To the Editor:
Re “Who Killed the Knapp Family?,” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Sunday Review, Jan. 12):
I write in praise of the heartbreaking but beautifully reported story about the problems of Yamhill, Ore., with the losses suffered by the Knapp family as the centerpiece of the ongoing tragedy. Rarely have I read a piece featuring such empathy coupled with such tough-minded analysis. Accurately, in my opinion, the authors locate the heart of the tragedy not in personal shortcomings of substance abuse or irresponsibility but rather in joblessness and other structural issues that have befallen wide swaths of our country.
Those of us who are still fortunate enough to live in some degree of middle-class security, likely in a region that has not yet been visited by the devastation wrought by globalization and automation, can all too easily either ignore the Knapps and their kin or ascribe their problems to moral failure. We need to start paying real attention.
What’s more, our country needs politicians who can grapple with these dislocations and their solutions in public policy without being patronizing and who are willing to be good listeners. And we don’t need leaders who make false promises, such as that coal can make a comeback in West Virginia.
Glenna Matthews
Laguna Beach, Calif.
To the Editor:
As a mother of a heroin addict, I deeply appreciated the individualized and nuanced portrayals of the struggling family members. To finally read about the systemic societal context of this personal suffering was validating and refreshing.
We have been blaming the victims. In New Jersey, we lost over 3,000 people in 2018 to drug overdoses, and not only from blue-collar families. My husband is a chiropractor and I am a psychotherapist. We are doing meaningful work, but we struggle to stay in the middle class.
Our son survived a heroin overdose. He is now in recovery after horrendous efforts to find treatment, two rounds of drug court and a program of intensive supervised parole, which finally worked. Still, he is saddled with a criminal record, which diminishes his financial capacities.
Our family was luckier than the Knapp family, but we are struggling. My gratitude to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn for seeing us with compassion and in context.
Barbara A. Edelhauser
Toms River, N.J.
To the Editor:
It is difficult to imagine that one could read about the fate of the Knapp family and the plight of many other residents of Yamhill, Ore., Nicholas Kristof’s hometown, without being emotionally touched and ever more aware of the pestilence of the drug addiction problem in the United States today and the need for more effective treatment. They help bring this problem home and make it impossible to ignore.
As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with over 40 years of experience as a supervisor and treater of mental illness, including addiction, I have experienced this plague firsthand. Unfortunately we are generally involved only at an already late stage in the addiction cycle. While we have some effective tools, we desperately need more. The authors understand that truly effective treatment of the problem will require robust public policy to intervene at all stages of the problem.
No family should suffer the fate of the Knapps, nor should any community be stricken as has Yamhill.
Warren R. Procci
Pasadena, Calif.
The writer is past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
To the Editor:
Despair is a nationwide epidemic. The tragedy of the Knapp family is one horrific example. As the middle class shrinks, good jobs become fewer and fewer, and a college education is the new normal for an entry-level position, hopelessness is inevitable.
But what your article never mentioned was religion. When life becomes hopeless, there is hope in spirituality. For half a century prayer has been forbidden in schools and church membership shrinks. I’m not suggesting that religion is a panacea, but it is a way to prevent an individual from going over a cliff.
Many distressed and desperate people turn to alcohol and drugs. Yet even at this stage, spirituality offers rescue. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous stress the importance of recognizing a “higher power.” So many people are hurting, and it’s time they look for help by understand this truth.
Rosalind Ellis Heid
Baltimore
To the Editor:
On a glorious September morning in 2012, we found my then 28-year-old nephew, Brooks, hanging from a tree in the backyard of the house he was buying with his fiancée in their small farming community in upstate New York. He and his brother, Toby, and sister, Felicia, were dairy farmers, following in the footsteps of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
Death by suicide is increasing dramatically across this country, as this article points out. What is less evident to many is that the rate of suicide is growing faster among farm families than anyone else. Farm people are stoic folk, and are taught to “pull themselves up by their boot straps,” “get over it” and not talk about such issues.
At my nephew’s funeral, we spoke in painful detail about what had happened, and we had a number of farmers and their family members approach us afterward and thank us for our transparency and for giving them permission to now talk more openly about their own issues.
The farm economy has suffered greatly under the current administration. Dairy farms in particular have been hurt not only because of the international trade wars of the past three years, but also because the industry is still governed by an antiquated federal program that regulates the price each month for milk sold.
An entire generation or two of farm families are now threatened with extinction.
Jeffrey A. Winton
Green Oaks, Ill.
The writer is the owner of Wall Street Dairy.
To the Editor:
I live in rural eastern Maine. My town of 1,300 knows too well the reality described in “Who Killed the Knapp Family?” Of the 16 kids in my younger brother’s graduating class, almost half of them are dead. Time and time again I have read similar stories and wondered: How is it that some individuals find a way to overcome adverse childhood experiences?
There is an answer, and it lies in understanding the power of connection and supports. People are not just born tougher or more resilient, but rather they heal and overcome in relation to the supportive individuals and environments available to them.
Providing these supports is what motivates the work of a program I direct, Cobscook Institute’s Transforming Rural Experience in Education. We work in schools with community partners to provide on-site mental health care, dental care, staple foods and activities that give students a voice and get them more excited about learning. The result has been significant improvements in school climate, attendance and academics.
People in rural America are so hungry for healing. Schools and teachers can and should be part of the answer.
Brittany Ray
Trescott, Me.
To the Editor:
Re “Are My Friends’ Deaths Their Fault or Ours?,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Jan. 19):
When did it become our responsibility to make sure everyone’s life went well for them? Where is their personal responsibility in the matter? If there were no nearby jobs available in Yamhill, why not move to where jobs are? Isn’t that the reason many people moved and emigrated to the United States — to escape poverty and create a better life for their children? Now it’s our responsibility to make sure jobs get placed in Yamhill?
I don’t see a rigged system, or one that “hobbles unions.” I see unions all around us, exacting their economic cut constantly. I see a system in which many immigrants who came with nothing have succeeded and built lives for their families. How could that happen if the system was rigged?
Kathy Jordan
Palo Alto, Calif.
To the Editor:
As I read “Are My Friends’ Deaths Their Fault or Ours?,” the phrase “there but for the grace of God go I” repeatedly ran through my head. The personal responsibility narrative espoused by so many on the right is a way to simultaneously pat themselves on the back for their strength of character while further limiting much-needed resources from a population on whose backs their wealth is built. Even for those who undeniably worked hard to achieve success, there seems to be little acknowledgment of the environment of privilege and advantages ballasting their achievements.
Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” By that metric, the United States is failing miserably.
Connie Chang
San Mateo, Calif.
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