Are you a "Dream Hoarder"? I am, apparently
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Anonymous
I was a PP on the previous page pointing this out as the reason I "made" it up from poverty -- I clearly agree but don't know how to fix it. There are no easy answers to reversing the trend, or the impact this uncertain, stressful family life has on children. I mean, what kid is going to be focused on getting As when they are hungry? There are way too many hungry children in America, something that simply shouldn't be. Even something as simple as TANF isn't working because it is sold at a discount to get drug money. Maybe we need to go back to government cheese. Joking! Sort of. I am a huge fan of these programs that send backpacks full of reasonably nutritious food home with the kids on weekends, food that is self-assemble so the kids can make it themselves. I am also a big fan of access to vocational school though I am sure that is an unpopular opinion to hold around here. Those jobs (mechanics, welding, plumbing, electrical) are real careers though, unlike fast food. Also strongly support the military/GI Bill. You aren't going to get everybody out of poverty, but there need to be some accessible options with relatively low barriers to entry. |
Anonymous
You are eliminating one important aspect - choice. People have choices. Poor people have choices. Puerto Ricans have choices. Black people have choices. Poor people may not have as many choices to select from as rich people, but you get the idea. Your post reads like a long litany of excuses for people who have no choices of their own and have had this forced upon them by an evil state. A good analogy would be a train car headed for Auschwitz. Do you really believe that is what is going on here? That these groups have the same predestined fate as concentration camp bound train cars full of Jews? Those were people with no choices. These people have choices and I will argue that some of the choices they are making are positively limiting their ability to attain these "dreams" that we are posting about. Sure, some people have it better than others, but to argue that all the problems that lower class/minorities have are a result of an unfair system stacked against them and they have absolutely no choice but to end up like they are is preposterous. IMHO, the choice to play this victim role like you are describing and using that as an excuse while waiting around for someone else to come along and make everything fair is one of the choices I alluded to that is keeping some from attaining their dreams. |
Anonymous
There is no easy fix, but we need to walk back the liberal celebration or at least indifference to single parenthood. An intact family with two adults is clearly a superior family structure versus a single adult household. We should not celebrate single motherhood as if it is some tribute to feminism or women's liberation from an oppressive patriarchal view of family structure. We further need to stop the war on drugs, and the mass incarceration that results. I believe the war on drugs is the single biggest cause for the destruction of the traditional family structure among blacks. Charity soothes the symptom but it is poor substitute for a cure. We need to identify and fix the cause of these issues. |
Anonymous
+1000. Legitimizing (or at the very least de-stigmatizing) single parenthood was probably one of the biggest blows to nuclear family structure in this country. A lot of the other problems of youth and various societal groups can be traced back to this as the root cause or at least a major contributor. |
Anonymous
I agree with this -- though to be clear I think the research is showing a family with two adults to be benecifial, including same-sex families. Mass incarceration is a huge problem but so is the lack of rehab options for drug offenders. Yes, the food thing isn't going to solve anything but it is such a complicated problem it will take a long time to make an impact, so we need to do the things we can for children stuck in those situations today. |
Anonymous
No one is saying they do not have choices, but guess what their choices are mostly different from yours and mine . For some the choice is do I eat or do my kids eat ? Do I go to my 2nd job so I can pay my rent or go to the PTA meeting . When you are talking about kids with limited resources and exposure , then their choices are going to be different and probably self limiting. I went to college because I KNEW it was a choice I had, I had parents and a community that demonstrated HOW to do it and what to do to make that happen. Please miss me with the b**** that environmental factors and societal structures have no bearing on the choices we are all afforded and are taught HOW to make. Some of you would rather die than admit the privilege and fortune of having educated parents or parents who at least knew how to get you educated, or taught you how to feel good about yourself or you were able to live in a neighborhood where people did not refer to you as " the poors" or assumed you did not value education or property or had morals because of you income level or race/ethnicity. Yes, personal responsibility is a major factor in our life trajectory but you are going to get a lot of deserved pushback when you REFUSE to acknowledge the unbalanced playing field and how we as a society are responsible for doing are part in digging deep, doing the hard, complicated and self examining work of trying it to make it work well for everyone. After all everyone includes you and I as well. |
Anonymous
You are grossly overstating the burden of raising a kid. The statistics on children starvation in the US are based on biased analysis of data, here's a Forbes article on the matter: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2011/11/20/are-one-in-five-american-children-hungry/#70b14950eb26 You don't need to go to PTA meetings to raise a kid. I have not gone to a single PTA meeting. My wife went to one when our child was in 2nd grade just to see what it was like, and never went again. The issues discussed in a PTA meeting are usually tangential to education at best. I readily admit that I come from a privileged background - my parents immigrated to the US and worked very hard to put my sister and me through college. They instilled good ethics of hard work in us and even though we lived frugally ($500 a month for a family of 4 in DC, we had no AC, and shared a TV with three other families in the townhome that we were renting rooms out of), we were never cold or hungry. But my point is that it's not my fault for having this privilege, and neither will my children apologize for the privileges I've provided them. I will teach them that their grand parents and us worked very hard to provide a good foundation for them. They have nothing to apologize to the world for, and they need to work just as hard in order to provide the same for their kids, and so on. |
Anonymous
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Go away
No one asked you to apologize. Lots of people work hard but have opportunities that bothers do not. If you do notvhbderstandcthst you are deliberately blind. |
Anonymous
Wow, straight to the Holocaust? Nothing makes your point like dramatic hyperbole, I guess. Of course people have choices, but to pretend that people who grow up in poverty have the same choices and opportunities that other people do belies a blinding amount of privilege. I'll freely admit that I shared many of the up-by-the-bootstraps ideals you're espousing when I was younger, but, being a class migrant myself and having married someone who grew up poor, I've gotten a first-hand view of just how disadvantaged people in generational poverty are and how difficult it is to break out of that cycle. And not because of lack of grit but because many of the things we take for granted -- learning about financial management, working through bureaucratic systems, knowing the unwritten rules of professionalism, someone to help you with your homework -- it all gives someone who grows up in a community that models those things for them a huge leg up. Both my spouse and I are class migrants -- but it was a combination of working our asses off AND having lucked into a few good opportunities that got us where we are. Had those opportunities not arisen, we'd probably be part of the shrinking middle class struggling to make ends meet ourselves. I am a big believer in personal responsibility, but I think that there is an overall betterment of society if help is available to people who are making the effort. I am not in favor of continuing to create generations whose primary income is welfare and disability, but cutting them off and telling them to get to work is not going to solve the problem. Simply telling anyone who struggles to make ends meet that it's their fault because they're not trying hard enough is ignoring the current economic reality of what's going on in the country. And pretending like everything's fair and level is bullshit - it's a steeper hill to climb for the disadvantaged, and you're acting like there's no difference between throwing them a rope to help with the climb and installing a diamond-plated lift to carry them to the top. Poverty is a significantly more nuanced problem that doesn't make for good soundbytes for the politicians. |
Anonymous
ALL OF THIS!!!!! |
Anonymous
Different poster. You were going strong but lost me by the third paragraph. No one is advocating cutting off welfare and disability, but to reduce the payout for those programs as appropriately - maybe not so much for disability, but certainly welfare. Part of the solution *IS* to tell people to get to work, which is why there is prevailing argument that people should work for the welfare benefits they receive, even if it is just picking up litter on the side of the road. People who are struggling *LONG TERM* either are disabled in some way, or are simply making terrible life choices. While it takes time for someone to move up in income class, there is *NOTHING* that holds back anyone with the will and the ability to move out of poverty into the middle class within the span of a few years. There is ample reduced or free education, assistance, grants, and volunteers who willingly mentor people to improve themselves, but they must do the work themselves. But you know what, faced with a choice to live in poverty on welfare, versus a few years of hard work to be self sufficient, it's easy for a lot of people to stick to the former. Let me clarify again that disability is something else entirely different. I am talking about people that can, but don't help themselves. |
Anonymous
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***SIGH!
MOST PEOPLE RECEIVING BE EFITS ARECTHECWIRJING POOR! The black ghetto welfare queen is something you saw in TV, it is largely a myth. The millionaire welfare scammers recently busted in Jersey were NOT BLACK. Public education is free, but all schools are not equal, just read the School forums. *Just Do It* is some ol' bulls*** that is just as simple minded and ridiculous as anyone who swears they cannot do it all !!!! Societal issues, structures, attitudes must be addressed . |
Anonymous
Disability is effectively "welfare" in certain communities, mostly poor white communities where there are significant opioids problems. So yes, if you are reforming the social safety net leave that out for sure. |
Anonymous
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/amp/
Graduate high school, get a job, wait until age 21 to marry and don't have kids premarriage, and you have only a 2% chance of living in poverty. |
Anonymous
Love this! With just a bit of tweaking short, snappy, and to the point. Should be basis of a national advertising campaign. |