The Secret Stories: The Myths of Homeless Children

[CynthiaCypher]

You all probably read about this before.

Around 1997, journalist Lynda Edwards writing for New Times wrote a piece on the myths of homeless children in the Miami area, what I found remarkable was the complexity of the myth and how they explained the world through the eyes of these children who were in a dire crisis situation. As a child there was an element of folklore and myth in my environment but it was nothing like this. It seems that these children not only develop these myths to explain their world but to survive and cope inside of it.

I will give you this example of the myth from the Lynda Edward's piece and then we can discuss it:

"To homeless children sleeping on the street, neon is as comforting as a night-light. Angels love colored light too. After nightfall in downtown Miami, they nibble on the NationsBank building -- always drenched in a green, pink, or golden glow. "They eat light so they can fly," eight-year-old Andre tells the children sitting on the patio of the Salvation Army's emergency shelter on NW 38th Street. Andre explains that the angels hide in the building while they study battle maps. "There's a lot of killing going on in Miami," he says. "You want to fight, want to learn how to live, you got to learn the secret stories." The small group listens intently to these tales told by homeless children in shelters.

On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack -- a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. "Demons found doors to our world," adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons' gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with "black windows." The demons are nourished by dark human emotions: jealousy, hate, fear."

Myths Over Miami | Miami New Times

Did the homeless children and mythology of "Myths Over Miami" exist? Do they still? : AskSocialScience

 

[Curious George]

Um, maybe a couple imaginative young peoples created some stories and some journalist recorded them or maybe some journalist took some liberties in order to write a piece. I was a homeless kid, and where I grew up I never learned some special homeless mythology. I am not sure that the diversity and transitional nature of homelessness would generate a religious culture hidden from the general population.

 

[kashmir]

This is so sad, what the hell is wrong with humanity?

 

[Sleeppy]

Kids are imaginative.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Um, maybe a couple imaginative young peoples created some stories and some journalist recorded them or maybe some journalist took some liberties in order to write a piece. I was a homeless kid, and where I grew up I never learned some special homeless mythology. I am not sure that the diversity and transitional nature of homelessness would generate a religious culture hidden from the general population.

I don't if I could speak to your experience because I wasn't a homeless child. But when I was a child I was very well aware of the culture of being a child, we had our own lore, told incredible stories that we all believed were real, we had ritualistic play in which we would act out in order to participate in a world we were coming to understand. As children we just didn't have the skill to reinterpret and filter reality like the adults do, so we saw more than they did and we understood it differently.

When we become adults we tend to forget that these things were once part of our childhood, that children deal with reality in ways that are radically different than the way adults deal with reality. We all lose our childhood and with it we lose our ability to see it unfiltered.

 

[Curious George]

I don't if I could speak to your experience because I wasn't a homeless child. But when I was a child I was very well aware of the culture of being a child, we had our own lore, told incredible stories that we all believed were real, we had ritualistic play in which we would act out in order to participate in a world we were coming to understand. As children we just didn't have the skill to reinterpret and filter reality like the adults do, so we saw more than they did and we understood it differently.

When we become adults we tend to forget that these things were once part of our childhood, that children deal with reality in ways that are radically different than the way adults deal with reality. We all lose our childhood and with it we lose our ability to see it unfiltered.

some kids don't have time for childhood.

 

[Badran]

You all probably read about this before.

Around 1997, journalist Lynda Edwards writing for New Times wrote a piece on the myths of homeless children in the Miami area, what I found remarkable was the complexity of the myth and how they explained the world through the eyes of these children who were in a dire crisis situation. As a child there was an element of folklore and myth in my environment but it was nothing like this. It seems that these children not only develop these myths to explain their world but to survive and cope inside of it.

I will give you this example of the myth from the Lynda Edward's piece and then we can discuss it:

I'm confused by something.

Do you just find this interesting, or are you proposing it as something that is specifically common (or more common) among children who are homeless?