I was raised in extreme poverty and could tell the long, sad story of my childhood poverty and all of the negative effects of it.  That's really depressing, though.  I will instead tell you about my husband's grandmother, Opal.  Opal was a child of The Great Depression.  She was one of several children.  Her family was close and they all had a lot of loving support from each other during this time.  Opal spoke often about The Great Depression and how hard it was.  However, these horrible times always had stories of great memories.  Opal's mom gave them each a baked potato hot out of the oven every morning and they carried it to school to keep their hands warm because they couldn't afford gloves.  They would put this potato in their desk and then take it out and eat it at lunch.  Opal could make anything.  I will not say that it was all tasty, amazing, or even a good idea, but her upbringing in extreme poverty had taught her how to make something from nothing.  She bought 2 ply toilet paper and separated each ply into it's own roll of 1 ply so that she could get 2 rolls of toilet paper from one.  She thought it silly that anyone really felt that they needed 2 ply.  She made her own ketchup, mustard, etc.  No way would she pay hard earned money for things that could be made with a little hard work.  Growing up in extreme poverty had taught Opal to value family.  It taught her to never be wasteful or to take things for granted.  It taught her to be resourceful and creative.  It taught her to be strong.
     When thinking of children in other countries living in poverty, my mind when to all of the pictures we see on television of the starving children in third world countries that could be saved if we would just give pennies a day to them.  I started looking into this, but then I wandered about children who lived in poverty in countries that we didn't consider to be poor.  I looked into the number of children in Sweden that were living in poverty and I was surprised that the number of children in poverty is actually quite high there.  Sweden has many supports in place to try to combat the number of children living in poverty.  The government has programs to get companies to hire people out of unemployment, they have subsidies to help pay day care so that parents with children can work, they have child benefits that are paid to the parents to help with the cost associated with providing for children, etc.  Sweden has many governmental programs to assist families raising children to try to help lower their number of children in poverty.  However, it must also be noted that the definition of a child in poverty in Sweden does not mean that these children are hungry or that their most basic needs are not met.  It only means that the children cannot participate in the same activities and hold the same lifestyle as other "normal" children (http://socpol.duth.gr/SWEDEN.doc).