I think I sort of understand some of it, after my niece showed us the "other side".
She had four kids, all by different fathers. One of the fathers is in prison for child molestation (someone else's kid, he never got caught with his own). There is a whole generation being raised by people who think of them as another possession, like an ipod. They love their ipod, but they put it away if they have another interest.
These kids never slept on sheets, never knew what clean clothes felt like, and rode piled on top of one another in cars, learning to watch for police cars so they could duck down.
THey were locked out of the trailer while their mom entertained a boyfriend, and ran in packs in the trailer park. They watched out for the police so their mom and whoever she was with could sell drugs in the living room. They periodically lost everything they owned when their mom got kicked out of another rental. Their mom always had a boyfriend, and often out of luck friends stayed with them for a while. Sometimes these friends molested or abused the children.They didn't know anything being taught at the school, but knew the visiting hours for the jail, times the police cars came by, and how to molest other children.
They never got medical care or dental care, but mom always had internet service, ipods, etc. I just think the kids grow up only getting attention when it's convenient, and knowing they are not that important to anyone. As all the details of their daily existence and the things they saw and learned were revealed, it was pretty disgusting.
Luckily for this bunch, the state took them away from her. My younger sister took the whole bunch in, and for the first time they saw someone making them the center of her life- she quit a job so she could move them closer to family, got them the medical, dental, and psychiatric care they needed. They learned to change their sheets once a week, help out with laundry and chores, and had schedules and discipline. They aren't perfect- they aren't from the best genetics and have some developmental problems, but they went from "special" slow students to honor roll students. Every day they sit down as a family for a meal, and they see a man and woman treating each other respectfully, and working every day. TV is limited, but they are involved in other activities and get to see what a "normal" life was like.
It's not just money- it's the way the parents act and how they treat the children. My husband was born in a foxhole during a civil war, and raised on rice and salt because of the famine created by the civil war, but during all the hard times the children were the most important things in their parent's lives, and they made many sacrifices so that the family could survive. They did not do things that would actually endanger the children, (something that is common in my niece's world). They had nothing, but they still raised their kids to be respectful, hard working, and moral.
It was shocking to me to realize there is an entire culture out there whose children are NOT the most important things in their lives- possessions and friends take priority over even their children. What it does to the kids is trouble for all the rest of us. I think they can shoot somebody for real, without a second thought, I don't think they are raised thinking that life means very much.
vickie