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Why, I can explain it to you.
Spending money on these things helps them to escape the reality.
Because they know what reality is - this miserable life, day after day.
Whatever you make - put it right back for necessities such as roof over your head and food. And that's how it's going to be their whole life.
So here come the tattoos, the manicures, - anything that helps them to live in their imaginary world and to cope with their lives.
Pretty simple, no?
I hope that you post does not imply that you are excusing such behavior.
To me, it is similar to people who have a low-paying and dead-end job who party every night and risk getting fired for being late instead of trying to improve their lives and saving the money they spend on alcoholic beverages or drugs. And, yes, plenty of people who started out poor do not stay poor because, to say it again, they made better choices.
And, yes, some people just don't know any better, or they don't have any hope of things getting better for them, or they have real conditions that prevent them from making good choices -- and that is why I think government should HELP these people in more ways than just giving them more benefits.
Last edited by katharsis; 08-23-2018 at 03:10 PM..
Why, I can explain it to you.
Spending money on these things helps them to escape the reality.
Because they know what reality is - this miserable life, day after day.
Whatever you make - put it right back for necessities such as roof over your head and food. And that's how it's going to be their whole life.
So here come the tattoos, the manicures, - anything that helps them to live in their imaginary world and to cope with their lives.
Pretty simple, no?
Easy enough to understand that people would spend money on cigarettes, tattoos, mani-pedis, and maybe a six-pack of beer now and again to escape the realities of their miserable existence.
More difficult to understand how others would have any interest in picking up the tab for the basics of their miserable existence.
Beat me to it. I actually bought cloth diapers with the waterproof pants and pins for a new mom who I knew had SNAP and TANF benefits, and she actually refused them. She said they were too much trouble.
Amazing how families survived before the invention of Pampers. (Of course, I am being sarcastic.)
I used cloth diapers after the invention of disposable diapers. It was a bit of fuss and bother, but not bad.
I just could not see spending $50/month on diapers. That's $600/year.
This reminds of a time that a local center for homeless teens was asking for popcorn. So I brought down a bag of popcorn and a bottle of oil.
They turned it down. Said they only wanted the microwave in a bag kind.
Well that's basically middle class life. Work 40+ hours a week, pay your mortgage, utilities, car payment, insurance premiums, buy food, etc. but you don't go get tattoos, piercings, mani-pedi and hair dos because you have bills to pay.
Now I see a mentality where folks want the government to pay for their basic needs so they can spend their money on things like tattoos, cigarettes, etc. Kind of like children that earn a few bucks but still want you to pay for their candy bar because they don't want to spend their money.
Being a middle class and paying money for MORTGAGE ( as you've mentioned) you are probably not all that desperate, so chances are - you don't need a tattoo)))
I know, I know, I know. We -- and I'm talking the general we, not just you and I -- go round and round and round on this.
Some people just don't do whatever is necessary to put off having kids until they can afford them. (And, as I have made clear in numerous posts, I don't begrudge any poor woman having one child, but I do object to poor parents having child after child after child and expecting others to pay for that decision.)
I have to agree with you here; having child after child is irresponsible towards the very children that are born to such mothers. (Not to mention the rest of course.) But I am not sure whether such problem is still persistent, since the increase of welfare payments has been cancelled for each additional child. I mean back in the day this was a stimulus for increased childbearing, now this *stimulus* is definitely gone.
Once the requirements to get the assistance for dependent children became the participation in "work-ready" programs, and assistance became bare minimum, how can anyone on this assistance can afford additional children, without state taking them away? THIS would be my question.
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I think it comes down to a difference in thinking -- a difference in priorities and in thinking what is okay and what is not okay -- and I have come to the conclusion that in most cases the main difference between the haves and the have-nots is due to the difference in how they think. Of course, it is also a matter of different times and different generalized thinking back then. In the 50's and most of the 60's, most husbands (and, yes, that is another thing, two-parent families were the norm) could support a family of four, but now that is the exception rather than the norm -- and whose fault is that?
Every societal change has its own pluses and minuses to it. I guess the whole "women emancipation" thing is no exception.
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However, a parent can still be a Stay-At-Home parent if s/he is married or in a committed LTR if one spouse or partner stays home to take care of the kids until they are all old enough to be in school full time, but it means both people getting a good education followed by good jobs and delaying parenthood until they have enough savings for one spouse to give up working for five or six or however many years. That is what my husband and I did -- we did not have kids until we were 40-ish, and then we adopted two preschoolers who had special needs. I gave up a career to be a stay-at-home mom until both kids were in school full-time, and then I became an educational assistant so that my hours would jive with theirs -- so it CAN be done, although it often involves making sacrifices.
Again, I am not saying that what we did would be right for everyone, that everyone should make the same choices we did, but I am just saying that if people want to be part of the "haves" instead of the "have-nots" they need to make good choices in their teens and 20's.
(Oh, and btw, I am not saying that it is ALWAYS their fault that many people are poor! In many, many cases, people are poor for reasons that they had no control over.)
Well there you go - at least you understand THIS part.
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P.S. I don't buy the excuse that working women don't have the time to wash cloth diapers because she has time to wash other clothes, right?
If the working women has washing machine and the dryer AT HOME, I think it's doable.
But if it's a laundromat, then it's a totally different story.
I hope that you post does not imply that you are excusing such behavior.
To me, it is similar to people who have a low-paying and dead-end job who party every night and risk getting fired for being late instead of trying to improve their lives and saving the money they spend on alcoholic beverages or drugs. And, yes, plenty of people who started out poor do not stay poor because, to say it again, they made better choices.
And, yes, some people just don't know any better, or they don't have any hope of things getting better for them, or they have real conditions that prevent them from making good choices -- and that is why I think government should HELP these people in more ways than just giving them more benefits.
In a way - I do.
Beats the depression that starts setting in, after all these "savings" and "making good choices," still with no way out. ( Then come the anti-depressants, that poor are so often put on.)
Those who DO see the way out of their miserable existence and know the ways - they don't need to be taught "saving" and "good choices," since they know that their suffering is temporary.
Easy enough to understand that people would spend money on cigarettes, tattoos, mani-pedis, and maybe a six-pack of beer now and again to escape the realities of their miserable existence.
More difficult to understand how others would have any interest in picking up the tab for the basics of their miserable existence.
Diapers included.
Let me share couple of thoughts with you on that one.
Truth to be told, *others* were picking up "the tab for the basics" ( and then some more) for the poor for long time already - I'd say since the times when America announced the war on the "evil empire" (better known as the USSR,) and proclaimed to be "kinder and gentler society" than the mentioned above evil of the country.
And "kinder and gentler society" meant just that - giving break to the poor and not exploiting them with impunity, like those evil communists in Russia.
So that was an *interest* for "picking up the tab" back then.
With big bad Soviet Union being gone - I have to agree with you, what's the "interest" to keep on pretending any longer?
None.
Time to show to the world your true nature, innit?
Yeah, I had my kids taken away from me because I didn't sign them up for ballet lessons.
Let's be fair here, that poster didn't say they should live in a cave hunting\gathering and stabbing critters with fire-hardened spears.
I was fair and accurate. Poor people would marry off their daughters at 14. You can't make a statement and then say "well, that is not what I mean". It is what was said.
I was in high school when Medicare was passed despite opposition claiming that it rewarded those who didn't plan for their retirement and would bankrupt the nation.
It didn't and many of us were glad that elders weren't dying because they couldn't afford insulin or heart medications.
Then a variety of government programs to provide assistance to help pull the less fortunate up to some barely livable standard.
The pendulum started swinging the other way with welfare reform to ensure that the lazy were not getting a free ride.
While some still support helping the less fortunate out, Affordable Care Act, government assistance for those with black lung disease, etc., others see them as moochers expecting others to pick up the slack for their poor decisions.
Now we are arguing about diapers. I'm fine with providing a layette with a $100 worth of cloth diapers. Seems a small enough investment in our next generation.
Providing a couple years worth of disposable diapers? Not so much.
Last edited by GotHereQuickAsICould; 08-24-2018 at 06:34 AM..
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