Joining Hands

By Deborah L. Cohen

In San Antonio, a teenage boy breezes through a housing project on a bicycle, balancing a young child on his lap and a bottle of beer in his hand. In Bardstown, Ky., a young widowed mother who has a sick child and has just been diagnosed with cancer herself is afraid to schedule more doctors' visits because she can't pay the bills. In Philadelphia, a teacher in a middle school that has a curriculum to help disadvantaged children rise above their difficulties finds her car windows have been smashed in the parking lot.

In Lancaster, Pa., a teenage father says he and his ex-girlfriend made the choice to have a baby because they wanted to experience the love they couldn't find in their own families. In Atlanta, a teenage mentor in an adolescent pregnancy-prevention program mentions that her brother is recovering from a gunshot wound he got on the way to the market. In Milwaukee, kindergartners in a school with a high mobility rate don't bother to learn each others' names.

From quaint Vermont towns to sprawling North Dakota American Indian reservations, fractured families are struggling to make ends meet. And children are showing up at school bruised and abused, hungry and depressed. Some succumb to drugs, alcohol, and gangs;...