How Poverty Affects The Family Unit

By Robin Fleming

“Family.” How would you define it? What images and emotions come to mind? You may describe relationships by blood, adoption, and marriage or more broadly include those people one chooses to walk arm-in-arm through life with. “Family” may bring you thoughts of togetherness, support, connection, love… you can fill out the list. It may also mean being in relationships that test you, weathering a crisis (or two or three) together, grieving the loss of someone close to you, or enduring uncomfortable conversations during the holidays.

Now imagine that the normal ups and downs of family life are further complicated by insufficient income to meet your needs. Because of this, you spend significant time and energy trying to make ends meet, preventing shut-off notices and late fees, searching for additional resources, and generally worrying over how this is all going to work out. You now have less capacity to be present to your family physically, mentally, and emotionally, and you may also pay less attention to values and spiritual practices. It’s difficult to be patient, thoughtful, engaged, and intentional when your attention and energy are focused on surviving, so your relationships become strained and distant.

Imagine that as the stress of expectations, deadlines, and the desire to succeed trigger feelings of inadequacy, failure, resentment, and fear, you feel an increased pull toward addictions, dependencies, and other unhealthy coping behaviors. Imagine that the same thing is happening for your spouse, partner, or someone else in your household. Now your differences in values, decision-making, problem-solving styles, coping skills, etc. all seem bigger, your conflicts become more intense, and the emotional distance between you increases.

In hard seasons, maybe you consider resources such as counseling or written material that can provide guidance and space to process these things and respond in helpful ways. But you don’t feel like you have the space for any of this. Who’s going to pay for it? Who’s going to watch the kids? How are you going to find the time to get there and back, let alone take the hour for the appointment?!

In addition, sometimes individuals reach out repeatedly to family members for financial assistance, help with childcare, or a place to stay. Over time, those family members may feel worn out by this and decide they have had enough, resulting in further breakdown of relationships. Rightly or wrongly (and every situation is unique), the strain of poverty has become the final straw.

This is life in survival mode, where the focus is on preventing disaster and solving urgent problems and where there is little capacity for thinking about the big picture or making decisions for the long term. While necessary and helpful in crisis, survival mode as a way of life creates behavior patterns that perpetuate and intensify problems and strain family relationships.

The cycle tends to continue through generations. Overwhelmed parents who are operating in survival mode often struggle to remain attentive, intentional, consistent, and patient toward their children. When this happens, children learn unhealthy and reactive ways of coping and take on roles and emotional burdens they are not ready for. The baggage of emotional wounds and unhealthy mindsets make it more difficult to escape poverty themselves. And so the patterns of living are carried on.

As we think about the effect of poverty on family relationships, consider how financial insecurity has possibly impacted your own family.

• Have you seen a lack of resources put a strain on relationships? What other resources or tools might have helped people cope better?
• How have you and your family overcome financial difficulties while maintaining loving relationships? What strengths and resources have been helpful?