"Society's contempt for the poor becomes the poor person's contempt for herself."
Sarah hated being poor as a kid, but she didn't have any resources to escape the system. She was born into poverty. Because of the way she was treated by peers, she remembers hating herself. She could have endured the situation without the emotional scars if she hadn't been taught to look down upon herself for her circumstances. This was a huge hurdle for her on the path to career success.
"In our obsession with home as a material thing, we forget that primal needs can be met even as the human spirit is hurt. Belonging is, on a psychological level, a primal need, too. It is often denied to the poor."
Sarah remembers how motherless and homeless she felt as a child, despite living in a home with both mother and grandmother. These adults were so intent upon providing for Sarah as best they could that they couldn't always satisfy her emotional needs. They were troubled people making the best of their situation, but Sarah was a normal child with intense needs to feel secure and accepted.
"How can you talk about the poor child without addressing the country that let her be so? It's a relatively new way of thinking for me. I was raised to put all responsibility on the individual, on the bootstraps with which she ought to pull herself up. But it's the way of things that environment changes outcomes."
As an adult, Sarah has gained perspective which she lacked as a child. Now she can see how her childhood was the product of a great injustice throughout the country. Poverty is the government's business as well as it is the problem of its citizens. Although Sarah's upbringing prevents her from laying blame, she can identify how the government has failed to protect and provide for the people who need help most.
"Women saying 'my nevers are shot' was the closest anyone came to examining the situation. What they didn't discuss, though, they felt. That's what substances are for."
Sarah remembers how the people in her Kansas community couldn't even communicate about their real problems. Their material problems became so paramount that emotional care was a luxury. They turned to drugs of various kinds to avoid the suffering.
