Kasie Molnar's Blog Post 5

My first impression of Flavio’s Home was that it seemed to be a very sad story. It spoke of the horrors of poverty and Flavio’s strength to survive and even the courage to accept death without even thinking about himself but of his brothers and sisters. Flavio’s Home is about the life of a 12 year old boy who has the responsibility of an adult, is able to accept this responsibility and still remain vibrant and hopeful even thought he is suffering form physical illness, poverty, overwork and worry. Throughout the story Gordon Parks explains in detail Flavio’s life, but the thing that seemed most significant to him was how Flavio was able to still smile even though he has such a hard life. While being only a child himself Flavio is able to care for his younger brothers and sisters by preparing food, clean their home and even instructing them to wash themselves. While Flavio and his brothers and sisters accepted Gordon Parks presence their father was not too pleased. He viewed them skeptically as he was not sure of their intentions. I think a lot of times people who are in similar positions have a problem with trusting other people to help them, out of fear that they are doing it out of faulty intentions.

I think that education would be a phenomenal way to move forward in reducing the amount of children born out of ignorance. I also think that perhaps the financial incentives would be good seeing as how I know from people that I knew who were considered poor, who would have used birth control had they been able to afford it.