+
upworthy
More

John Legend visits 'Sesame Street' to talk about kids with incarcerated parents.

Both Legend and "Sesame Street" have been doing work on this topic for years.

"Sesame Street" is at its best when it's tackling some of life's trickier issues, and their new video is no exception.

Singer John Legend sat down with the cast of "Sesame Street" to discuss the 2.7 million U.S. children with parents in jail or prison. The short segment featured a few of these kids telling some of the "Sesame Street" characters how they cope with not being able to see their parents on a regular basis. (A lot of them seem to enjoy drawing pictures.)

There's sadness in the kids' voices, but it's inspiring to see some of the creative ways they're dealing with the hand they've been given.


"We incarcerate so many people, and a lot of times we forget about their kids that are left behind and how it feels for them to be without parents," Legend told People magazine about his appearance. "The emotional effect that it has on them, the financial effect it has on their families as well — I think a lot of times we forget about that toll of incarcerating so many people."

Legend's "Sesame Street" appearance highlights some of the collateral damage caused by mass incarceration, including the damaging and lasting financial and social effects it has on an inmate's family and children. When you factor in the types of challenges a child might have going from a two-income household to a single-income household (or even a household without any income at all), it could result in that child being more likely to live below the poverty line or wind up incarcerated themselves.

This isn't the first time "Sesame Street" has centered the lives and stories of kids affected by parental incarceration.

Back in 2013, they introduced a new character named Alex, whose backstory included that his dad was in prison.

Alex's big episode also featured a really powerful animated short about what it's like for these kids to visit family in prison and how painful and sad it can be to be kept at such a distance from some of the people they love more than anything in the world.

The following year, Sesame Workshop teamed up with a group of young filmmakers who've had a parent in prison to make the Echoes of Incarceration Project, which seeks to address the very specific issues these kids have to deal with.

The finished product is a truly gut-wrenching watch where you see just how children have, in many cases, become collateral damage in our culture of mass incarceration.

Luckily, there are things that you (yes, you!) can do to help out — and that help is sorely needed, especially around the holidays.

"Sesame Street's" Little Children, Big Challenges project contains a lot of really great resources for families with children aged 3 to 8 to address some of the specific challenges they'll face as the result of their parents' incarceration.

Kids might have questions like, "Who will take me to school?" or "Is this my fault?" Some of the Little Children, Big Challenges resources help walk through some of those commonly-asked questions and struggles.

In 2015, Legend launched Free America, a campaign aimed at changing how we, as a country, discuss incarceration and the criminal justice system as a whole.

Organizations like New York's Children of Promise, In Arms Reach, and Hour Children; Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree Christmas present project; Alabama's SKIP, Inc.; Florida's Children of Inmates; Georgia's Foreverfamily; Rutgers University's National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated; and national group Rainbows For All Children all do work addressing this important issue and could use a little extra support. (Disclaimer: Be sure to check out their websites before donating to make sure you're comfortable with where your money is going.)

These kids deserve as much love and support as anyone else, and we can help give them the start in life that they're owed.

True

After over a thousand years of peaceful relations, European semi-superpowers Sweden and Switzerland may finally address a lingering issue between the two nations. But the problem isn’t either country’s fault. The point is that the rest of the world can’t tell them apart. They simply don’t know their kroppkakor (Swedish potato dumpling) from their birchermüesli (a Swiss breakfast dish).

This confusion on the European continent has played out in countless ways.

Swedish people who move to the United States often complain of being introduced as Swiss. The New York Stock Exchange has fallen victim to the confusion, and a French hockey team once greeted their Swiss opponents, SC Bern, by playing the Swedish National Anthem and raising the Swedish flag.

Skämtar du med mig? (“Are you kidding me?” in Swedish)

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Heroic sanitation workers save abducted, 10-year-old girl while on their trash route

"I was just doing my job man. I was just doing my job and actually came across somebody who needed help."

via Dion Merrick / Facebook

At 1:30 am on a Monday morning in February, an AMBER Alert went out in southern Louisiana about a missing 10-year-old girl from New Iberia. It was believed she had been kidnapped and driven away in a 2012 silver Nissan Altima.

A few hours later at 7 am, Dion Merrick and Brandon Antoine, sanitation workers for Pelican Waste, were on their daily route when they noticed a vehicle that fit the description in the alert.

Keep ReadingShow less
Humor

Woman shares wedding album her mom made that’s making people crack up

The photos were beautiful, but there was something hilariously wrong with the captions.

Woman's wedding gift from her mom is making people laugh.

There's no denying that a wedding day is a special memory most people want to hold onto for the rest of their lives. It's the reason people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on wedding pictures and hand out disposable cameras to guests—to capture memories from all angles, including behind-the-scenes moments that you may forget due to the nerves beforehand.

One mother of the bride decided to take her daughter's beautiful wedding photos and create a special personalized photo album. But upon further inspection of the gift, the bride noticed that something was amiss. Niki Hunt, told Good Morning America that when her mom, Sherry Noblett, gave her the wedding album at brunch, she admitted she may have messed up.

"She’s very crafty, so usually when she says something like that, it’s something really small. I'm thinking some of the pictures are askew, or whatever," Hunt explained to GMA.

Keep ReadingShow less

Mariandrea Villegas dancing with Phil Wright at The Dance Awards.

Humans may not always recognize greatness right away, but sometimes it's so clear it simply can't be denied.

You don't have to be a dancer yourself to see when someone's got moves, and a viral video from choreographer Phil Wright spotlights a kid who's got moves. Like, wow.

Mariandrea Villegas may be tiny, but she packs a mighty amount of energy, skill, coordination and x-factor into her dancing. Oh and joy. Did I mention joy?

Keep ReadingShow less

Prepare to get Thatcherized.

It seems that Adele is going viral once again.

Perhaps you’ve seen the image in question previously (it seems to make the rounds every couple of years). But in case you missed it—it’s Adele’s face. Normal, just upside down.

Only it’s not normal. In fact, when you turn Adele’s face right side up, what you notice is that her eyes and mouth were actually right-side up THE ENTIRE TIME, even though the entire head was upside down. So when you turn the head right side up, the eyes and mouth are now UPSIDE-DOWN—and you can’t unsee it. Do you feel like you're Alice in Wonderland yet?

Keep ReadingShow less

The gaze of the approving Boomer.

Over the past few years, Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) have been getting a lot of grief from the generations that came after them, Gen X (1965 to 1980), Millenials (1981 to 1996), and now, Gen Z (1997 to 2012). Their grievances include environmental destruction, wealth hoarding, political polarization, and being judgemental when they don’t understand how hard it is for younger people to make it in America these days.

Every Baby Boomer is different, so it's wrong to paint them all with a broad brush. But it’s undeniable that each generation shares common values, and some are bound to come into conflict.

However, life in 2023 isn’t without its annoyances. Many that came about after the technological revolution put a phone in everyone’s hands and brought a whole new host of problems. Add the younger generations' hands-on approach to child rearing and penchant for outrage, and a lot of moden life has become insufferanble.

Keep ReadingShow less