Don’t forget that smoking is an addiction. I know tons of people who struggle to quit for decades and keep falling back to it. So there is that. And her point was generally not to complain or paint herself as some sort of pure victim, but to explain, so there is that.
As far as food, I think that’s a more complex problem than you are admitting. It’s a hell of a lot easier to pick something up on the way home than it is to go home and cook a meal. Plus, she has a family–cereal and bean burittos is easier to live on when you’re single, with no kids, I think.
I have a crock pot I bought for $5 at goodwill and I use it a lot. I think it’s pretty awesome. I use it way more than the rice cooker.
I do have experience with poverty, although not as direct as the original poster, but a rice cooker OR a crock pot are still not really great big answers to even bigger questions.
Also, isn’t it a little paternalistic to assume that a poor person has NEVER EVER thought to get a crock pot or a rice cooker? Or that she lacks such things? It’s not like he was mentioning something really unique. Poor people have crock pots and rice cookers. They know what they are.
After a certain point, when you talk about common items to people who really aren’t stupid, as if these items are going to Change Their Lives, it becomes less helpful and more presumptuous and condescending.
That’s a big part of it. I take care of some family that is incapable of taking care of themselves, but what am I really supposed to do? Throw them into the streets? They’re my responsibility, as I am the capable one. And with one exception, it’s not a thing they had control over. My real dad, for example, was an addict and I pay for his housing now that he’s clean, but he fried his brain and can’t work. My husband, who has trouble holding jobs, was perfectly functional before he went to Iraq. My parents are elderly and starting to struggle with daily tasks. That is what family is for a lot of us.
You make it sound like he’s replied to every comment with “Rice Cookers Will Save Us All!”
Having a conversation with me about rice cookers is not just randomly mentioning rice cookers, it’s having a conversation about rice cookers.
But we get it, you don’t like rice cookers, jeez you don’t need to go on and on about it in every comment!
[quote=“marilove, post:101, topic:14733, full:true”]
I read every comment they left.
Great, we get it, everyone should get a rice cooker! After a certain point it becomes pretty mind-boggling that someone would put that much importance on a freakin’ rice cooker.[/quote]
You come across as being an ally to poor people.
And like so many allies, you don’t know when to sit down and be quiet.
Neither are cigarettes, meals at Wendy’s, or buying Funyuns at the corner liquor store.
Do you have a point, other than that someone has annoyed you and you wish they’d stop doing things that personally annoy you?
YES! I am smart enough to know that I need to teach my kids. But when I’m working they’re probably watching TV because they’re being babysat, not taught. My three-year old knows her planets and colors and letters, and she can count to thirty, but if she can do that with the limited time I have to give her brain, what could she do if she could go to Montessori?
I would love to see people who have some power decide that my children should be able to learn simply because they are capable of it, rather than because I have enough money to buy them access to an education.
I realize I responded to her once again–I’m bad about feeding trollies–but that’s pretty much what marilove is all about. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to stop now. It’s obvious that it’s pointless at this point. She’s bringing up good points but in the most confrontational manner possible–pretty much textbook driving trollies for outrage.
Hey, codinghorror, does flagging comments affect any kind of trust metric in your code? As in, if we see someone who’s obviously tolling all the time, and we flag the comment, will they eventually get shadowbanned or something?
Oh for sure it’s an addiction - but I just don’t see that as a good excuse.
And I am fully aware at the temptation of getting something quick and now, loaded in yummy fats and starches. I had a good day today, even had an interview - don’t I deserve it? I don’t even cook - but I make do. For sure it’s harder with kids but grabbing McDonalds isn’t helping them. For one meal at McDonalds I can get 3 microwave dinners of the kind I like (Marie Cullender) - even more if you get the cheap ones. Impulse control is a bitch and something you have to work on.
I don’t think it’s circular. I think it’s a matter of prioritization. I have a finite amount of time home with the kids. Very finite. I choose to spend it reading books and playing games instead of making messes to clean. It’s not that I couldn’t do both, it’s that I can’t do both without cutting into sleep time, which is already scarce. So my priorities, since the food that is convenient is at least something resembling food, are: Time with the kids. Sleep. Slightly better food. Clean house. But as it isn’t a question of eating or not eating, it’s lower on the list than things that are choices between a thing or not. Does that make more sense?
It’s okay, I don’t care about “winning” in comments. Anyone who is reading along can see what I am saying, and anyone who was sympathetic to that argument can see it is a false one.
As far as the soldiers and vets - AMEN! It is a travesty how we treat those who have served our country.
And how well is that going to work? Seriously. People who have the time and energy to devote to these issues are not as effected by them, or do nothing other than what is in their personal comfort zone (myself included). The people who really have not choices, also have little to no time don’t have the time and energy to devote to these issues. A fair amount of this is tied into identity formation in the postmodern world–we more often think of ourselves as individuals rather than parts of communities–or our communities are spread out across the virtual world.
The set of problems that we are discussing here are so complex, that the only way to really even begin to address them, if not solve them is via collective action. But you saw how well that worked out for Occupy.
Eh, I suppose you’re right, but overall my impression is that she is one. I find it hard to believe that someone is genuinely convinced that someone is a shitty person because they advocated a potential solution for a problem that won’t work for absolutely every poor person out there.
I tend to think that about anyone who gets that angry all the time over nothing, though, so I’m biased.
Suprised at the amount of social Darwinism on display even from normally sane, humane BB commenters.
When it comes to having children, east and west coast middle class folks need to understand that the personal values with which they are raised differ from those of other. To me and people like me having children doesn’t seem like a terribly important thing to do with my life. I was raised with values that tell me that having children is optional, something of a luxury, and should only be done once I have a good career, a steady job, and a stable marriage.
For many, many people however, having children is the single most important thing they can do and will ever do. This is simply a difference of values. When you say it’s financially irresponsible for poor folks to have children that is a judgment made on the basis of your own personal values. You have to expect other people not to share your values and to make decisions according to their own values rather than yours.
So often when some clueless middle class person says “well she shouldn’t have had kids in the first place” it comes across something like “she shouldn’t do the most important thing she can possibly do, the thing that will give the most meaning to her life because she’s too poor to deserve the opportunity for that kind of fulfillment. Fulfillment is only for the middle class and the rich.” Seriously, people, think about the social Darwinism implicit in the sentiment that poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
I thought she was complaining about Knoxblox endlessly talking about them, as if just buying a rice cooker (or a crockpot, for that matter) is the answer to all this woman’s problems–like if she just took the time to make a home cook meal (which as she pointed out she doesn’t have) all her problems will melt away. That is the source of marilove’s frustration, from what I understood. But I shouldn’t presume to speak for her.
Here’s the thing, though: If you are working in fresh food, you have to sort out the following things: more frequent shopping. More frequent fridge-cleaning. Maybe only an extra half an hour to cook and fifteen minutes to clean, but that’s 45 minutes that I am not spending with my children. Every single day. On average, I only get an hour with them in a day, because they are very young and don’t stay up late enough for me to see them. So given that, is it better for us to know that they are seeing their mom in a real way, or that they eat fresh vegetables instead of the frozen or canned sort?
It’s not that it takes insanely long. It’s that there’s only a few free hours in a day and you have to be careful how you spend them. It is easy to try to be healthy but that, I think, loses its value if you wind up healthy but emotionally neglected. That said, I cook food for a living. It’s the last damn thing I want to do when I get home, and I’ll cop to being pleased that there are reasons not to cook more and do more dishes. It’s just that they happen to be perfectly valid reasons on their own merit.
To be fair to us East/West coast people (which you count yourself), many of us count our children as the most important thing in our lives too. Not all of us elite liberal latte drinking volvo driving coasters see our kids as fashion accessories…
Stop discriminating against us middle class elties will you!
Sorry, I didn’t use a /sarcasm tag there, I should have, I was attempting, and obviously failing, to be funny.
Side note: I don’t feel like he was saying that all her problems would disappear if she just used a rice cooker, but that it might help, that was all. /shrug
