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http://killermartinis.kinja.com/why-i-make-terrible-decisions-or-poverty-thoughts-1450123558
There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.
Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full courseload, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 1230AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.
When I was pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel for some time. I had a minifridge with no freezer and a microwave. I was on WIC. I ate peanut butter from the jar and frozen burritos because they were 12/$2. Had I had a stove, I couldn't have made beef burritos that cheaply. And I needed the meat, I was pregnant. I might not have had any prenatal care, but I am intelligent enough to eat protein and iron whilst knocked up.
I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.
The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. That's a lot of money in gas. Lots of women can't afford that, and even if you live near one you probably don't want to be seen coming in and out in a lot of areas. We're aware that we are not "having kids," we're "breeding." We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.
Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.
Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.
Cooking attracts roaches. Nobody realizes that. I've spent a lot of hours impaling roach bodies and leaving them out on toothpick pikes to discourage others from entering. It doesn't work, but is amusing.
"Free" only exists for rich people. It's great that there's a bowl of condoms at my school, but most poor people will never set foot on a college campus. We don't belong there. There's a clinic? Great! There's still a copay. We're not going. Besides, all they'll tell you at the clinic is that you need to see a specialist, which seriously? Might as well be located on Mars for how accessible it is. "Low-cost" and "sliding scale" sounds like "money you have to spend" to me, and they can't actually help you anyway.
I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and I feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed. It is not a good decision, but it is the only one that I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps me from collapsing or exploding.
I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.
Update: The response to this piece is overwhelming. I have had a lot of people ask to use my work. Please do. Share it with the world if you found value in it. Please link back if you can. If you are teaching, I am happy to discuss this with or clarify for you, and you can freely use this piece in your classes. Please do let me know where you teach. You can reach me on Twitter, @killermartinis. I set up an email at killermartinisbook@ gmail as well.
This piece has gone fully viral. People have been asking me to write, and how they can help. After enough people tried to send me paypal money, I set up a gofundme. Find it here. It promptly went insane. I have raised my typical yearly income as of this update. I have no idea what to say except thank you. I am going to speak with some money people who will make sure that I can't fuck this up, and I will use it to do good things with.
I've also set up a blog, which I hope you will find here.
Understand that I wrote this as an example of the thought process that we struggle with. Most of us are clinically depressed, and we do not get therapy and medication and support. We get told to get over it. And we find ways to cope. I am not saying that people live without hope entirely; that is not human nature. But these are the thoughts that are never too far away, that creep up on us every chance they get, that prey on our better judgement when we are tired and stressed and weakened. We maintain a constant vigil against these thoughts, because we are afraid that if we speak them aloud or even articulate them in our heads they will become unmanageably real.
Thank you for reading. I am glad people find value in it. Because I am getting tired of people not reading this and then commenting anyway, I am making a few things clear: not all of this piece is about me. That is why I said that they were observations. And this piece is not all of me: that is why I said that they were random observations rather than complete ones. If you really have to urge me to abort or keep my knees closed or wonder whether I can fax you my citizenship documents or if I really in fact have been poor because I know multisyllabic words, I would like to ask that you read the comments and see whether anyone has made your point in the particular fashion you intend to. It is not that I mind trolls so much, it's that they're getting repetitive and if you have to say nothing I hope you can at least do it in an entertaining fashion.
If, however, you simply are curious about something and actually want to have a conversation, I do not mind repeating myself because those conversations are valuable and not actually repetitive. They tend to be very specific to the asker, and I am happy to shed any light I can. I do not mind honest questions. They are why I wrote this piece.
Thank you all, so much. I don't know what life will look like next week, and for once that's a good thing. And I have you to thank.
http://tinashang.kinja.com/i-was-inspired-to-write-this-after-learning-about-mrs-1470915511
I was inspired to write this after learning about Mrs. Tirado aka KillerMartini's essay. People will either love me or hate me for this, but I felt compelled to respond.
Let me say up front that I do not begrudge Mrs. Tirando her turn in fortune. I do not want to discourage people from continuing to give to her cause. I wish her the very best and if it makes her life a bit easier, and helps her deal with her dental issues then that is a worthy cause.
I do hope that she will become a true voice of people living in poverty. I have even offered to be one of her research subjects should she decide to move forward with her book plans. I believe she has been given an opportunity to do good things and make a difference and I sincerely hope that she takes advantage of it.
That being said I don't believe Mrs. Tirado painted a true picture of the working poor.
I could relate to some of the things expressed in Mrs. Tirado's essay such as being bone tired, lacking dental care, and the means to dress and look the way society expects of a professional in the workplace. But for the most part we see things very differently.
So what do the working poor look like?
We look just like you, except for the dark circles under our eyes, you might never know that we live paycheck to paycheck in constant fear of anything going wrong. A simple case of the flu could be disastrous for those of us that cannot afford to give up even a few hours of pay let alone a few days. A flat tire, unexpected expense and kids school field trip are things we dread because we know that there is no way we can afford these things unless we let something else go.
You might not know from looking at me that our annual household income is less than $20 thousand dollars. You might not guess that I work 45-50 hours a week as a staff reporter for a local paper, that I am a mother of five, or that I attend college full time 12-15 hours a semester. You might not know that they only reason I can afford to attend college is because I received an honors scholarship and qualify for grants.
You couldn't tell that I have had numerous sleepless nights staying up into the wee hours to finish homework, or meet deadline at work. It is not obvious that I have given up precious time with my family to ensure a better future for them.
You wouldn't know that my husband is a veteran with a myriad of medical problems or that we have been unable to get him on disability, because the system is a nightmare. There is no way you could know that he keeps the household running smoothly so that I can work and go to school and chase my dreams or that I could never accomplish so much without his utter devotion and undying support.
This is who I am. It is who we are.
We are the working poor.
We are intelligent and hardworking just like you. We go to work every day and we come home to our families every night. Just like you.
Some of us, such as myself, try to better ourselves and the lives of our family by furthering our education, even though we know it means going into debt to cover school expenses, something we had not done up until that point.
We do it even though it means even less rest than we get already. We do it and we push through the days we feel like there is no way to keep going. We do it because we have to. We do it because we believe that there is something better out there. Some of us do it because we feel it is the only way to, not only improve our lives, but to put ourselves in a position where we can improve the lives of others.
Almost every non-traditional student I know who is busting their ass working their way through school is majoring in a public service field. The will be serving society as social workers, teachers, and human rights attorneys. Many of those who are not in, what could traditionally be considered a public service field, also intend to serve the public.
I am a New Media Communications major, my future plans including teaching, lecturing and writing. My interests lie in the convergence of Information Communication Technology and Education. Specifically how we can utilize those tools to engage, educate and empower marginalized groups. I have notebooks full of ideas and dreams including book ideas, business ideas, and pilot programs to help the poor just to name a few.
Some people will ask, why don't you take those ideas and run with them? My response is WHEN? I don't have time to fully develop them, so I jot them down in hopes that one day I will have the time. Between full time work, full load at school, and a family when am I supposed to peruse those ideas? Hopes and Dreams don't pay the bills. It is just another luxury we cannot afford.
I am not depressed despite living in poverty, what I lack in financial security is more than made up for in the form of the love and support I receive from friends and family. That is not to say that I never have down days. I have days where I am so exhausted I worry about how I am going to make the hour commute to and from school. I dread dragging my butt out to cover that night meeting for work. Some days I wonder why I am killing myself to get ahead and wonder if I will truly ever get there.
I don't turn to cigarettes or any other drug or stimulate to get me through it. I don't sleep with random strangers to make myself feel loved or beautiful. I just have to give myself a mental shake to remind myself that I haven't been killing myself for the past three years to throw it all away now.
I receive an even better reminder of what I am working so hard for when I walk through the door each night and am greeted by my family. If I did not have their constant support there would be no way I could keep going, so I guess you could say they are my stimulant. I know they are my inspiration.
Mrs. Tirado spoke about the fact that part of the reason she ended up in a bad position was because of poor life decisions and bad financial decisions. I don't believe that she was insinuating that is true for everyone in poverty, but I wanted to make it clear that it absolutely not true for the majority.
The working poor are generally extremely conscientious and frugal because they realize that it only takes one small misstep to find themselves homeless or in dire straits. Most of us would never dream of intentionally doing anything that would place our families in that situation. Sometimes it happens anyway, but usually due to some unforeseen circumstance, such as an extended illness, or loss of employment, not because we were irresponsible.
We live within our means and have only the basics to cover which is part of the reason why we have kept our heads above water for this long. The bulk of my paycheck goes to rent.
We know what it is like to have no gifts under the tree at Christmas and other holidays including birthdays. We know what it is like to have to tell a five year old you cannot take them bowling for their birthday, because you cannot afford it. We know how it feels to have to deny your children small pleasures that others take for granted such as going to the movies with friends.
We know what it is like to put off going to the doctor and showing up for work no matter how sick you might be because you have no other choice. We know what is like to have crumbling teeth and to live in constant pain because we can't afford to take care of the issues that plague us.
We also know what it is like to be judged by others for all of these things.
We are told we should take better care of our teeth and they wouldn't rot. If you cannot afford to take care of the decayed teeth, the bacteria spreads and you have even bigger problems. People assume you either are nasty and don't take care of your teeth or you are a drug user. Neither of which would hold true for me. I carry dental floss in my purse to floss after meals when I am out of the house and I abhor drugs. I don't even like to take Tylenol.
We are looked over for jobs because we don't fit the mold society thinks we should. We don't have manicured nails, highlights in our hair, nice clothes and a pretty smile. People may say that looks don't matter when it comes to a job interview, that it is all about qualifications, but we know that isn't true. Our society is image driven.
We are told you shouldn't have kids if you cannot afford them. Would anyone have children if they had to wait until they could really afford them?
Oh and for the record you can be poor and still raise wonderful children.
We tend to lavish our kids with love and attention rather than things. That is okay, really it is.
I have five children. Two are adults and the other three range in age from 5 – 13. My oldest child is a freshman in college, married and has children of her own. My 18 year old is a senior in high school who plans to attend college in the Fall.
All of my children are incredibly loving and have good hearts. I couldn't be more proud of them and I think they are proud of me too. Being poor has taught us the value of a dollar, but more importantly it taught us that there is greater value in things you cannot buy.
It isn't fun to live paycheck to paycheck. You don't really live at all. It would be more accurate to say we subsist, all the while praying that nothing unexpected comes along. You keep working your ass off to try and get to a point where you can actually live, because subsisting just really isn't that fun.
I could easily go on and on about the daily grind of the working poor and maybe I will do that in book form or better yet in blog form. I couldn't promise I would have time to jot something down every single day but probably weekly. If I believed it would lend a voice to the working poor and help those who have never had to live this way better understand us it would be worthwhile.
I can see how it would be easy for some living this way to lose hope. It is disheartening to realize that no matter how hard you work you cannot get ahead. The only reason I see light at the end of the tunnel is because I am fortunate enough to go to college. I am a Junior, but want to earn a Masters so I have a few years to go yet. It isn't easy doing this at 42 years old, but it is doable and I will make it. I will use my education to work on this issue and others, to change mindsets and policies that keep the impoverished from raising their status.
So I am tempted to start a gofundme account. Lord knows I could use the money and it would be an interesting social experiment. Do people really want to know what it is like to live this way or do they prefer the picture of poverty painted by Mrs. Tirado?
If I did start a gofund me the money would go towards living expenses. I would love to be able to quit my job and find something part time on campus or in my field. I would love to have free time to write and further explore some of my ideas. I would love to be able to, for once, focus 100% on something. That is another luxury the working poor usually don't have. Between work and school I never have any down time and I never get to fully focus my attention on one or the other.
I have often wondered just what I could do if I could focus my full attention on school. I currently have a 3.798 GPA, an honors scholarship and multiple awards despite having so many other responsibilities that pull my attention away from school. I am not bragging, although I am extremely proud of my accomplishments, I am just saying imagine what I could accomplish if I didn't have to divide my time.
The money would not be squandered it would be used solely to relieve the daily stress associated with the uncertainty that comes with living paycheck to paycheck. Then I could focus that energy on educational opportunities and my family.
The fact is I probably won't start a gofundme because it just doesn't feel right. Why should I get a break and not have to work my way through school when there are so many other who have and are doing just that?
Although I may take a friends suggestion and try to use it to raise funds to fix my teeth something that has ailed me for too many years. Something I cannot afford to fix despite having dental insurance through work. Something that I believe holds me back in my career and in school. Even with the insurance the cost of having the work done and getting dentures would be over four grand AFTER insurance. It is ridiculous that people cannot afford basic dental and health care, but that is a rant for another day.
There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.
Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full courseload, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 1230AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.
When I was pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel for some time. I had a minifridge with no freezer and a microwave. I was on WIC. I ate peanut butter from the jar and frozen burritos because they were 12/$2. Had I had a stove, I couldn't have made beef burritos that cheaply. And I needed the meat, I was pregnant. I might not have had any prenatal care, but I am intelligent enough to eat protein and iron whilst knocked up.
I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.
The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. That's a lot of money in gas. Lots of women can't afford that, and even if you live near one you probably don't want to be seen coming in and out in a lot of areas. We're aware that we are not "having kids," we're "breeding." We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.
Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.
Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.
Cooking attracts roaches. Nobody realizes that. I've spent a lot of hours impaling roach bodies and leaving them out on toothpick pikes to discourage others from entering. It doesn't work, but is amusing.
"Free" only exists for rich people. It's great that there's a bowl of condoms at my school, but most poor people will never set foot on a college campus. We don't belong there. There's a clinic? Great! There's still a copay. We're not going. Besides, all they'll tell you at the clinic is that you need to see a specialist, which seriously? Might as well be located on Mars for how accessible it is. "Low-cost" and "sliding scale" sounds like "money you have to spend" to me, and they can't actually help you anyway.
I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and I feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed. It is not a good decision, but it is the only one that I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps me from collapsing or exploding.
I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.
Update: The response to this piece is overwhelming. I have had a lot of people ask to use my work. Please do. Share it with the world if you found value in it. Please link back if you can. If you are teaching, I am happy to discuss this with or clarify for you, and you can freely use this piece in your classes. Please do let me know where you teach. You can reach me on Twitter, @killermartinis. I set up an email at killermartinisbook@ gmail as well.
This piece has gone fully viral. People have been asking me to write, and how they can help. After enough people tried to send me paypal money, I set up a gofundme. Find it here. It promptly went insane. I have raised my typical yearly income as of this update. I have no idea what to say except thank you. I am going to speak with some money people who will make sure that I can't fuck this up, and I will use it to do good things with.
I've also set up a blog, which I hope you will find here.
Understand that I wrote this as an example of the thought process that we struggle with. Most of us are clinically depressed, and we do not get therapy and medication and support. We get told to get over it. And we find ways to cope. I am not saying that people live without hope entirely; that is not human nature. But these are the thoughts that are never too far away, that creep up on us every chance they get, that prey on our better judgement when we are tired and stressed and weakened. We maintain a constant vigil against these thoughts, because we are afraid that if we speak them aloud or even articulate them in our heads they will become unmanageably real.
Thank you for reading. I am glad people find value in it. Because I am getting tired of people not reading this and then commenting anyway, I am making a few things clear: not all of this piece is about me. That is why I said that they were observations. And this piece is not all of me: that is why I said that they were random observations rather than complete ones. If you really have to urge me to abort or keep my knees closed or wonder whether I can fax you my citizenship documents or if I really in fact have been poor because I know multisyllabic words, I would like to ask that you read the comments and see whether anyone has made your point in the particular fashion you intend to. It is not that I mind trolls so much, it's that they're getting repetitive and if you have to say nothing I hope you can at least do it in an entertaining fashion.
If, however, you simply are curious about something and actually want to have a conversation, I do not mind repeating myself because those conversations are valuable and not actually repetitive. They tend to be very specific to the asker, and I am happy to shed any light I can. I do not mind honest questions. They are why I wrote this piece.
Thank you all, so much. I don't know what life will look like next week, and for once that's a good thing. And I have you to thank.
http://tinashang.kinja.com/i-was-inspired-to-write-this-after-learning-about-mrs-1470915511
I was inspired to write this after learning about Mrs. Tirado aka KillerMartini's essay. People will either love me or hate me for this, but I felt compelled to respond.
Let me say up front that I do not begrudge Mrs. Tirando her turn in fortune. I do not want to discourage people from continuing to give to her cause. I wish her the very best and if it makes her life a bit easier, and helps her deal with her dental issues then that is a worthy cause.
I do hope that she will become a true voice of people living in poverty. I have even offered to be one of her research subjects should she decide to move forward with her book plans. I believe she has been given an opportunity to do good things and make a difference and I sincerely hope that she takes advantage of it.
That being said I don't believe Mrs. Tirado painted a true picture of the working poor.
I could relate to some of the things expressed in Mrs. Tirado's essay such as being bone tired, lacking dental care, and the means to dress and look the way society expects of a professional in the workplace. But for the most part we see things very differently.
So what do the working poor look like?
We look just like you, except for the dark circles under our eyes, you might never know that we live paycheck to paycheck in constant fear of anything going wrong. A simple case of the flu could be disastrous for those of us that cannot afford to give up even a few hours of pay let alone a few days. A flat tire, unexpected expense and kids school field trip are things we dread because we know that there is no way we can afford these things unless we let something else go.
You might not know from looking at me that our annual household income is less than $20 thousand dollars. You might not guess that I work 45-50 hours a week as a staff reporter for a local paper, that I am a mother of five, or that I attend college full time 12-15 hours a semester. You might not know that they only reason I can afford to attend college is because I received an honors scholarship and qualify for grants.
You couldn't tell that I have had numerous sleepless nights staying up into the wee hours to finish homework, or meet deadline at work. It is not obvious that I have given up precious time with my family to ensure a better future for them.
You wouldn't know that my husband is a veteran with a myriad of medical problems or that we have been unable to get him on disability, because the system is a nightmare. There is no way you could know that he keeps the household running smoothly so that I can work and go to school and chase my dreams or that I could never accomplish so much without his utter devotion and undying support.
This is who I am. It is who we are.
We are the working poor.
We are intelligent and hardworking just like you. We go to work every day and we come home to our families every night. Just like you.
Some of us, such as myself, try to better ourselves and the lives of our family by furthering our education, even though we know it means going into debt to cover school expenses, something we had not done up until that point.
We do it even though it means even less rest than we get already. We do it and we push through the days we feel like there is no way to keep going. We do it because we have to. We do it because we believe that there is something better out there. Some of us do it because we feel it is the only way to, not only improve our lives, but to put ourselves in a position where we can improve the lives of others.
Almost every non-traditional student I know who is busting their ass working their way through school is majoring in a public service field. The will be serving society as social workers, teachers, and human rights attorneys. Many of those who are not in, what could traditionally be considered a public service field, also intend to serve the public.
I am a New Media Communications major, my future plans including teaching, lecturing and writing. My interests lie in the convergence of Information Communication Technology and Education. Specifically how we can utilize those tools to engage, educate and empower marginalized groups. I have notebooks full of ideas and dreams including book ideas, business ideas, and pilot programs to help the poor just to name a few.
Some people will ask, why don't you take those ideas and run with them? My response is WHEN? I don't have time to fully develop them, so I jot them down in hopes that one day I will have the time. Between full time work, full load at school, and a family when am I supposed to peruse those ideas? Hopes and Dreams don't pay the bills. It is just another luxury we cannot afford.
I am not depressed despite living in poverty, what I lack in financial security is more than made up for in the form of the love and support I receive from friends and family. That is not to say that I never have down days. I have days where I am so exhausted I worry about how I am going to make the hour commute to and from school. I dread dragging my butt out to cover that night meeting for work. Some days I wonder why I am killing myself to get ahead and wonder if I will truly ever get there.
I don't turn to cigarettes or any other drug or stimulate to get me through it. I don't sleep with random strangers to make myself feel loved or beautiful. I just have to give myself a mental shake to remind myself that I haven't been killing myself for the past three years to throw it all away now.
I receive an even better reminder of what I am working so hard for when I walk through the door each night and am greeted by my family. If I did not have their constant support there would be no way I could keep going, so I guess you could say they are my stimulant. I know they are my inspiration.
Mrs. Tirado spoke about the fact that part of the reason she ended up in a bad position was because of poor life decisions and bad financial decisions. I don't believe that she was insinuating that is true for everyone in poverty, but I wanted to make it clear that it absolutely not true for the majority.
The working poor are generally extremely conscientious and frugal because they realize that it only takes one small misstep to find themselves homeless or in dire straits. Most of us would never dream of intentionally doing anything that would place our families in that situation. Sometimes it happens anyway, but usually due to some unforeseen circumstance, such as an extended illness, or loss of employment, not because we were irresponsible.
We live within our means and have only the basics to cover which is part of the reason why we have kept our heads above water for this long. The bulk of my paycheck goes to rent.
We know what it is like to have no gifts under the tree at Christmas and other holidays including birthdays. We know what it is like to have to tell a five year old you cannot take them bowling for their birthday, because you cannot afford it. We know how it feels to have to deny your children small pleasures that others take for granted such as going to the movies with friends.
We know what it is like to put off going to the doctor and showing up for work no matter how sick you might be because you have no other choice. We know what is like to have crumbling teeth and to live in constant pain because we can't afford to take care of the issues that plague us.
We also know what it is like to be judged by others for all of these things.
We are told we should take better care of our teeth and they wouldn't rot. If you cannot afford to take care of the decayed teeth, the bacteria spreads and you have even bigger problems. People assume you either are nasty and don't take care of your teeth or you are a drug user. Neither of which would hold true for me. I carry dental floss in my purse to floss after meals when I am out of the house and I abhor drugs. I don't even like to take Tylenol.
We are looked over for jobs because we don't fit the mold society thinks we should. We don't have manicured nails, highlights in our hair, nice clothes and a pretty smile. People may say that looks don't matter when it comes to a job interview, that it is all about qualifications, but we know that isn't true. Our society is image driven.
We are told you shouldn't have kids if you cannot afford them. Would anyone have children if they had to wait until they could really afford them?
Oh and for the record you can be poor and still raise wonderful children.
We tend to lavish our kids with love and attention rather than things. That is okay, really it is.
I have five children. Two are adults and the other three range in age from 5 – 13. My oldest child is a freshman in college, married and has children of her own. My 18 year old is a senior in high school who plans to attend college in the Fall.
All of my children are incredibly loving and have good hearts. I couldn't be more proud of them and I think they are proud of me too. Being poor has taught us the value of a dollar, but more importantly it taught us that there is greater value in things you cannot buy.
It isn't fun to live paycheck to paycheck. You don't really live at all. It would be more accurate to say we subsist, all the while praying that nothing unexpected comes along. You keep working your ass off to try and get to a point where you can actually live, because subsisting just really isn't that fun.
I could easily go on and on about the daily grind of the working poor and maybe I will do that in book form or better yet in blog form. I couldn't promise I would have time to jot something down every single day but probably weekly. If I believed it would lend a voice to the working poor and help those who have never had to live this way better understand us it would be worthwhile.
I can see how it would be easy for some living this way to lose hope. It is disheartening to realize that no matter how hard you work you cannot get ahead. The only reason I see light at the end of the tunnel is because I am fortunate enough to go to college. I am a Junior, but want to earn a Masters so I have a few years to go yet. It isn't easy doing this at 42 years old, but it is doable and I will make it. I will use my education to work on this issue and others, to change mindsets and policies that keep the impoverished from raising their status.
So I am tempted to start a gofundme account. Lord knows I could use the money and it would be an interesting social experiment. Do people really want to know what it is like to live this way or do they prefer the picture of poverty painted by Mrs. Tirado?
If I did start a gofund me the money would go towards living expenses. I would love to be able to quit my job and find something part time on campus or in my field. I would love to have free time to write and further explore some of my ideas. I would love to be able to, for once, focus 100% on something. That is another luxury the working poor usually don't have. Between work and school I never have any down time and I never get to fully focus my attention on one or the other.
I have often wondered just what I could do if I could focus my full attention on school. I currently have a 3.798 GPA, an honors scholarship and multiple awards despite having so many other responsibilities that pull my attention away from school. I am not bragging, although I am extremely proud of my accomplishments, I am just saying imagine what I could accomplish if I didn't have to divide my time.
The money would not be squandered it would be used solely to relieve the daily stress associated with the uncertainty that comes with living paycheck to paycheck. Then I could focus that energy on educational opportunities and my family.
The fact is I probably won't start a gofundme because it just doesn't feel right. Why should I get a break and not have to work my way through school when there are so many other who have and are doing just that?
Although I may take a friends suggestion and try to use it to raise funds to fix my teeth something that has ailed me for too many years. Something I cannot afford to fix despite having dental insurance through work. Something that I believe holds me back in my career and in school. Even with the insurance the cost of having the work done and getting dentures would be over four grand AFTER insurance. It is ridiculous that people cannot afford basic dental and health care, but that is a rant for another day.
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