Question 1
The Historical narrative asserts that children from low-income families are a burden to the parents and public in Ireland. Additionally, it is believed that the remedy for poverty and street begging is to allow the poor Irish people to sell their children to wealthy families to ease the economic burden caused by the offsprings. In such a case, the high cost of maintaining children would be channeled to other profitable ventures that will bring greater benefits to the entire population of Ireland. This argument among several others in the historical narrative does not incorporate the young, poor children of Ireland in the quest to attain lasting solutions to the problem. I would demonstrate that street children would not be burdensome to the nation and parents if given an opportunity to be useful and thus, to counter the historical narrative perspective.
Question 2
The myth serves the interest of the wealthy communities in Ireland. It insinuates that poor people need to depend on the wealthy population for survival. Additionally, the narrative presents the argument that there should be a drastic population reduction to limit the number of low-income families. The suggested approach to achieve this end is reducing the number of females to lower the chances of them giving birth to children who end up on the streets. The selected breeding is aimed at minimizing the number of children born to low-income families and increasing the wealthy class of Ireland; therefore, the narrative serves the interest of wealthy people.
Question 3
The street children are overlooked in this context. The historical narrative perpetuates the culture of discrimination by undervaluing the poor in the Ireland society. It is evident that arguments that are supported by the narrative have major faults, including the lack of supporting data to prove the authenticity of the evidence presented and a broad generalization of the problem experienced by the country. Moreover, vaguely accepting these claims without rigorously assessing the alternatives approaches can lead to wrong conclusions. The claims that population increase contributes to poverty is an example of a vague assumption that is not based on facts. Hence, I disagree with the narrative that population increase causes poverty in a particular country; the corresponding data also does not support the assertion. Apparently, most of the performing economies in the world have a high population but still perform well; they even outdo countries that have low population. For instance, the statistics show that the best economies in the world currently are China, the United States, and Russia, which have huge populations.
Question 4
I am interested in deconstructing this historical narrative because it is not founded on the truth. Counterarguments are supported by the current research that makes it easy to compare how poor children can be uplifted to bring the best for the country as a whole. The approach that I propose for the problem facing Ireland is investing in the young ones by developing a just framework that promotes inclusion, budgeting, and policy for them. The country can invest a portion of its financial resources to help the children to develop themselves into responsible adults, which can be achieved through education. Moreover, the world can come together and develop strategies that can eradicate poverty among young Irish children. Giving maximum attention to develop programs that can reframe their lives while planning the budget and economic policies can help mitigate the issue regarding children being perceived as a burden to the public and parents.
Work Cited
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.” Child & Youth Care Forum, 24 (1) 1995, pp. 5-12.