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49 pages 1 hour read

Sheryl WuDunn, Nicholas D. Kristof

Tightrope

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020

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Chapters 13-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 13-14 Summary

In the opening of Chapter 13, the authors ask how it is possible that some of Kristof’s classmates in Yamhill thrived, while others struggled. The answer is not solely a matter of money; as the authors note, some of those who did well grew up in families that were poor, but where parents were also well-embedded in the community and placed a high value in education. School clubs and sports also provided structure and support for children, as did the church. Some who lacked these protective structures also survived, including Dale Branden, a classmate of Kristof who, like the Knapps, had an abusive, alcoholic father and parents with little formal education. After high school, Branden joined the military, and from there he went on to a secure, white-collar job and a stable marriage. His experience reflects that of many other working-class kids for whom the military creates opportunities and lifelines out of poverty. However, since the military is not an option for everyone, such as those who don’t complete high school, the authors suggest a similar kind of structure could be provided through national service programs designed to teach at-risk youth skills and discipline, such as the National Guard Youth Challenge or City Year.

Chapter 14 begins with an account of the 1990 shooting of Debbie Baigrie, a stay-at-home mother who was out with friends in Tampa when she was shot in the face during an attempted robbery. Her assailant, a 13-year-old boy named Ian Manuel, admitted to the crime and was tried as an adult, receiving a life sentence in prison. This sentence makes him part of America’s ballooning prison population, which began to climb in the 1970s, to 1.4 million, not counting local jails; US inmates make up a quarter of the world’s prison population. Many inmates are housed in private prisons, which in turn lobby for harsher sentences to increase occupancy. Nonetheless, there are signs that things have begun to change, with both Republicans and Democrats recognizing the harm of mass incarceration and pushing for reform.

For Debbie Baigrie and Ian Manuel, there were changes, too; Manuel called Baigrie from prison, beginning a friendship that led Baigrie to write to the court asking for a reduced sentence for Manuel. In the letter, Baigrie cited Manuel’s disadvantaged circumstances, which are shared by many Black youth, who face increased discrimination in education, in the justice system, and in society writ large. However, this discrimination can be challenged, too, the authors write, citing a case from the world of professional sports, in which researchers found referees were more likely to call fouls against players of a different race. Years later, another study found the bias had disappeared: “it seemed that once referees were aware of their unconscious bias, they could overcome it” (186).

Ian Manuel was released from prison in 2016—after 26 years in prison—after he became the representative plaintiff in a case on the unconstitutionality of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole. He was subsequently resentenced, and Baigrie testified at the hearing; upon Manuel’s release, the two celebrated with pizza, and “a tragedy ended up a tale of hope” (188).

Chapters 15-16 Summary

The authors explore the ways in which adversity is passed down through generations. Part of this is due to the breakdown in family structures. While concerns about family breakdown have been regarded skeptically by liberals who have viewed the lens as a kind of victim-blaming, particularly for Black families, a growing cohort of poverty researchers is recognizing the importance of family structure for Black and white kids. The authors turn to the story of Eathan Green, the son of Clayton Green. Eathan grew up in a low-income, single-parent household, a pattern that he repeated in his own experience as a parent. On a broader level, the growing rate of single parenthood has been accompanied by a 25% increase in the rate of child poverty since 1970; kids raised by single mothers also get lower grades on average and are more likely to get involved in crime. The authors caution that there are limitations to how much can be inferred from this data, since much of it comes from low-income households, which have a multitude of other challenges. Nonetheless, they conclude that research points to the benefits of a stable, two-parent household: “one of the greatest kinds of privilege is to grow up in a loving, stable two-parent household” (196).

The authors contrast the experience of Eathan Green with the Davis family in Arkansas, who are a working-class Black family with 17 children, all from the same parents. Despite their limited means and large family size, all members of the Davis family are doing well, including the youngest, Ke’Niya, who had a child as a teenager but, with the support of her family and community, was working, was attending college, and seemed poised for a successful future.

In Chapter 16, the authors turn to another group that benefits from stable partnerships: men. Marriages is associated with reduced recidivism, for example, and is strongly correlated with success for Black men: 70% of Black married men are middle class, compared to 20% of never-married Black men. Two-parent households are also correlated with upward mobility in neighborhoods. However, promotion of family values—which is typically in policy choices emphasized by conservatives—has missed the mark, the authors suggest, because it has ignored the effect of mass incarceration in undermining family structures. Once in prison, inmates are often sent far from their families, and exorbitant phone call costs makes it difficult for them to maintain a bond. Another problem is the decline of well-paying, unionized blue-collar jobs, a decline that has impacted working-class men the most. As their employment prospects have shrunk, these men have become less marriageable. One way to address this issue would be to increase the minimum wage and increase the availability of career training programs for young men.

Chapters 17-18 Summary

The authors begin Chapter 17 by describing the lifelong effects of negative experiences in childhood, particularly in the first five years. If raised in chaotic and deprived circumstances, children experience high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which changes their brain anatomy, leading to less impulse control and emotional regulation. There are societal consequences as well, as these adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, ultimately cost more money in healthcare dollars or spending on prisons than they would have cost to prevent. The authors provide specific figures on this effect from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “The overall cost to society from child trauma and ACEs for medical care, special education, social welfare and criminal justice, not to mention loss of productivity, was $125 billion in 2008” (216).

In the case of the third generation of the Knapp family—Farlan Knapp’s daughters, Andrea and Amber—the early experience of adversity, which came from growing up in a conflict-ridden house with parents who struggled with addiction, led them both into hardship and led Andrea to an early death. There are also societal costs, as much of America’s crime is committed by youth from dysfunctional backgrounds. Some of the interventions to address this downward spiral are relatively simple, such as Reach Out and Read, a program in which pediatricians “prescribe” reading during doctor visits and give out children’s books. Other public health initiatives have provided parents with messaging on how to help children heal from childhood adversity. Other measures, such as widely available early childhood education, would help address the adversity experienced by the 13 million American children who live in poverty, two million of whom live in “extreme poverty” (households earning less than $2 a day).

In Chapter 18, the authors open with a description of a woman they describe as America’s Mother Theresa: a Black woman in the town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, by the name of Annette Dove. Dove runs a nonprofit called Targeting Our People’s Priorities with Service, or TOPPS, an afterschool program for at-risk youth. TOPPS teaches boys skills such as looking people in the eye and knotting a tie to help them land jobs. It also teaches them about consent and birth control. The organization offers youth trips out of state and helps them apply to and prepare for college, drawing on the insight and expertise of past TOPPS attendees to teach youth about their options. Martino Green was raised by his grandmother, who drank heavily and verbally and abused him and his brothers, and he moved 10 times between the ages of 11 and 15. During these years, he got involved with TOPPS. He later joined the Army National Guard, then found his “calling” as a police officer.

The authors compare the impact of these programs, despite the little government resources that are devoted to them, with the expensive policies that exacerbate the problem of mass incarceration. One example they use is the prosecution of a Black youth who was charged as an accomplice in an armed robbery and sentenced to death. The case was continuously appealed before the sentence was overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court. The authors write: “Arkansas devoted scarce tax dollars to prisons, police, lawyers and courts instead of educating children and directing them to become police officers rather than criminals” (233). They conclude that charitable initiatives like TOPPS, though not enough on their own—governments also need to invest in supports for at-risk kids—are an important part of a broader system that could help American children fulfill their potential.

Chapters 19-20 Summary

In Chapter 19, the authors begin with the story of Reverend Diane Reynolds, an ordained minister who grew up experiencing sexual abuse in a poor and dysfunctional household, but who managed to find stability for herself and an opportunity to help troubled children experiencing the same hardships she had. That came in the form of the nonprofit Provoking Hope, which Diane founded to offer counselling for people with addiction, parenting support for new parents, and other programming. There, the authors meet Drew Goff, son of one of Kristof’s childhood friends, who was determined to break the cycle of addiction and poverty in which he’d grown up and to be a better father to his young son.

The authors consider what other measures can help break the cycle. One important measure is to address the rate at which young people drop out of high school: “Americans are more likely to drop out of high school than in most other advanced countries, and completion of high school doesn’t necessarily signal mastery of basic skills” (240). Schools and colleges could also focus more resources on preparing students for the workforce through skills training programs. Schools are also trying programs to address the trauma and abuse that many children experience, which render them disturbed and difficult to control in the classroom; in the Yamhill school system, one such initiative is called the PAX Good Behavior Game, where students come up with class rules. Other measures, such as an increase in vocational training at the high school and a move away from a punitive approach for students who engage in fighting, seem to be making a difference as well, with the graduation rate at the Yamhill high school gradually increasing.

In Chapter 20, the authors write that, at the closing of the book, they’re coming back to where they started—the town of Yamhill, where this time, they’re attending the funeral of Clayton Green, who died of congestive heart failure in 2019: “this was another death of despair, and Clayton was a casualty of America’s great social depression” (247). Of the two families who rode the number 6 school bus with Kristof, eight children are dead; the difference, for Kristof, is to a large extent the fact he was raised by loving, stable parents who valued education. Other Americans who thrived managed to do so by dint of government supports, from the Homestead Act, which granted land to white settlers who could reach it, creating a middle class, to the GI Bill of Rights, which provided subsidies for home buyers and university students after World War II. This kind of support, or “escalators,” has largely disappeared, “and now it’s time for America to get back in the escalator business” (250).

The authors go on to note that, while the policies they’ve explored in the book can make a difference—from supports for laid-off autoworkers in Canada to decriminalized drugs in Portugal—the United States has focused too much on individual choices in creating poverty. The real locus for the choice, however, is at the social level: “The United States has chosen policies over the last half century that have resulted in high levels of homelessness, overdose deaths, crime and inequality—and now it’s time to make a different choice” (253). The authors then explore eight policies that could be part of that choice: early childhood programs; universal high-school graduation, by requiring student to stay in school until age 18 or graduation; universal health coverage, for instance, through a system such as Germany’s, which mandates health insurance; ending unwanted pregnancies through free access to contraception; a monthly child allowance, which could lower the number of children in extreme poverty; ending child homelessness; baby bonds, a $2,000 payment for all Americans at birth that can only be withdrawn for productive use such as education, buying a home, or retirement; and a right to work, to grant people not just fair-paying work, but also the dignity and self-worth that come from a job.

While these programs would cost money, the authors suggest that much of that would come from the relatively modest step of raising tax rates to those that were in place in the 1990s. More revenue could come from a transaction tax on stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, commodities, and derivatives, an approach that has been suggested by many prominent economics and business figures. In closing the book, the authors note that the greatest waste in not reforming American society and its economic system is not the money spent subsidizing yachts and private jets, but the waste of talent among people, like those whom Kristof grew up with in Yamhill, who are never given the opportunity to thrive.

Chapters 13-20 Analysis

In the final section of the book, the authors explore the theme of the intergenerational impacts of poverty, identify programs and organizations that are trying to address these problems, and offer prescriptions for societal initiatives that could make America into a more humane and equal society.

The authors explore how poverty plays out through generations by looking both at families and at institutions that shape the lives of young people living in poverty, such as schools, prisons, and non-profit organizations. In looking at families, the authors explore how the chaos and dysfunction that is engendered by poverty create intergenerational cycles from which people struggle to escape, even if they seem poised to do so. To elucidate this point, the authors deploy the narrative device of focusing on the experience of individuals; one example of how these forces play out is the Knapp family, in which four of five adult children died prematurely, within a five-year period, after struggling with drug and alcohol addiction—a pattern they learned from their own father, who was an abusive alcoholic. In turn, the third generation of the Knapp family is also afflicted with addiction issues.

These issues may, in part, be genetic; they may also be the consequence of each generation experiencing adversity in early childhood, which increases impulsivity and decreases emotional regulation. In this way, although the authors dismiss the idea that traits such as intelligence or discipline are inheritable and are somehow less present among struggling working-class families, they do note that destructive patterns are passed down, through the experiences that children accumulate as a result of living in poverty: “each generation inherits disadvantage” (210). Family matters in another way, insofar as the authors note that family stability, and growing up in two-parent households, is correlated with higher high school graduation rates and upward mobility.

In later chapters, the authors turn to some of the institutions and programs that are trying to make a difference for young people and to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. One is TOPPS, which provides afterschool programming, mentoring, and support for at-risk youth, to assist them in finding work, applying for college, and beginning their adult lives. For Martino Green, TOPPS was a source of stability and inspiration, allowing him to look beyond the horizons of his own deprived upbringing; eventually, he became a police officer. Such organizations allow participants to find treatment and support that keeps them out of the justice system, but they are also limited—as the authors note, individual charitable programs can help fill gaps but must ultimately be accompanied by government action and spending to enact transformative change for struggling families.

The authors end the book by citing some examples of this transformative change, and these suggestions, too, show the importance of breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty. For example, high-quality early childhood education would provide stability and support to vulnerable children, but it would also help their parents enter the labor force in greater numbers—both would help address the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next. The authors also advise that the creation of a monthly child allowance would help end child poverty in the United States, as it has in other countries.

Several suggestions focus on education, highlighting the book’s theme of the importance of education in addressing poverty. The authors suggest creating a policy of universal high school graduation, given the baseline need for a high school diploma in the 21st-century economy, and write that education should consider more vocational training and apprenticeship programs. As an example of how this can work, they look at the school system in Yamhill, where high school graduation rates had dropped to 73% for a time but rose again thanks to an increased emphasis on vocational training at the school (as well as less punitive disciplinary programs for students). In drawing recommendations from programs that are already in place—whether internationally or domestically, as is the case with the Yamhill school system—the authors are bolstering a key mission of the book—to offer solutions to America’s seemingly intractable problems—by showing that their recommendations are, in fact, achievable.

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