Go to Making Light's front page.
Forward to next post: Tryin’ to find out what I didn’t know
Subscribe (via RSS) to this post's comment thread. (What does this mean? Here's a quick introduction.)
You know that involuntary little sharp intake of breath that we sometimes experience when a writer nails exactly the right telling detail?
John Scalzi on what being poor actually entails.
Forgot one: Being poor means no change ever did you any good. Your people live in New Orleans for generations, seen and got over many floods and storms. They're familiar. Picking up and leaving town to go live among strangers? That's scary.
Being poor means having no margin for error in any action you take.
Quoting Chekhov from memory, and therefore approximately, "The rich take for granted the things we paid for with our youth."
Being poor means the only retail in your neighborhood sells worthless crap, fraudulently mislabeled goods, and half-spoiled food, and charges as much or more as you'd pay for better merchandise in a better neighborhood.
Being poor means the only clinics in your area are operated on a for-profit basis, have obviously incompetent doctors, and stick tests they never performed onto your bill if they find out you have insurance coverage; and when you phone them to say you're having an allergic reaction to the injection they gave you, have to set the receiver down and audibly rummage through the wastebasket for the discarded packaging the injectible material came in, because the clinic doesn't own a copy of the Physicians Desk Reference.
Been there, done that, got rid of most of the T-shirts from those days.
Jim's family was on welfare. Mine wasn't, but as Jim was a Catholic school teacher the first two years we were married, we lived right on the poverty level during the time he was teaching and I was in college. So I remember all of the things John Scalzi talks about. Not having a car. Not having enough credit to get a credit card. Not eating out for months at a time (except, maybe, for a pizza). I had surgery at one point, and while our insurance covered it, we had literally no spare money for a time because I could not work for six weeks. When I told a relative that I had to take a bus home from the hospital, he handed me $5.00 so I could take a cab home. Five whole dollars! It was an amazing sum of money for us at that time.
I often say that while money truly does not buy you happiness, it does buy you choices. Just about anyone with any means got the hell out of New Orleans last week, leaving the poor, the sick, and a shockingly holey safety net.
I didn't start crying until I got to the Goodwill underwear. That, I think, was the line in my family...
--claire (who grew up in NYC Hell's Kitchen and came from poor)
Being poor means living in the state park for months and always having to change your camping spot because you're only allowed to camp there for a couple of days. It also means not realizing that meant you were homeless because you thought camping out was groovy.
Thank you for sharing--that's a very poignant post. The last thing anyone should do in this situation is blame those who were already disenfranchised, and who now have even less than that.
And also:
Being poor means getting locked into a disaster zone by your government because they're afraid of you.
I look at that list, coming from what is the richest country in the world. Ones that stick out are all the medical and schooling ones - a Welfare State is a Good Thing. Also the thinking that $8/hour is good money - it's very close to our minimum wage. Finally, the payday loans are something I keep having to ask "are they for real???" despite having seen repeated references to them. *shudder*
The car based ones stick out as well as a Londoner - but that is also partly to do with both public transport being better here and with petrol (gas) prices being higher here.
Still, I've always had a total of one definition of poor:
Being poor is not planning for the future - not because you don't want to, but because you need all the planning you can do to make it through the present.
Francis, I don't know about the UK, but in the US, many jobs open to the poor simply do not pay minimum wage (which can vary by state; there is a federal 'floor'). Working any job for tips, like waiting tables, means you don't get minimum wage. And there are plenty of employers who ignore the law, because they know damn well you can't afford to quit and find another job, or risk reporting them to the government because ditto.
Oh, and being poor means you don't complain about sexual harassment or unsafe working conditions.
The law in its majesty prescribes mandatory evacuation with your own vehicle and means for the poor and the rich alike.
Growing up poor means being able to joke about waiting in line for welfare food -- and finding out it wasn't normal for all of us.
Growing up poor means taking non-academic jobs if they pay enough, even if it means that you're sabotaging your academic career
Growing up poor is not knowing how to cook expensive meat and fish, but you can make a chicken stretch to a couple weeks of meals.
Poor is knowing where they set out the bread after it's been on the 'day old' rack ... and looking forward to it.
Poor is knowing many, many noodle recipes by heart, but very few that use meat or many spices.
Poor is not going to your family's house on the holidays, because you can't afford to bring anything.
If that didn't make you feel crappy enough, Nick Mamatas has a list of what it means to be even poorer.
Avram: If that didn't make you feel crappy enough...
It didn't make me feel crappy. Truthfully, it made me thankful for my own hardscrabble background. Not quite poor, but not quite struggling working class either. My mom, a single parent, had a stable job which provided good benefits (no dental though - I could use some ortodonture) and a modest, barely sustaining income.
When I think back on what we ate, I realized that she pinched every penny, but there was always enough, even for unexpected guests. It never felt like we were as marginal as we were, although we did eat a lot of pasta, soups and rice and beans.
We also lived in decent places that others would sometimes disdain. For instance, for several years we had a nice, spacious apartment over a store in a slightly rundown building that had once been a hotel. Today, I wouldn't consider such a situation, but back then, it was great.
I try not to forget that I'm doing far better than most, although not as well as many. I also don't hesitate to remind people, when they're moaning about the price of gas that they can at least afford it.
I can't say that I know what it's like to be poor, but I can see that most of us don't have far to fall to find out.
Francis, I got a large postcard in the mail today from a "payday loan" company. Fortunately, they only know me as "current resident."
John said: "Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor."
When I was emancipated and my younger brother's guardian, we frequently had popcorn the last few meals before payday. It's pretty cheap. And one day, with the last of the popcorn, I opened the wrong hatch on the salt cylinder and poured a third cup or so of salt into the popcorn, making it unusable. My brother still brings it up.
My brother is now back in the US after being a missionary for another year and because he hasn't had a paying job for a year, they couldn't rent a place to live. A church organization is letting them live in an apartment owned by the church. When we spoke on the phone the other day, he was talking about school starting and being short of money for school clothes for his kids, but when I recommended thrift shops, he laughed as if I was making a joke. I guess it's a good thing he doesn't know that most of his school clothes during his last two years of high school and first two years of college came from thrift stores.
Carl:
Poor is not going to your family's house on the holidays, because you can't afford to bring anything.
We used to always scrimp to get the $1.99 (or, if we were lucky, almost past its sell date and $.99) bag of potato chips and take that as our "passing dish."
Teresa, afaik everyone (well-off, poor, with insurance, without insurance) is at risk for being charged for drugs, procedures, etc. they didn't receive if they go to a hospital.
If you're poor, you've probably got fewer resources for challenging the overcharges.
Bellatrys has a superlative rant here about southern poverty.
How do you answer folks like Neil Boortz ("Capitalist Robber Barons R Us") who seem to think that all it takes to stop being poor is to get out and do something about it?? I feel like I know intuitively it isn't as easy as that, but I'm not sure how to marshall the arguments.
How do you answer folks like Neil Boortz ("Capitalist Robber Barons R Us") who seem to think that all it takes to stop being poor is to get out and do something about it?? I feel like I know intuitively it isn't as easy as that, but I'm not sure how to marshall the arguments.
Neocon Republican philosophy like this can't be answered, because they literally don't understand where the rest of us are coming from. (These are the same folks who brought us 'trickle down' economics, remember.) They think that having won once, they are guaranteed future wins, world without end, amen. Also there's the New Calvinism: wealth and power show that God loves you (see Pat Robertson and the 700 Club). (My Calvinist great-grandfather would be appalled, if he were alive. And probably is anyway.)
When I try clicking on enjay's link to the Bellatrys rant, I end up on a Microsoft error page [there seem to be too many http://'s in the link]
Try this instead.
Ahem.
Poverty: Theory and Practice I. Theory
Relativity: Before my then-boyfriend, now-husband, took me to meet his family, he kept warning me that "We don't have much money." When we got to his house, I was close to awestruck. A few months later he visited my home and got another view of "We don't have much money."
Distribution: I'm not about to talk politics, but sometimes I think that if God let everyone on Earth have a magic yard (tag, garage) sale, with the stuff that people *don't want or don't notice* going to those who need it, there might be enough to go around. Or at least we'd be closer.
(Rules: Keep the item if you like and/or use it. Otherwise, it goes. This applies to yachts and also to fingernail clippers.)
Continued...
(continued)
II. Practice
I live in an affluent suburb. Both my husband and I work 40+ hours per week with good salaries, and I have a pile of clothes and shoes the size of a small desk that I haven't gotten around to donating. It's a noticeable chore to get the stuff from the 2nd floor closet down to the car and then to a thrift shop during the hours that a staff member can give me a receipt.
The public part of a Goodwill store here (a.k.a. GCF Community Foundation) is the size of a large supermarket. It's stuffed with racks and racks of clothes on hangers, e.g. three feet of red/rose/pink blouses adjacent to five feet of white/cream blouses, and so on. One day the door to the back was open, and I saw a stack of unsorted clothing on the floor that was the height of an average room and wider than it was tall. I was appalled. Then I realized that even if the clothes had been processed instantly, there wasn't room for them on the sales floor.
When visiting my mother I read a newspaper feature about two teenage girls who had been given $15 each to shop at a (different) Goodwill store. The article profiled their finds, showing how they had scored hip retro clothing. The managers of the store hoped the students would spread the word to their classmates that shopping at Goodwill produced cool fashions--the managers were trying to create a market for their merchandise.
In other words, there is plenty of supply and plenty of demand, but the geography doesn't match. It would require noticeable effort and money on someone's part to ship the contents of my town's Goodwill store to a less affluent or even disaster-stricken part of the country. I can't afford to do it. Now what?
John Scalzi: Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.
That can work the other way, too. When I was 12, the area I grew up in crashed, hard. I had to do the same thing, except that I was the only one not getting free or reduced price lunch. I got accused of "showing off your poppa's money". After a month or so of that, I started bringing my lunch. (My kids' school has gotten around that. Everyone uses a lunch card to buy their milk or lunch. Nobody but staff knows who's getting free/reduced lunch and who's paying full price.)
But we lived in the house my dad grew up in, my mom shopped the day old racks, the sale racks, the thrift stores, drove a car older than I was, made a lot of our clothes, and stretched her budget like her mom had done during the Depression. I wore Goodwill underwear (ok, St Vinnie's). Now that I'm running a household, we still live on about half the income many of our neighbors do.
TNH: Being poor means the only retail in your neighborhood sells worthless crap, fraudulently mislabeled goods, and half-spoiled food, and charges as much or more as you'd pay for better merchandise in a better neighborhood.
That's one of the advantages (if it can be called that) to being poor in the country or a small town. Nearly everyone shops at the same stores anyway, unless they've really got money, and then they shop at the ritzy stores in the city.
I posted my list on Scalzi's site, but I want to add here that for me, not being poor is a matter of very careful planning, discipline, and luck. I managed to get through college. I managed to get and keep jobs. I managed to save money so that I had a cushion to fall back when the car - or my teeth - needed fixing. I am aware that this was due to both both luck and skill, and plenty of people have neither.
I wish I knew how to teach some of what I know. I wonder if some poverty today is complicated by the lack of the Depression-era survival skills my father taught me. For example, I use a tea-bag twice because he did.
I've thought of writing a book, but the sort of people who need the skills the most can't afford books, some of them can't read, and library budgets are being slashed all over the country.
hmm, I use tea bags twice because I'm too lazy to go get a new tea bag every time I want a cup.
Magenta, you just hit on one of my top ten reasons why NPR pisses me off. When I listen to fundie radio stations, a lot of the time, they're doing shows on how to manage your money for lower and middle class (that is to say, working class) people. On NPR, I get stock market analysis, how to afford that summer home, and, I suppose, getting a jet ski for each foot.
It's a sad day when public radio doesn't serve the vast majority of the public.
Oh, wait--this is a sad day.
What interested me was how many behaviours from the list and the comments have been in my family for at least two generations of non-poverty. Bending down to pick up change, filling pockets with free sugar, making do and mending, a relaxed attitude to mould and best-before dates - my parents both grew up in what passes for affluence among the working class and raised me in middle-class luxury, but the behaviours still got passed on.
enjay -- I read all of bellatrys's rant I could stomach, and wasn't impressed.
I don't know nearly enough history to argue convincingly how the South turned out the way it did. The observation in a recent Smithsonian that the first colonists of Savannah insisted on slaves because the work was too hard is just one marker, and countered by their later article on Jamestown (which appears not to have been the collection of lazy fortune-seekers described by prior histories). But somehow they got stuck in a sort of feudalism (or manorialism?) when that form of society went out of favor over most of western Europe. It is not the North's fault that ambitious young Europeans mostly brought their imagination (and even copied technology) to the North; if they made a conscious decision, the more egalitarian society was the place to go. Pointing out that the North also profited from slavery may be dramatic -- Rutledge in 1776 is just the most obvious among many who do so more coherently than bellatrys -- but doesn't alter the fact that the North was also trying to abolish all slavery. (All right, only specific Northerners -- but then only specific Northerners were profiting from slavery. Live by the collective, hang with the collective.)
As for letting the South secede -- that ignores the fact that Britain (the South's main supporter) did not have the interests of the Confederacy at heart; what Britain was looking for was (a) cutting down a rival, and (b) getting another colony. An independent South would be lucky to be as well off as Kenya, and could only dream of being like India.
As for -"the North should have finished the Reconstruction"-: yes, it should have. But the South bought itself out of Reconstruction by throwing a Presidential election (Tilden v Hayes).
I usually don't agree with Graydon's argument that the entire Southern ruling class should have been hanged as traitors -- but from here it looks like the South's biggest problem is its own ruling class. And I suppose all the above can be read as reactionary blaming-the-victim -- but there is a big difference between the desperation for ]mere[ survival that makes individual improvement difficult for the poor, and the attempts to maintain privilege and power that destroy other people's attempts to rise.
But somehow they got stuck in a sort of feudalism (or manorialism?) when that form of society went out of favor over most of western Europe.
Have you met Albion's Seed by Fischer? It lays out the regional differences in a way that explains probably more of the last two or three centuries than you really want to know. (And makes me think that the Shrub combines the worst features of New England and the South.)
Re:Bellatrys's Rant:
Maybe the north would have let the south secede in peace if you guys had bombed fricking Fort Sumter.
Being poor means taking abuse from a boss because you have four bald tires and the rent is due.
Being poor means agreeing to clean chitlins before the restaurant opens, and you can't control your gag reflex.
Being Poor: When asked what you do for a living, answer "consultant"
Being Poor: Not EVER talking about money. Ever.
David: "Freelance Writer" works as well as "Consultant." I'm disabled, and I have done some freelance, so it's my default answer whenever I'm unable to work and someone I've just met asks me what I do for a living. (Frankly, if you say, "Nothing right now," people will giggle and say, "Oh, you're so lucky!")
The flip side of "Not EVER talking about money," is "Doing nothing but talking about money." I think it just depends on things like how anxiety-prone the speaker (or not-speak-er) is. In my family, where everyone grew up poor & has OCD tendencies, you always know when someone is doing badly financially because they do nothing but yammer on and on and on about money. When they don't bring it up, they're doing pretty well, but they'll still have the tendency to describe modest goods as "expensive," even goods they have no problem affording.
(Being poor: Target is a fancy, expensive store.)
that's the truest Essay I've ever read "Sad But True"
:o(
I've lived most of Scalzi's list. But Goodwill hardly ever sells underwear. I'm just saying.
Marilee said:
I guess it's a good thing [my brother] doesn't know that most of his school clothes during his last two years of high school and first two years of college came from thrift stores.
This is none of my business, but how come he didn't know? Does he think the clothes just magically appeared in his closet?
It feels good to listen to other poor people talk about being poor... why does that make me feel better? lol I'm a 1st year law school student and let me tell you, from an outsider looking in, it sure feels like "we", the "poor" weren't meant to make it that far. I look around and 98% of my classmates drive around in brand new B.M.W's and Saab's, typing away on their $2,500 laptops... and all the while I'm trying figure out if I have enough gas to make it home! lol P.S. being poor means having to choose between books and every other damn thing you need.
Being poor means being the only National Merit Scholar in the district is completely ignored by the counselors because they're too busy with pregnant teenagers and gang warfare.
Growin' up poor is remembering fondly the first pair of store-bought pants at the age of sixteen, and still remembering it thirty years later. They were cargo-pocket hip-huggers. And they were mine first!
The humorous side to growing up poor is threatening my mother with my autobiography called "365 ways to ruin hamburger." I did not learn to cook from my mother. What's fun is she is now learning to cook from me.
Actually, I never felt we were poor. Just broke. I do know now that we were subsidized by my grandmother, but only to the extent of easing desparation. We had meat (see "hamburger" above), but did the day-old bread thing. I still do the day-old bread thing. The day after you buy regular bread, it's day old anyway. But I grew up in a middlin'-to-poor neighborhood, which is why I knew my family was only broke. I did most of the things on the "being poor" list, but not all at the same time. Really being poor means doing almost all of the things on that list almost all of the time.
It's a while since I read Scalzi's list - I looked at it when Teresa first put it up - but what struck me then was how many of the behaviours I took for granted growing up, and in some cases still do. Like Nick Kiddle, I don't believe I grew up in poverty, or anything really resembling it. But my family never ate out; the leftovers were kept and re-used; I would never have friends over, and wore (and played with) hand-me-downs from my brothers and sisters.
I think this means I grew up with few of the financial deprivations but a lot of the social markers - perhaps, then, we were moving up the scale. I still find myself thinking $8 is a good wage, although I know it isn't and I'm glad I've not had to live on anything near it for three years. (Although that has meant taking a new job - and moving to a different country - every year. On the other hand, I've just moved to the US, and it's the land of opportunity, right?)
Oh, and because I don't want to spend the money on even an $800 car, I can't even *get* to the two local Goodwill stores unless I cycle a few miles, and then I can't bring back anything but what I can fit on my back. This isn't me citing poverty - but this is surely a problem for people who really are poor.
But all I wanted to say is that I find it strange that I now own a $700 laptop - the most expensive thing I've ever owned in my life, incidentally - and although I've only been in the US three weeks I know where all the thrift stores near me are. Some habits are hard to break, I guess.
Oh, and the National Merit Scholar thing made me remember one of my favourite recollections: when I graduated from high school, all of the students in my town who had got into Oxford or Cambridge got their pictures in the local paper - except me. No-one thought to check whether anyone had been accepted from *my* school...
Now, a couple of my brothers and sisters I think really are poor. Mostly I try not to think about it.
Bng pr s hvn 7 sblngs nd wndring why yr mmm hvn nthr bby
The name has changed but the song remains the same.
Being poor is taking a job and getting paid way less than market value and your boss saying you should be grateful that you have this job.
Also, being poor is believing in a gov't that says tax cuts will actually benefit you and then this same gov't shutting down on you when you need them most and you see the gov't helping others that don't even live in your country.
I though Charity starts at home, then it spreads abroad. For everyone else other than the poor, this saying is true.
"The rich take for granted the things we paid for with our youth."
Being poor is feeling insulted when the one you live with and love leaves money for you on the table in the morning, before going to work.
Being poor is beeing asked casualy by your neighbour on what street you've been working because he only sees you go to work at night, as elegantly clad as you can afford.
Being poor is knowing how to cook instant ramen.
Being poor is not daring to say your optician you can't afford the insurance anymore than you should afford the glasses themselves.
Being poor is buying brand product for the effort relief of a third world country catastrophe while you buy the cheapest of the cheap for your own familly.
Being poor is waiting for your old parents to die.
we werent stupidly poor but poor enough to be on benefits living on a council estste.
being poor is not being able to tell the difference between you and you older brother in pictures as toddlers because you are wearing the same clothes.
being poor is when you when you are happy that you got a pair of trainers for £3.99
and being poor is knowing that those £3.99 trainers have to last at least a yr
Amen and Amen...the $6 short on the utility bill is perfect and the 6 hour wait in the emergency room...need to add "being poor is asking the doctor for samples of childrens tylenol becuase you used your last $3.00 for gas to get to the hospital and you have no gas or bus fare to get to work" "being poor is also saving every prescription medicine for months afterwards just in case...and then using it well after the expiration date"
Poor is being totaly devistated when they stop making the $.25 bread that you always bought at the day old bread store.
Being poor means going to the hospital to have induced labor because you have had a miscarriage and then being sent home by the doctor for a few hours to wait for the induced labor to begin and praying the car doesn't run out of gas on your trips there and back to the hospital.
Being poor means that after you have a miscarriage someone makes the remark that you couldn't have afforded the child anyway.
On being poor, Being poor is being on SSI ,which means you are extremely low income , of course I live with a roommate who is like a sister to me, but due to health problems and job layoffs,we've been forced to leave our apartment, have no job security and have no credit.(I went bankrupt after having extremely good credit and was working, but due to the things I mentioned earlier, financial hardship forced me into bankruptcy.. So much for financial security... When my roomate was laid off, the company actually fired 250-300 people so they could get out of paying unemployment. (they contested everyone) Now that my roommate is back in a job, her financial security is threatened by job loss because she is having some health problems.. She was fired in the past for taking care of her ailing parents who needed her several times...even though it was short term.. One time she was fired from her job , just for taking the day off to take her mother to the emergency room... who then had to have surgery. Being poor is being forced to leave your apartment after your roomate has lost her job and the apartment management smacking you down with 2000.00 in penalties because you didn't give 60 days notice of breaking the lease (HOW COULD WE?)We had to leave because we could no longer pay the rent. Being poor is being devastated becuase you have nothing to fall back on if you do lose a job or get sick, no home or anything. And being poor is having limited resources and access to help... Being poor is like trying to dig yourself out of a hole with no hope in sight. Where is the justice? there is none. The rich get richer, while the Government gives billions in subsidies to wealthy corporations (Corporate welfare) and cut back on programs for the elderly and disadvantaged and our troops, on education and medical care. The real problem basically lies with what our Governmnent is doing these days.. It is an injustice to those who are struggling with little resources to help them. If the Government wasn't so busy giving handouts and big tax breaks to the rich who don't need them. We would have more to invest in our inner cities, more to invest in better job training and education for the poor, a better safety net for the most vulnerable , our elderly, disabled and sick. We don't need to cut into programs that benefit the needy, we need to cut into the unfair advantages the rich have over us. Why do they need subsidizing and handouts when they are profitable and can make their own way.. It says something about the current state of politics. "Give to the greedy and take from the needy."If anything the big corporations are more responsible for sucking our system dry of money and resources ,than the poor could ever be accused of doing.One thing is to really need help and support and not get it or have very few resources to get it, than for a wealthy Corporation to take tax dollars to subsidize them when they don't need them. Corporate welfare? How ridiculous...It really says how screwed up our government's priorities are.
I could speak plenty about the poor, because I've been there for a long time... it means because you don't have the advantages of higher education you take menial or lower paying jobs that work you to death and offer little reward. It means that even as you struggle finacially and have health care ... it is still too high and out of reach because of being in a lower income bracket.. It means as gasoline prices and the cost of living rise,and you are trying to keep your head above water, struggling to pay your bills and still drowning. Often the poor are looked down on and blamed for the hardships they have..."They aren't trying hard enough" or for other reasons. I've had friends and know of other people who struggling with the same issues, they are basically honest, trying to do the right thing, but circumstances in life keep smacking them down. I've know some of my friends who were fired for health problems because they couldn't always make it to work everyday and were really ill and bedridden on days when they couldn't. I've had friends who needed my help because they had no transportation and were severely disabled and on SSI and had no way to get to the grocery store, or Walgreens to get meds and couldn't even afford taking a bus.I had a friend who was severely disabled and had no transportation,who lived in an apartment with no air conditioning with only a fan blowing hot air on her in sweltering heat of over a hundred degrees, she was also diabetic.. One of my friend's daughter didn't even have a coat for winter. And trying to help them get the help they needed was hard because churches, and other organizations said sorry we just don't have the resources or the funds. I even looked to churches and organizations in the more affluent areas, and they showed very little interest in helping someone on the other side of the tracks. Churches and organizations(Even food banks) in the poor sections of town often have very limited resources to help their own. Such is the plight of many of our poor. Their anguish is real.And what does our government expect them to do? Make it on a minimum wage paying job even though they have families to support, many are working two, three jobs but still can't get ahead. Those in a higher income bracket and the rich can own beautiful homes, get great educations, wear the best clothes and are afforded the better opportunities in life. Must be nice. Especially when our poor are expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and often can't. They often don't have the resources,help, money or opportunities , the job training or education to.
Being poor is crying as I read all of your posts, because I'm there right now. I have a graduate degree, I have a job and transportation, but I'm broke, and I'm sick of it.
Being poor is sitting in the library to type up your term paper, and having to rush because the bus system, won't pick you up for free if it's after 5pm.
Being poor is crying when the cats are so starving they manage to steal your last pop tart from you.
Being poor is watching other people eat at mc donalds and digging in the trash for their left overs.
Being poor is walking 10 miles to the store, to buy 10 dollars worth of groceries that have to last you all week, (in the year 2006).
Being poor is having to decide between toilet paper, and a pack of ramin noodles.
Being poor is....being me.
Being poor is not understanding why you can't have the 75 cent bag of M&Ms, and why your mom looks like she's going to cry when she says no.
Being poor is bread and butter sandwiches for lunch everyday.
Being poor is eating nothing but english muffins and tuna fish for 6 months straight.
Being poor is losing your relationship with your only living grandparent because his trip to costa rica is coming up so he can't help your mother with a $500 mortgage payment so you're not homeless when he gets back.
Being poor is the people who paid the $12thou downpayment on your house still sneaking $10 bills into your coat pockets whenever you see them. And never letting you pay them back.
Being poor is living on SSI in your fifties,and having felt forced to give up your beloved Cat you had for 8 years to the local SPCA Humane Society because she needed medical care you coulnd't afford.
Poor is being told by the Humane society a month after relinqishing her,that you have to pay at least $550 to possibly over $600 something or more to get her back.Poor is feeling sad when told by the same agency that you your cat may possibly need an operation in the future and that I should give her up for good because I could never afford the $1000 to $2000 operation because I'm too poor and Vets won't work out payments.
I have NEVER felt the sting of poverty so intensely due to my inabilty get my beloved cat back.
no, being poor is living in the woods just outside of the city, killing squirrels and
rabbits, and sometimes if your lucky you find
a freshly dead roadkill deer.
bring watter to your makeshift lean to hut with
old 5 gallon paint cans, and cooking your road
kill deer and rabbit soup over a fire in a Nash
hubcap you found in a junkyard.
thats poor
Paying 50% of your income for student loans and doing that for 10 years. When I paid them off finally, I couldn't believe how rich I felt, and how amazed my friends with the same income could be in so much consumer debt.
'm s sck f ppl whnng bt bng t pr t by th rdcls cptlst sht wldn't by f hd th mny. Bh cn't by nm brnd clths r fd tht's th sm sht s th gnrc brnds md n th sm swt shps wth dffrnt lbl. Y ght t b byng sd clths tys tc. nd lclly prdcd fd tht y cn gt chp frm th frm nstd f flwn frm Sth mrc. Bh hv t rd my bk 2 mls t gt smwhr bcs cn't ffrd t pllt th r t trvl rdclsly shrt dstnc tht cld bk n 5 mnts. Bng pr ght t mn dvlpng yr wn st f gls tsd f th mnstrm cnsmr lfstyl. Bng pr ght t mn dvlpng cmmnts tht cn hv fn tgthr nd njy lf wtht byng crp. Th prblm s tht th mldly pr wnt t lv th sm dtc lfstyl tht th rch r tryng t sll thm. Wk p!
Re: 58
You didn't actually read a damned thing in this thread, did you? There was an intelligent, thoughtful discussion going on, which you made no effort to engage in. You just wanted a platform to spew your sanctimonious superiority.
I chose, and continue to choose, voluntary simplicity (by definition). Poverty is not the same thing.
I'm so sick of people whining about being too poor to buy the ridiculous capitalist shit I wouldn't buy if I had the money.
Good thing none of that was going on in this thread, isn't it? I'd hate to see someone get sick.
Who is this Dave person? I'm not impressed.
Who is this Dave person? I'm not impressed.I don't know, but since he put his work address on his post (assuming it's his, of course), it shouldn't be hard to find out.
Not impressed with dave (lowercase d) either. I'm not sure most of the people are sobbing into their pillows over their lack of name brand clothes or other consumable goods. Lost time, lost loved ones, lost childhoods, lost relationships--poverty takes a toll on these too, and it's alright to mourn those lost opportunities, the times you spent trying to scrabble for life or love because your poverty hung round you like a millstone.
That said, I've been seeing a lot of real heart-wrenching things lately...my boyfriend has an apartment at the edge of a less-desirable neighbourhood in SF, and every day, I see things that just tear my heart out. I couldn't be a god, because there are so many sparrows falling here, and I'd go insane trying to keep track of them. But....
Being poor is learning to walk on a broken leg, because you can't afford medical care.
Being poor is huddling in a plastic bag, hoping to keep the rain off.
Being poor is being unable to check books out of the public library because you are homeless and have no address to give the library. Being poor means you have to read all your science fiction in the library. (There's one homeless guy who reads Bujold and Weber and all kinds of science fiction, but he can never take the books home, because he hasn't got a home to take them to. He almost never asks for change, merely for leftovers, and he's always polite if you don't have anything for him. I don't see him often, but when I do see him, it's invariably by or in the library.)
Being poor is asking people for their leftovers, and diving into the trash for their discarded food.
Being poor is having the police prod you awake in the morning, because they want to make sure you didn't die in the night.
Being poor is a long line outside the local food kitchen.
Being poor is the clink of the recycling bins in the night.
Being poor is having the people behind you in line grumble as you try to sort out the food stamps for three gallons of apple juice, three cartons of milk, and three jumbo bags of unsweetened cheerios.
Being poor is having people wonder if you are about to hustle them for change should you smile at them or wish them a nice day.
...
The broken leg thing is one of the things that makes me realise how lucky I am to have a nice job with good benefits. In the last six months or so, I've seen more people walking on obviously broken or broken-and-healed-crooked legs than I have the entire rest of my life. I lost track after I'd seen my sixth or seventh person in such a condition.
After three life-threatening illnesses since 1999, each of which involved a long time off work, two of which also involved major disfiguring operations and months of treatment with major side-effects, plus three deaths close to me, people have looked oddly at me when I say how lucky I feel. One of the things I mean is that I'm in Australia, in a large city. Treatment and support was available, and at prices that didn't bankrupt us. (My big financial struggles are from another source.)
Not that we don't have our problems — Healthy food too expensive for many (Sydney Morning Herald, December 14, 2006, by Julie Robotham and Kerry Coleman)
Being poor is knowing what your future will be and not being able to change it.
Being poor is using on credit card to pay off the next.
being poor is sugar water and mustard sandwhiches for dinner.
being poor is no dinner at all.
being poor is wishing you were never born.
being poor is looking at everything you want from behind the glass.
Being poor is working two jobs to make ends meet.
Being poor is choosing between gas and rent.
Being poor is knowing your children will have it worse.
Being poor is not being able to afford children at all.
Being poor is living to work and working to live.
Being poor is not going to the mailbox because you know it's only bills.
Being poor is scraping off the mold to eat the bread.
Being poor is not having a tombstone when your dead.
Being poor is a cardboard box and a family without a chance.
Being poor is only buying the specials & marked down products.
Great illumination on the experience of being poor for those more fortunate who seek to understand. I would add this. It seems to me there was an air of hoplessness to the post by John. I related to more than one of the comments, actually most of them brought back memories tucked away in my " don't want to relive that box" but I remmembered before joining the Army that I would be willing to do ANYthing to leave that life behind. I agree that being poor can bring about a sense of hoplessness, but I also believe we all have the choice to leave if we want. It's a matter of what am I willing to do to get where I want to be. I did what I needed to" worked my way up" and I have made a nice place for myself and my family because of it. All because I promised myself way back when that my kids will never know what it means to be poor! Just a thought..
Well, if you're willing to spend a year or two in a war zone to leave poverty behind, it's doable.
But I don't think that's a better option than 'staying' poor. I can't speak from experience, but I doubt I'd be willing to trade living in a car--or tent, or blanket--for going to Al Anbar and a chance to acquire skills that would keep me out of poverty.
The potential physical damage--and the almost certain psyhcological damage--would outweigh the benefits. Going by what I've heard and read from disillusioned Vietnam veterans, at any rate.
If I were a suspicious kind of person, I'd think #68 sounds a lot like a thinly disguised recruiting pitch.
Or maybe not so thinly disguised, given the name links directly to goarmy.com.
Have you seen those "If your kid wants to join the military" commercials? Disgusting. I talk back to them. "What do you think?" says the kid on the screen. "I think you're going to get sent to Iraq," I reply. "I could be part of an environmental response team!" says the other kid, and I reply "No, you're gonna get sent to Iraq." "I can get money for college!" "Yeah, but that won't do you any good if you get killed in Iraq."
I understand they have to recruit. I just wish they'd stop lying.
No one should join any branch of the military right now unless the Persian Gulf is on their "must see" list. Navy has the best chance of keeping you out of the actual sandbox, unless you're a medic like all my Navy friends.
Have you seen those "If your kid wants to join the military" commercials?
Yep. They sound pretty desparate.
I just wish they'd stop lying.
heh. The military has a long and glorious history of lying* for recruiting purposes.
*For those who wish to object on semantic reasons, replace "lying" with "telling a sufficiently incomplete truth that people can reasonably be expected to infer something untrue"
They don't neccessarily "lie". It's just that when the kid on the commercial says something like "I could go into environmental protection", they mean "could" as in "1 in a million possibility that you could"
What you won't hear the kid in the commercial say is something like "And they'll guarantee I will go into environmental protection or they'll give me an honorable discharge."
I know a guy who signed up with an occupation guarantee, failed the eyesight requirement, and got the lousiest job in the military as a result. If they say "guarantee", it'll usually have a footnote like "you will go into this job unless you fail a physical or intelligence testing requirement, at which point, we may consider your second choice, or we may simply ship you to whatever job we need to fill most."
"...or unless we really, REALLY need more line infantry." It's in there somewhere.
There's a counter-list "Learning from Being Poor Is . . . " at the poor_skills LJ here: http://community.livejournal.com/poor_skills/1201183.html
As I posted there, it seems to me that quite a few of the items in the first list weren't about poverty; they were about being ashamed of being poor. Or about blaming poverty for things that aren't inevitable parts of being poor.
I can't speak from experience, but I doubt I'd be willing to trade living in a car--or tent, or blanket--for going to Al Anbar and a chance to acquire skills that would keep me out of poverty.
If you were poor, you wouldn't be doing it to 'acquire skills'; you'd be doing it to get housing, food and health care, not to mention benefits for your family.
Of course, if you're poor, you may very well be 'unfit' for military service.
Well, if you're willing to spend a year or two in a war zone to leave poverty behind, it's doable.
Actually, read some of the recent entries @ Americablog.com about the treatment accorded to wounded vets:
Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.That sounds like poverty to me.
Hi there, "Simple Soldier" (#68)!
Who would have thought that the US Army would need to resort to comment spam to get troopers? If you happen to stop back by, perhaps you'd like to come over here to tell us about what it's like working in a recruiting command these days.
From the AP, today.
Many of the hometowns of the war dead aren't just small, they're poor. The AP analysis found that nearly three quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.
So let's add another one.
... being poor means that joining the Army in the middle of Mr. Bush's War sounds reasonable.
Being poor is using credit cards with 27% APRs to pay for college tuition while living out of an early 1980’s van (the proverbial $800 vehicle) for a year because you’re the only student that can’t pay rent. Lying to others to cover the fact that while you’re attending a good state university, you are also utterly homeless and always at the mercy of the police or thieves.
Trying to build a future while stacking an elaborate house of cards that could tumble at any moment.
Tenuous and no margin for error.
Knowing that if you screw up, it’s back to south tacoma way, meth labs, suicide, unemployment, to die. in the rain…
Poor is: not having access to the internet.
From the woman who is constantly patching up an $800 car to carry her three children around in - thank you.
It isn't so much the lack of things I personally don't have, it's what I can't give my children. It's watching my 14 year old daughter slowly become hardened and saying she doesn't "want" to take art classes even though she loves art. It's trying to grab her and hold her down to keep her from making the same mistakes I made at that age.
It's struggling for the past four years to finally put myself through college to leap over the wall that separates the poor from everyone else even though no one ever wanted to let me over in the first place because I "don't fit in."
It's being thankful every morning when the car starts one more day and crying like your dog died on the day it leaves you on the side of the road because you have a negative balance in the bank.
It's not having a pet because you can't stand knowing you can't afford to feed it regularly.
It's being thankful that you at least have a singlewide trailer in a trailer park even if it is only two bedroom. It's being thankful that the trailer is your's and there isn't one sonofabitch that can come take it from you.
It's being angry because the world said "You fucked up and this is what you get, get over it" and the world believing your children deserve to live on shit and never have shit and wear shit clothes because you fucked up.
It's the world saying you never should have had them in the first place, but I did and they're here and I'm damned determined to show them a different way.
It's trying not to ever feel sorry for yourself because their are people so much worse off in the world and at least you have that singlewide and your mom will let you go "shopping" in her kitchen.
It's wearing your pride like a hat because that's mostly all you've ever had that no one could take from you.
I read this and every now and then my chest just seizes up. But mostly I feel a cold anger that sickens me.
The land of opportunity. This is not what people died and are dying for.
There must be a better way.
Being poor is stealing your friends food off their plate at lunch because you haven't eaten in two days and you don't want your provider to cry their self to sleep because there's no money for food this week.
Being poor is being excited that your family gets to go to "family councilling" at your church because while they never actually solve any of your problems, they do serve juice and cookies.
Being poor is getting excited that you get to wear your best dress on the class field trip to the opera... only to have your classmates laugh at you because it's the only dress you own.
Being poor is not understanding why your mothers screaming at you for telling your teacher that you didn't finish your homework because the lights were cut off and you couldn't read the papers.
Being poor is chewing on one side of your mouth for three months because your rotting tooth finally broke... but you're still paying for your sons dental work and no one will let you make a payment plan.
People deserve better than this. What is wrong with our country. :(
Comments containing more than seven URLs will be held for approval.
If you want to comment on a thread that's been closed, please post to the most recent "Open Thread" discussion.
You can subscribe (via RSS) to this particular comment thread. (If this option is baffling, here's a quick introduction.)
HTML Tags:
<strong>Strong</strong> = Strong
<em>Emphasized</em> = Emphasized
<a href="http://www.url.com">Linked text</a> = Linked text
Spelling reference:
Tolkien. Minuscule. Gandhi. Millennium. Delany. Embarrassment. Publishers Weekly. Occurrence. Asimov. Weird. Connoisseur. Accommodate. Hierarchy. Deity. Etiquette. Pharaoh. Teresa. Its. Macdonald. Nielsen Hayden. It's. Fluorosphere. More here.
Comments on "Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.":