Katrina Gilbert: From Nobody to Fame and Fulfillment - Essay Sample

Introduction

Katrina Gilbert. A story of once a "nobody." A poor girl from Chickamauga, in the deepest of Georgia. Before her appearance in the 2014 Paycheck to Paycheck documentary by Maria Shriver in collaboration with HBO, Katrina had no story to tell, except that her life was nothing but a misfortune. Katrina will be forever grateful that her appearance in the documentary splashed volumes of heaven-sent light illuminating the darkest corners of her poor living state. Before rising to fame and becoming a face of America's fight against poverty, Katrina Gilbert and her three children lived on $9.49 hourly earnings from her job as a certified nursing assistant (Luhmann, 2017). The once poor and divorced mother now tour the world advocating for transformative programs, delivering talks, and standing up for close to 18 million adult women in America who languish in poverty. In the wake of her glorious dawn, Katrina finds herself by the side of the President as he issues an executive order leading to a better minimum wage for federal contractors.

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According to Ritzer & Stepnisky (2017), families increasingly face a wide range of challenges resulting from both positive and negative life events. From the advancing technology, economic issues frequently impact the daily livelihood of families. Issues like blurred gender roles resulting from divorce, remarriage, unwed parenting, mobility, and immigration included other stressors leading to imbalances in families. Recent studies indicate that US families struggle with a constant sense of stress and insecurity due to severe economic downturns. Cases of unemployment are on the rise, and families are losing pensions, savings investments, and benefits. With this background knowledge, we can see Katrina's life story as being a direct reflection of the challenges that many poor working citizens continue to struggle with

Families seen as havens for individuals weighed down by external pressures. Today, however, families have become increasingly unable to hold one's emotions together. It is not only a result of inherent family issues but also due to the severity of everyday social change. Young members of the family today continue to struggle with the realization of the shrinking opportunities and resources as compared to the earlier times of their parents and grandparents. Life events and transitions (as in the life of Katrina) often come with disturbances and pressure. Looking back in the life of Katrina, she was once a happily married woman with a loving husband. Still, the inevitable events leading to their divorce exposed her to life's pressures pushing her into a problematic way of life.

Family stress researchers now approach family stressors with the coping perspective and not family dysfunction and crisis. Researchers are now more interested in arriving at a fitting explanation regarding the difference in management and endurance of stressors among families. Cognitive coping strategies look into how a member of a family alters their subjective attitude towards their stressful events. Sociological coping theories emphasize a series of actions aimed at either alleviating distress or altering the stressful situation. Studies centered on families and children who thrive under adversity have also linked family adaption to resilience. It is the ability to stretch in response to stressors of life. Resilience generally refers to the strength to cope as displayed by families who seem to do well when faced with challenges. The ability to handle stressors positively eventually leads to outcomes that are better than those obtained in the absence of difficulties (Luhmann, 2017). However, the unwavering determination to cope, the actual ability to go in and come out from the other side remains a challenge to many.

Breakthrough cases such as Katrina's are hard to come by. The possible explanation for this is the hard-to-crack environment within which these challenges occur. These include hard economic times and social disintegration. Katrina, narrating her success story, is surprised to discover that there are a lot more cases of struggles among other poor women on the lowest end of the social rank. Theirs are cases that, unfortunately, haven't benefitted from being told in the limelight like Katrina's.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Katrina is a story representative of countless other stories that typically paint a true picture of the daily struggles that many families go through. Katrina has only tasted a small cut of life above the poverty line. Despite a stream of small donations, she and her daughter received, Katrina has not completely crossed over to better standards of living. According to Harbison, the documentary helped her financially but didn't get her out of poverty entirely. However, according to Katrina, she did not want to come out as a pitiable, poor woman badly in need of help (Homans, 2017). She intended that reality hits the nation to prompt a decisive action that would deliver millions of moms who are going through tough times to provide for their kids. Playing an active role in pushing for the broader picture, Gilbert now works part-time but focusses much on the media technology degree that she had after that enrolled. She wants to continue advocating for the welfare of the working poor. Katrina boldly faces the fact that the proceeds from her fame and the small donations she receives will eventually dry. She's, therefore, working hard to be self-sufficient and bring in a difference, not just for herself but for everyone. Hopefully, she continues to inspire the lives of other moms living under difficult conditions to rise beyond their limitations and make a difference.

References

Homans, G.C., (2017), Contemporary theory in sociology. Sociological Methods, 51-69. doi: 10.4324/9781315129945-6

Luhmann, N., (2017), risk: A sociological theory. Routledge. Retrieved 15 February 2020, from https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/230535?mobileUi=0

Ritzer, G., Stepnisky, J., (2017), modern sociological theory. Sage Publications Retrieved 15 February 2020, from https://le.ac.uk/modules/2019/sy3079