An eighty-eight minute documentary on the effects of poverty on children, traces what is necessary for optimal development of a human being through the developmental stages of childhood and documents what is lacking for the children of poverty.

It shows how the world we are born into shapes each of us and why the children of poverty are destined to inherit the life of their parents."

1978 Peabody Awards entry form. The documentary begins with footage of children in poverty playing, and several people talk about being raised in poverty, raising their own children in poverty, and being on Welfare. Experts discuss how the world a child is born into shapes their mental and physical development.