Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong

Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
ChesusRice said:
George and Jeb Bush are millionaires.
Do you think that was because of their hard work or money and Family connections?
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The way the conservative mind operates says if you're rich, you must have worked hard for it, and if you're poor, you must be lazy

To anyone who actually believes that, read this and tell me more about hard work;

How does this happen? Why are poor people so stupid? Here's how:

It's the late 70's and you're a 16 year old girl from the south. You've grown up poor, the oldest child of seven, living in a small house with your mother and step-father. Your mother is a cleaning lady with a fifth grade education and your step-dad is an alcoholic who, when he isn't beating your mother, is beating or molesting you and your siblings. At sixteen you can't take it anymore and flee to live with distant relatives in the country. Which is where you meet a boy who is charming and charismatic, who tells you how beautiful you are and how he's going to take you away from all this.

Before you know it, you're pregnant. You drop out of school, your dream of someday being an artist is a distant memory because your boyfriend turns out to be a drug addicted abuser. You get a job working in a burger joint, rent a trashy little trailer and come home every night from your double shift so exhausted you pass out on the mattress on the floor without even eating or showering just to get up the next day and do it again. You try to put aside some money, for a crib or baby bottles, but he always finds it and drinks it away or spends it on his friends. A month after the baby is born he rapes you and now you're pregnant again and the cycle starts over.

When your kids are two and three, you get into a big fight. He tries to kill you and you pack up the kids and run away. You try to make it on your own but you're young, uneducated, scared, desperate and lonely. You end up in one bad relationship after another. You get pregnant again. Eventually they all hit you, or cheat on you or spend all your money on guns, drugs and gambling. You don't have any family or friends for support, it's just you and your kids. You hate to leave them alone at home, you know CPS could take them away, but you're working three jobs to survive and you don't have a choice.

You try to go back to school, to put something away in savings, to get a more reliable car or health insurance. But something always happens. The car breaks down, your kids come down with strep throat, the heater stops working and the price of gas goes up and your landlord raises the rent. Sometimes you're alone and sometimes a man is living with you because it's so hard to come home at night to an empty bed where no one holds you and tells you it will be ok. You want to be with a good guy, but you're 25 and you look 35 and you have three kids and a shitty trailer and a car that barely runs so what kind of quality guy is going to want to be with you. Besides, you've been knocked around and told you're worthless, stupid and ugly so long that you actually believe it. Even if there were a good guy interested in you, you don't deserve him.

Then your boss at the diner promotes you, gives you the day shift so you can work while your kids are at school. You can take a couple night classes, maybe get a degree and pull yourself out of this cycle. You think back to the days when you stole milk from the grocery store because your baby was starving, to the men you let use your body in exchange for a ride to work, to the family that shames you for what you are when they made you that way and you're filled with a mix of guilt and hope. Maybe this time will be different if you just work hard enough and want it enough. You work hard at your job and even harder at school. You do your best to be a good mom but you hardly ever see your kids. School is hard, but it's exciting and you're starting to make some friends even though you're the oldest student there.

You're bone tired, and you've started to have these dizzy spells and sometimes you're too sick to your stomach to eat but you tell yourself it's just because you're working to hard and you just need to eat better and get more sleep. Until the day you see the blood where there shouldn't be blood. You try to not think about it, you need to focus on school and you don't have health insurance anyway. But then you pass out at work and you know you can't wait any longer. So you go to the hospital and they run some tests and a couple weeks later you get the call. The one where they say you have cancer.

You don't tell your kids, you don't tell anyone. You quit school, tell everyone it was just to expensive. You work longer hours and try to save enough for the medication the doctor says you need. There's no way to pay the hospital bills and now collections is calling. You get a call at work. Your trailer burnt down and you have no where to go. You collapse at work and they rush you to the ER. The doctors have to operate and you almost die. When you wake up your kids are there and they're scared and crying. A friend from work agrees to look after them because you're going to be in the hospital for weeks. You start to think it might be better if you just died.

When you can finally leave, your boss has given your job to someone else. A charitable organization sets you up in a house, a real house not a trailer or a shack or an apartment in section 8 surrounded by junkies. It's the nicest place you've ever lived. Your kids don't have to share a room and there are no roaches or gas leaks and the heat and water always work. It's like heaven. They even buy your kids some clothes and school supplies. You scour the thrift shops and get beds for the kids, a used washer and dryer, an old refrigerator from a friend of a friend. But you're recovering from surgery and you need a place to sleep. The doctors tell you to get an adjustable bed but they're to expensive. You're sleeping on a mattress on the floor and it's misery to get up from the floor everyday without pulling out your stitches. So you get a job at a gas station where you're on your feet all day. The doctors tell you that you can't go back to work yet, that being on your feet all day is bad for you, that you need to take your meds. But you're broke and what else can you do?

You scrimp and save but after the meds and school supplies and vaccinations and field trips and work clothes etc you don't have anything left. And then your sister calls. She's coming for a visit. She did better than you, has nicer things, a husband who makes good money. She looks down on you, is always judging you and you feel so ashamed. You notice that your kids never invite their friends over, they're embarrassed with how you live. You look around at the couch with the broken leg and the duct tape holding the faux leather armrest together. You see your kids clothes in cardboard boxes because you can't afford a dresser. You look at the shabby mattress on the floor you call a bed and dread the pain you know is coming when you try to go to bed tonight. And something in you snaps.

There's a place downtown. A rent-to-own store. You've seen the ads in the paper and on TV. No down payment, no credit requirements, no job necessary. You think, what can it hurt to look? You pack up the kids and drive down to the store. It's so bright inside the store, it smells nice, the staff are all smiling and helpful. You see a reclining sofa, sit down and pop the foot rest out. Your legs swell because you're on your feet so much and because of the medication and having them propped up like this is such a relief. The fabric is cool against your skin, soft as a baby bunny. And here's the salesman. He's so nice to you, the first guy to be nice to you in a long time. He's telling you about the sale their having and he's talking so fast and throwing out a lot of words you don't really understand but he keeps assuring you that you can afford it. And guess what? The recliner is part of a set. You can get the reclining sofa for $20 a week but wouldn't it be so much nicer to get the whole set for just an extra $5 a week? You can swing $25 a week. If you take the bus to work and skip lunch you can totally do $25 a week. You're exhausted from lack of sleep, you haven't set down to a real meal in who knows how long and the medication makes it hard to think sometimes but the nice salesman helps you sign the contract.

They deliver the furniture the next day and it's so nice to not sleep on the floor. And your kids ask if they can invite friends over for a sleepover. And for once your sister doesn't make some snide comment about the state of your house. And it was only $25! In the back of your mind, beneath the exhaustion, the malnutrition and the medication you seem to recall something about interest rates and late payment penalties and you think that maybe the quality of the furniture isn't as great as it seemed under those bright lights because the sofa is sort of wobbly and there's a patch on the TV stand where the laminate is starting to peel but you can't think about that now because it's time for your meds and then a shift at the gas station and then a shift at the factory where you make cheap jewelry for the tourists and then you have to make dinner for the kids and run some laundry and do the bills and it all feels so overwhelming. But it's ok, because you've spent your whole life on one dirty used mattress on the floor or another and tonight you'll be sleeping in your new recliner. You have something to look forward to, something to focus on to get you through the day. And it's enough to keep you going.

For today.

And that's how you find yourself paying for a living room set two years after every piece of it has fallen apart.
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mr lovah

Active Member
i love how you fail to acknowledge any of the irresponsible decisions made by the girl in the post

getting pregnant? attending school? LOL

and then shopping for furniture? at a rent-to-own?


I just mentioned I have $100,000 in savings. I bought an outfit for an interview for a job (also recently mentioned) at WALMART for $50 total. I KEPT THE RECEIPT so I could RETURN the outfit because I shop at Savers for used clothes


I mentioned to my dad that a derrick hand I worked with (whom made $110,000 last year) bought a $200 pair of sneakers and my dad scoffed
 
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Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
mr lovah said:
i love how you fail to acknowledge any of the irresponsible decisions made by the girl in the post
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Not explicitly stating she made some poor choices isn't failing to acknowledge them

I doubt you read past the second kid

The point is, since you fail to acknowledge it, is millions of people work hard everyday and remain in poverty because of reasons outside of their control, and all people are not born with equal opportunities to climb economic classes
 
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mr lovah

Active Member
the single largest factor has to do with a person's perceived capabilities

I've been hanging out in coffee shops around Williston a lot lately while waiting to start my new job. I met one dude in particular whom I see all the time just bumming around like I am right now. He recently obtained his CDL permit, which I commended him for, but I'd ask about any job leads/prospects and he never had any

yesterday, I walk into a fast food place to use the WIFI and see him working there


Why would anybody chose to work at walmart or mcdonalds when they're living in an oil field? your guess is as good as mine


I get the feeling that YOU are just like him. Settling for nothing and bitching on the internet about it
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
mr lovah said:
the single largest factor has to do with a person's perceived capabilities

I've been hanging out in coffee shops around Williston a lot lately while waiting to start my new job. I met one dude in particular whom I see all the time just bumming around like I am right now. He recently obtained his CDL permit, which I commended him for, but I'd ask about any job leads/prospects and he never had any

yesterday, I walk into a fast food place to use the WIFI and see him working there


Why would anybody chose to work at walmart or mcdonalds when they're living in an oil field? your guess is as good as mine


I get the feeling that YOU are just like him. Settling for nothing and bitching on the internet about it
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I'm afraid data analysis and statistics trump your personal anecdotes

Cool stories though, bro

It's clear even to yourself your point is weak since you'd rather make this exchange personal rather than discuss the actual facts

Making personal claims about people you don't personally know makes you ignorant, although no more evidence was necessary
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
mr lovah said:
lol you're so unhappy with your life. get up and do something about it sucker
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My life is awesome, the difference between you and I is that I don't need anonymous strangers on the internet to validate it, and I don't flaunt my success at every applicable moment because that's not what good people do. Good people also don't shame the less fortunate among us for their circumstance or position in life.

The views and opinions you have were formulated from a position of pain and neglect, not respect and honor. Absent father, drunk mother and brother.. the only personal success you have is financial success, and that's awesome, but as they say, you can't buy happiness, and you definitely can't buy back the time your father spent making his fortune while neglecting his obligations and responsibilities towards his family. I'd be a miserable, bitter prick, too if I didn't grow up with an honorable man I call dad.

How was that for a psychoanalysis?
 
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mr lovah

Active Member
Padawanbater2 said:
Yeah, I bet you mistakenly told them about it like Germany mistakenly won the world cup..
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mistakes can be things realized later as such


Also, I speak with my parents several times a week and our relationship has improved drastically since I moved out


why so stagnant and unhappy? i gave you the reason why I have so much free time to kill online. what's yours?
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
mr lovah said:
I speak with my parents several times a week and our relationship has improved drastically since I moved out.
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You seem to have missed the point entirely, your relationship can improve as much as possible, I hope it does, but nobody was around during your most important developmental years, years where most people learn what's right and wrong and most importantly, why. Implementing that knowledge in the real world interacting with people. Your behavior in this thread and attitude towards me over something as trivial as a political disagreement on an anonymous internet forum shows you lack said fundamental knowledge.

Virtue is knowledge
 
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