was something we had only seen in glimpses.
Out of five boys, we all shared one mother but had four different fathers. Even now, when I say those words out loud, I can’t help but think of the woman at the well in the Bible. The one Jesus met and spoke to with both kindness and brutal honesty, despite her past. My mother’s life was far from perfect, and so was ours. We weren’t the ideal family with two parents, two kids, a house with a white picket fence, and a dog in the yard. We were something else entirely—something messy, complicated, and uncertain.
At the time, I couldn’t see it, but God was looking far beyond what I understood.
Child Protective Services typically keeps a case open for six months, giving the mother a chance to turn her life around. Mamaw was granted temporary custody at first, just until Mom could prove she was capable of raising us. But that never happened. Mom refused to cooperate. Maybe she tried in her own way, but her struggles with addiction and mental illness made it impossible for her to succeed. No matter how much she may have wanted to be a good mother, she was drowning in a battle she couldn’t win. Instead, she told Mamaw and the court they could keep us.
At the time, it felt like just another rejection, another reminder that we weren’t worth fighting for. But looking back, I see it differently. It was a blessing. As much as we had already endured, the truth is, we were lucky to have made it out alive.
There was a house fire. Actually, there were a few. Flames licking at the walls, smoke curling into every crevice, the thick scent of burning wood and fabric filling the air. Fires weren’t an uncommon sight in homes like ours, where neglect met misfortune at every turn. I was too young to remember this particular fire, but Mamaw told it to me vividly.
I had been left outside on the porch, the heat of the flames warming my small face as I watched my mother run for safety. She didn’t look back, not at first. My tiny hands gripped the wooden railing, my cries lost in the chaos. In her defense, she did eventually return for me. I suppose that counts for something.
Her history of neglect didn’t stop there. There was the time my brother and I were left on a church bus, waiting for a mother who never came. Maybe she thought we were in good hands. Maybe she just didn’t think at all. The filth of our home was one thing, but the uncertainty of our next meal was another. Hunger became an unwanted companion, always lurking, always gnawing. We learned quickly that food wasn’t promised, that empty stomachs were just part of life. These are just a few details to help you understand why social services intervened.
The day she dropped us off at Mamaw’s, my father was with her. It was a moment that would define the rest of my life.
I don’t know what went through his mind that day. I don’t know if he hesitated, if he wondered for even a second whether he should stay. All I know is that he chose to walk away.
He decided that day that he would not be a father.
Not the kind that helps with homework. Not the kind that gives dating advice or teaches his son how to be a man. Not the kind that sits in the stands at ball games, clapping and cheering. Not the kind that holds his child and says, I’m proud of you.
He decided not to feed. Not to hug. Not to give forehead kisses.
Not to teach me how to ride a bike or tie my shoes.
Not to attend my wedding. Not to be there for my college or graduate school graduation.
Not to see the birth of his grandson.
Not to witness me rise above the poverty that had swallowed so many before me.
A father is supposed to do all these things. Mine chose not to.
And yet, there was something almost admirable about the way he left. He gave me a clean break. He vanished.
I could respect that.
He knew he was unfit, and instead of weaving in and out of my life, leaving behind a trail of broken promises and confusion, he disappeared. There was no false hope, no waiting by the door, no questioning whether this time would be different. Besides an occasional phone call and a couple of summer stays we will discuss later, he was gone, and that was that.
Mom, on the other hand, kept things messy.
She would come around occasionally, mostly on her birthday or the holidays. Not because she missed us, but because she wanted to be loved and admired. We all want that, I suppose. The trouble was, she was almost always under the influence.
She wanted the joy of motherhood without the weight of responsibility. She wanted love without sacrifice.
But love doesn’t work like that.
Every time she reappeared, she reopened wounds that barely had time to scab over. Every visit was a reminder that she could have chosen differently but didn’t. She kept damaging the relationship, never allowing space for healing.
Unlike Dad, who left cleanly, she made sure her absence was felt in the most painful way possible, by being just close enough for us to hope but never close enough to stay.
There was one holiday when Mamaw had finally had enough. She took one look at our mother—unkempt, unsteady, a shadow of the woman she should have been—and told her to leave. For the first time, she refused to let us boys see her in such poor condition.
I think Mamaw knew, deep down, that every visit did more harm than good. Nearly every encounter with our mother felt like an obligation, a forced hug to a stranger who happened to share our blood. Because that’s what she was—a stranger.
And yet, biblically speaking, we are taught to honor our mother and father, no matter what. So we did.
We hugged a woman we barely knew a couple of times a year. We muttered I love you without meaning it. How could we? Love requires connection, and she had severed that long ago.
Those hugs carried more than just emptiness. They carried the overwhelming stench of body odor, the consequence of living without electricity or running water. They carried the discomfort of knowing that within days, our heads would be shaved to rid us of the lice she unknowingly brought with her.
I don’t share these stories for pity. I made it out. I survived. But I know there are others who are still living this reality.
If you’re reading this, you might know a child just like that.
They could be sitting in your classroom today, quiet and withdrawn. They could be in your church tonight, nodding off from exhaustion. They could be on your football field this Friday, pushing through the pain with a determination that no one understands.
Coaches, pastors, counselors, teachers, and parents, I urge you to take a moment to look a little deeper and show genuine compassion. Behind every child’s smile, every word they speak, and every action they take, there may be a story you're unaware of—a story of hardship, fear, or silent struggles they face at home. The weight they carry, though invisible, can be overwhelming.
Sometimes, they don’t have the words to express what’s wrong, or perhaps they’ve learned to hide their pain behind a mask of normalcy. But one simple act of kindness, a listening ear, or even a smile can mean more than you might realize. It can be the very thing that helps them hold on when everything around them feels uncertain.
Remember, your empathy and understanding could be the spark of hope that a child desperately needs. What may seem small to you can make a world of difference in their lives.
Summers With Dad
I was sixteen, caught between boyhood and something that vaguely resembled adulthood. For the past year, my birth father had been calling me every couple of days. It was strange at first, hearing his voice more regularly after years of scattered, inconsistent check-ins. He never had much to say, never asked the deep questions a father might ask a son he had been absent from for so long. But he called, and that had to count for something.
Most of our conversations felt like a performance. I was the one carrying them, steering them forward so they didn’t fizzle out into silence. I filled the gaps with stories, making sure I sounded impressive. I told him about my grades, how hard I had been working out, and the girls I had been “dating.” Every word was deliberate. If I could just say the right things, maybe he’d hear something in my voice that made him proud. Maybe he’d finally see me. Maybe, just maybe, he’d stick around this time.
The school year was coming to a close when he asked something I never saw coming.
“Son, would you like to come spend the summer with me and Kelly?”
His voice was casual, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
It caught me off guard, but it wasn’t the first time he had asked me to spend a summer with him. When I was 12, I stayed a few weeks with him. That time, my older brother was with me. The same brother I had once carried when he was too weak to walk. Having him there made all the difference. Back then, I wasn’t alone in trying to understand my father’s world. This time, I would be.
Kelly was his wife at the time, my stepmother. I barely knew her. Then again, I barely knew him. He had always been a distant figure in my life, checking in just enough to remind me he existed but never enough to feel like a real father. He abandoned me when I was four, disappearing into his own life without so much as an apology. There was no explanation, no sit-down conversation where he told me why he left. Just silence, and then, years later, phone calls that tried to bridge the gap but never quite did.
The crazy part? I wasn’t angry. I probably should have been, but I wasn’t. I had spent so much time convincing myself that I didn’t need him, that I was fine without him, that I never stopped to question if it was actually true. Maybe I just wanted to understand him. Maybe I wanted to see for myself if there was even the slightest chance we could build something resembling a normal father-son relationship.
So, I said yes.
After what felt like endless begging, my grandparents finally gave in and agreed to let me spend the summer in Virginia. It had taken some convincing, but I wasn’t surprised that Mamaw was the one who ultimately caved. Out of all the so-called fathers we had, she always had a soft spot for mine. Maybe it was because when I was younger, he was the one who showed up the most. Or maybe it was because, out of everyone, he had treated my mother with the most respect, even when she was at her most fragile.
The moment I got the green light, my father wasted no time. He made the five-hour drive from Floyd, Virginia, to Floyd County, Kentucky. I didn’t technically live in Floyd County. I was from the neighboring county of Martin, but this was how I had always placed him on a map. Floyd to Floyd. Fairly close, yet worlds apart.
When he arrived, he spent a few hours catching up with my family, reintroducing himself in the way that people who disappear and reappear tend to do. He introduced Kelly, my stepmother, and the whole thing felt surreal. For so long, he had been a voice on the other end of the phone, someone I tried to hold onto through conversations that never lasted long enough. And now, here he was, standing in my grandparents’ living room, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries like a relative who had simply been away for a while.
Then, just like that, we were off.
For months, I had imagined what it would be like to spend real time with my father, to have an actual summer with him instead of just hearing his voice through a receiver. And now, it was happening. The entire drive back, I couldn’t stop talking. I had so many plans, so many things I wanted to do together. Fishing trips, grilling in the backyard, maybe even camping. I imagined us sitting on a porch, swapping stories, making up for lost time like something out of a movie.
When we finally pulled into his driveway, I took it all in. His house was small, almost tucked away in the middle of nowhere, and I loved it instantly. It was the kind of place that felt like it had a story, maybe even a few secrets. The forest surrounding it was completely flat, the ground covered in a thick layer of pine needles. Even now, years later, I can still picture it. The scent of the trees, the way the branches swayed lazily in the breeze, the eerie quiet that settled over everything. And the basement. That basement felt like something out of a horror novel. The kind of place you’d avoid at night, even if you didn’t believe in ghosts.
But none of that mattered. This was my father’s home, and for the first time in my life, I was going to be a part of it.
Dad had recently lost his job at Hardee’s after supposedly hurting his back unloading a food delivery truck. To me, that meant one thing. I’d get to spend all day with him while Kelly was at work. That was supposed to be the silver lining, the whole reason I came here. But every morning, without fail, I woke up to an empty house.
Dad had always struggled with insomnia. He was usually up before the sun, pacing the house or smoking on the porch, lost in his thoughts. But where did he go every morning? That was the question that started to eat at me. Whenever I asked, his answers were vague and dismissive.
“Ah, just gonna go help a friend with some work and earn a few dollars.”
“Just heading into town for a bit.”
That was it. No details, no invitation for me to come along. And that was the part that didn’t sit right with me. I had left home, packed up my entire summer, just to be here, to finally build something with my father. Yet, most days, he was gone before I even had the chance to see him.
After weeks of pushing and making it clear that I wasn’t letting this go, he finally let me tag along. At first, nothing seemed unusual. Most of the time, we visited family members I had never met before. Distant cousins, old aunts and uncles, people whose names blurred together. It was the first time I truly got to learn about my Indian heritage, and I soaked up every story they told.
One visit, in particular, stood out. My aunt, who lived in a weathered single-wide trailer, had covered every inch of her walls with Indian arrowheads. She spoke with pride, telling me about each one as I ran my fingers over their smooth, cool surfaces. It was fascinating, a glimpse into a history I had never been given access to before.
But then, I noticed something.
Dad was gone.
It wasn’t unusual at this point. Every visit seemed to follow the same pattern. We’d arrive together, he’d make small talk, and then, at some point, he’d slip away. When I eventually found him, he’d be in another part of the house, leaning in close, whispering to whoever we were visiting.
At first, I convinced myself it was nothing. Maybe they were just catching up. Maybe I was overthinking it. But then came the exchanges. A few words hushed between them, a quick glance in my direction, and then something being passed between hands. Small, discreet, like they had done it a thousand times before.
It didn’t take long to realize that my father struggled with self-medicating and that it was a problem. It wasn’t just something he did. It was something that consumed him. Every decision, every dollar, every plan seemed to revolve around it.
The car was always on empty. Rather than putting in enough gas to get through the day, he’d scrape together just enough. $1.10 here, maybe a little more there. Just enough to make it to whoever was selling to him. In the entire two months I spent in Virginia, I don’t think I ever saw the gas gauge rise above “E.”
Dad and Kelly shared that one car. Every morning, against her wishes, he’d drop Kelly off at work, and from there, the day was his. He’d spend it driving from place to place, buying, borrowing, doing whatever it took to get his next fix. Meanwhile, Kelly was left wondering if she’d even have a ride home or if she’d have to call her mother to come get her.
The fights between them were constant. Kelly would scream. He’d shut down. Then she’d storm out, swearing she was done. Some nights, she’d be gone for hours. Other times, she wouldn’t come back until the next day, her mother dropping her off at the house with the same tired look on her face.
And then there were the worst nights. The ones where the arguments weren’t about the car or the money but about something far more basic. The nights when Kelly, voice tight with frustration, would ask, “Where is our next meal coming from?” The occasional leftovers that Kelly would bring home from her shift at Hardees would only go so far.
Dad never had an answer.
That summer in Virginia opened my eyes in ways I never expected. My father cared about me. I could see that. He wanted to be a good dad, but he didn’t know how and still hold onto his addiction. In the end, he chose the latter.
One afternoon, while we were out running one of his usual errands, he offered me a chance to smoke something he’d picked up recently. The words hung between us for a moment before I shook my head and told him no. Something shifted after that. The air between us grew heavier. It wasn’t anger or disappointment, just a quiet understanding that we were standing on opposite sides of a line we could never cross together.
From that day forward, I stopped looking at him as a father. He became more like a friend I was stuck on vacation with. The rest of the summer blurred into a cycle of playing the same few Nintendo 64 games, rewatching early 2000s TV shows on scratched-up DVDs, and listening to Dad and Kelly fight over the same things, over and over again.
Dysfunction seemed to follow me wherever I went. It was stitched into my childhood, embedded in the people around me, and woven into every home I stepped into. But that summer gave me something I didn’t even realize I needed—closure.
God had shown me, clear as day, what I was meant to leave behind. And for that, I would always be grateful.
Exodus 20:12(KJV): "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you."
[ END OF EXCERPT ]
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