Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

Chanel was a recovering crack addict with two little girls—Dasani, then a toddler, and Avianna, still a baby. Supreme was a barber whose first wife had died of heart disease, leaving him with two small children of his own: Khaliq, who had trouble speaking, and Nana, who had trouble seeing. These two single parents and their four children merged. After getting married, Chanel and Supreme had another four children, bringing their collective brood to eight. The sheer size of their family can make strangers stare in judgment. Chanel imagines their thoughts: She is a “welfare mom,” having children to profit from the system. She is careless with her body, hopping from man to man without contraception. She is financially reckless, producing more mouths than she can feed. To each of these judgments, Chanel has an answer. She’d like to meet the mother who endures childbirth, six times over, for some extra food stamps “that barely last the month.” She is nobody’s “baby mama.” She is—unlike many women of higher stature and lighter skin—a stubbornly devoted wife, faithful to one man, with whom she is raising one family. Chanel did not have her children by accident. She had them by design, planning for this small army of siblings, seeing strength in their bond. “This is a cruel world,” she tells me. “I didn’t want them to be hurt from the world. I wanted them to rely on each other. So they don’t need to depend on people who aren’t family—people on the street who call them ‘sister’ and ...