Still boys, soon to be fathers: Street Potential in the Globe
Posted by Louise Packard on Fri, Jun 18, 2010
In today’s Globe is an Op Ed by Tom Matlack of the Good Men Project. A few months back, he interviewed three of our Street Potential participants for a piece called “Still boys, soon to be fathers.” Tom presents quotes from our guys without editorial comment. For most Globe readers, the quotes will be jarring. They are also authentic – and give us a small window into the minds of boys who have grown up with absent fathers, in poor and dangerous neighborhoods where despair consistently triumphs over hope.
I believe in these three boys. I believe in their deep humanity. I believe in their potential. And I know how much they have changed in the past year. How wounded they have been and how much healing has happened through the community they created with us at Street Potential. I have baked oatmeal cookies with these boys and I have talked with them about domestic violence. One just graduated from high school. Another is determined to stay in summer school and earn his diploma by the end of August. The third just started YouthBuild, a program which will help him earn his GED and teach him a trade. None of that was more than a glimmer of a dream when they walked in the door in September.
A childhood of trauma doesn’t turn around with a quick fix. As I read the comments already being posted on the Globe website, the tension is between empathy and blame. It is tempting to think that these boys are the problem. That they are the cause of violence in the streets, poor results in our public schools, and endless infusions of tax-payer dollars.
But rather than pointing the finger at them, let’s instead point the finger at ourselves. How are we working to be part of the solution? Are we advocating for Roxbury and Mattapan and neighborhoods all over the Commonwealth and the country that need what Street Potential is providing – love, hope, safe community and primary attention to mental health care? Street Potential costs about $15,000 per student per year. Incarceration costs five times that amount.
The theory behind Street Potential is that without a significant intervention of – dare we say it – fathering (and mothering), all the educational and career programs in the world won’t make a difference. On the cover of our 2009 Annual Report we quoted Willa Cather: “Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” Whatever name we might put to that Great Love, it is finally the only thing that is going to change the odds for our youth, for our communities and for us. We can bear witness to that Love in programs like Street Potential. If you feel inclined, go ahead and comment on the Globe’s website – it is a great opportunity for all of us to stand behind our youth and stand up for Love.
Finally, allow me to introduce you to Leon, born after Tom wrote the piece, but in time to celebrate his first Father’s Day. Leon not only has a committed father and mother, but through all of us at the Foundation, has more aunts and uncles than any child I know.
EDIT: Tom's piece, which had been edited for publication in the Globe was published in full in the Huffington Post.