Family

Captains Blog: Day 5

If you know anything about that south then you know that family is very important.  I am very familiar with this concept because I have a lot of family in Arkansas.  I grew up with my cousins, and every Sunday Grandma and Grandpa would take us to church and then everyone would go to their house for family dinner.  No matter what happens in life I know that I can always always always count on my family.  This is the same in the Cherokee culture, they are very family oriented and make sure to take care of each other.  The Cherokee people really look up to their elders and an elder in the community is very respected.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we live in a society where more and more grandparents are taking care of their grandchildren because the parents are not around.  It is not legal for a non Cherokee person to foster a Cherokee child and unfortunately there is a large need for it in their community.  The Cherokee people have so many services available for them, but one service that is lacking is prenatal care.  They do not necessarily get the care and education that they need and this unfortunately results in a lot of unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and drug abuse during and after pregnancies.  The area out here is also very rural so the closest hospital to deliver is Mission Hospital and that is over an hour driver from Cherokee, imagine a high risk pregnancy...

There is a lot of support in the community and fortunately there are members of the community willing to step up and help, but that becomes detrimental to their health.  Just imagine being in your 70’s and the only person who is able to take care of your 2 year old great grandchild...I have trouble keeping up with my 6 year old in my mid 30s.  I understand why they want to keep Cherokee children within their community, but this is a cycle that really does not seem to be beneficial for the elder or the child.  I want to really dive into the addiction problem in the community, but I am going to have to give that its own blog.  I will say though that with addiction, comes help.  There are many resources available within the hospital and church’s that are designed to combat this issue.  The Cherokee people have overcome much harder things in history so I am hopeful that these new developments will really help.  They are very fortunate to have what they have and that is because they are resilient.

Check out my next blog.  My take on addiction in this country and how to be apart of the solution, not the problem.