Conference turris::womannotes-v2

Yup, I think all of us middle-class white Americans have it to some degree.
It is *real* hard to overcome, because you have to totally step outside your
values of "good" and "noble" and "commendable" and realize that those values
were developed in a very limited world.

Last year I had a "Little Sister" through the Big Brother/Big Sister program.
Tammy's (my little) family was very poor.  Her father drove a bus, and her
mother worked afternoons at a local school, helping kids onto busses.  When
her father had a heart attack, it made thigns a lot worse. Their phone was
canceled (they were one of the few in the projects who had a phone).  No new
warm clothes for the (5) kids for the winter.  Medical bills piling up. Etc.

I had never really been exposed to any of this.  It was shocking and 
disturbing to walk to through the projects to get her, and see how these
people lived.  (No, I was never in fear - they were all very friendly,
contrary to popular opinion about how *dangerous* projects are - these are
all *families*!)  

On one hand, I blamed them for their poverty.  And for their children's
inevitable poverty.  Because I could see the pattern.  It was so clear -
I used to get so angry when her parents would let Tammy stay home from school.
They didn't value school, and even though Tammy was working on her third
try at 5th grade, they never made the connection between her missing school
every other day and her failure.  And between her failure in school and her
inevitable poverty when she grew up.  I blamed them for having more children
than they could afford.  I blamed them for making their povery worse, but
not taking care of their finances - when they *did* get money, the spent it
immediately, and not in wise ways.  (eg; they got $500 for insurance...rather
than putting it away so they would have money to buy food all winter, or
buying clothes for the kids, they went out to eat.)  And they passed these
attitudes and values on to Tammy.

On the other hand, I saw the patterns, and realized that they were no more
"at fault" for not having been taught to value education, or take care of
money, than 11-year old Tammy was at fault for failing in school.  It's
a different world, with different expectations, one most of us don't understand,
nor even get exposed to.  They saw the pattern, too, and were doing their
damndest to break out of it, without the background to show them how.  

How do you deal with valuing differences in a situation like this?  It is
tough to remember that they are dealing with their limited resources in the
best ways they know how.  That it is ridiculous to say "this is how *I* 
would handle their situation, if suddenly I had no money", because your
ideas and values were developed in a situation where you *did* have the
resources.  

I eventually realized that I wasn't *better* than Tammy's parents.  Just
luckier.  And that rather than blaming them for not breaking the pattern,
it was my rsponsibility to *add* to their teachings, and hope that with
the combined knowledge we both gave her, Tammy herself would be able to break
the pattern.

Tammy, by the way, finally managed to pass 5th grade - by the skin of her
teeth.

D! (who thinks everyone should be a BB/BS to a poor child - or work with the
    homeless - or...something that exposes them to a side of life we rarely see)

    RE -.1
    
    Well said!
    
    Steve

    I'm sorry if this is of the track but the reference to money spent
    wisely in .2 made me think of one of those eye opening situations that
    happened to me about 10 years ago.

    There was a story one night on the news about how cuts to funding of
    some welfare program was going to seriously affect the availability of
    financial assistance to certain families.  They interviewed a family
    that was going to be affected by this cut.  These folks were living in
    publicly funded housing and receiving various kinds of assistance, and
    were very upset about having a portion of that assistance taken away.

    Here's the clincher:

    These folks had an annual income (including assistance) of $4200 a year
    more than my wife and myself.  We bought a home (modest shack actually),
    always ate well,  owned a late model used car(although I hitchhiked to
    work), and had a little (very little) extra cash for luxuries.

    My questions at the time were:
    
    Am I being callous to think "yeah, cut that funding" (at least for these
    people)?  Is there something going on here that I don't see?  Is there a
    reason that some folks need more money than me?

    Like I said, this was ten years ago, and with ten years to think about
    it, I still don't understand it.  

    Bob
    

    Re .3, you say that the family on assistance had an annual salary
    of $4200. more than you *including* assistance.  Having $4200. in
    assistance is not the same thing as having $4200. in cash in hand
    to do with as you want.  The free food, subsidised rent, and who
    knows what else, that these people got was included in their annual
    income, but they never actually got to see that much cash.  Apparently,
    your income was actual cash that you and your wife earned and could
    budget as you chose.  I think this makes a difference.  I wonder
    how much actual *cash* those people had during the course of a year.
     
    There can be other factors, such as, how many children did this
    family have, and how many children did you and your wife have? 
    If they had 8 kids and you had 2, it's obvious that you would have
    more money for extras, for example.  Also, perhaps you and your
    wife just have higher IQ's than these people, and can therefore
    plan your budget better.  Does this mean you should put them down
    and begrudge them the assistance they get?  Would you rather see
    them starve?  Maybe you are healthier, and have more energy to put
    into planning your life?  Who knows.  But, wouldn't you still rather
    be able to choose how to spend your money, than to have to accept
    assistance?  Even if you have a low income you can choose to try
    to save for a diamond ring or a trip to Europe, but wellfare isn't
    going to give you assistance for those.  I've never made much money
    but I don't envy those who are getting aid and I don't try to figure
    out if they're really getting more assistance in a year than I get
    paid.  
    
    Lorna
    

    I've been back about 6 months now from the Standing Rock Sioux
    reservation in North Dakota, and I noticed some really interesting
    things about poverty (at least in some particular cases) while I was
    there.  Basically, I noticed that the perception "I'm really, really
    poor," was unexplainable by the actual income received.
    
    Once, I stayed overnight in the house of an indian family.  I didn't
    get up in the morning in time to say goodbye before the wife left for
    her job, because I didn't know she was working.  The man talked so
    freely of his poverty that many people believed that they were indeed
    poor.  But *she* worked full time, *he* had fulltime disability
    benefits, and their house was paid for.  
    
    Another family who had an annual income of about $50k (she was full
    Sioux, he caucasian) felt too poor to possibly buy a house (in
    McLaughlin, SD, where the nice house they rented (for about $150/mo)
    could be bought for $20,000 or less.
    
    I learned that their perceptions that they were poor could not be
    argued with.  Part of this is a lack of knowledge of how to use
    resources such as banks.  Or perhaps they've been well taught that
    bank services are not for them.  They're only for "richer" or "whiter"
    people.
    
    My adoptive mother felt very poor indeed for much of her life, although
    she (based on my physician-father's income) was very well off indeed
    for much of it.
    
    Briana

    
    Sometimes it is very hard to understand someone else's reality.  And
    people who come from differing socio-economic classes have very
    different realities.  I think that as feminists a part of our role
    is to not just make sure that the so called "professional"
    opportunities are open to women; tht we crack the glass ceiling etc.
    We need to work to help women who haven't had the opportunities that
    we have had.  We need to put things in place in the "system" that truly
    help women to break the poverty syndrome; that help them to gain the
    self-esteem that they need to leave brutal realtionships; that address
    child care issues adequately (and that one crosses the boundaries) and
    that address the critical needs so that their sons and daughters have a
    better start than they did.
    
    Gro Harlem Brutland is the Prime Minister of Norway and also one of the
    world's foremost environmentlists.  (There's an article about her in
    TIME's Sept. 25th issue.)  She is quoted as saying "If you are born
    strong, with parents who give you the best, you have an even stronger
    responsibility for the people who didn't get the same start."
                                               
    I think that this something to think about. 

>    Re .3, you say that the family on assistance had an annual salary
>    of $4200. more than you *including* assistance.  Having $4200. in
>    assistance is not the same thing as having $4200. in cash in hand
>    to do with as you want. 

 Perhaps not. But the remainder of the money (income $$) was regular old cash,
and by having some things paid for they could simply use that amount of
cash money to do with as they pleased.

>Would you rather see
>    them starve? 

 I don't think anyone would. But answer me this: how do you feel about people
who _need_ $100K/year to _survive_? Doesn't it make you think "Geez- I could
live comfortably for half that." I don't think that a person's amount of
assistance ought to be based inversely on their ability to spend it wisely.
Otherwise there's no incentive to spend money wisely.

The Doctah

>   Re .3, you say that the family on assistance had an annual salary
>    of $4200. more than you *including* assistance.  Having $4200. in
>    assistance is not the same thing as having $4200. in cash in hand

    There was no comma after the $4200, the income was greater than mine
    *by* $4200.  regardless of that, you made some very good comments.

    Bob

    Re .7, Mark, of course, I get impatient with people who can't make
    it on $100K a year, and, yes, I would like to have even half that
    amount!  People in all incomes get caught up in living up to and
    a little above their incomes, though.  I realize that.  For example,
    let's say I have a friend who earns 3 times my salary, and then
    complains that he/she can't save for a house, and then when I notice
    some of the ways that I think he/she "wastes" money - like *sending
    out* shirts to be washed - I just laugh to myself.  I wouldn't dream
    of sending out shirts in a million years.  But, then I have never
    had an income that came close to considering it, and this particular
    friend grew up in a family that always did it.  It is difficult
    to understand another's reality.
    
    As far as people getting welfare goes, I get impatient with working
    people who seem to begrudge it.  Twenty years ago I made friends
    with a woman my own age (20 at the time) who had two children, was
    not married, and was on welfare.  Welfare got her a refrigerator.
     You should have seen it.  It belonged in a junkyard.  The same
    with the horrible old car they got her.  They found her an apartment
    that was in a horrible eyesore of a tenement building in an ugly
    section of Worcester.  I didn't envy it.  Those people don't really
    have it easy.  (Observing her taught me a few lessons, like never
    have kids by a man who can't/won't help you support them, and always
    try to have a job, no matter how low paid, it's better than just
    taking what welfare is willing to give you.)
    
    Lorna
      
    
    

    Another thought.

    I also have to think that the assitance is not being spent wisely. I
    have to think that if I can do very well on ($x - $4200), that *we* can
    do a better job assisting people with ($x).

    I, also, understand that this is easier said than done.

    Bob


    P.S.  They had 2 children, we had 1 child.  We now have 2, so I know the
    difference.  They were also from my town, so geographical differences in
    what it take to get by were not an issue.  The reason I use "x" as an
    amount is that the actual numbers would be meaningless to the folks from
    the major met areas (boston,ny,la,sf etc.).  We can live on a *lot* less
    out here.
  

    

    Back to the issue in .0
    
    I have a friend, real nice guy who would (and does) anything for
    his friends, me included. He is not well educated and though I tried,
    he does not 'fit in' with some of my other friends. It was painfully
    obvious to me and him that he doesn't. He is still my friend and I still
    see him. 
    	This note made me think of that relationship and how we
    must all fight off the natural (IMHO) tendencies toward elitism
    that can stratify society.
    	Look around DEC, I think you will find examples here too.
    
    Steve

    This is an interesting topic.  I am very involved with NOW and we are
    always trying to get a more diverse membership than the typical white,
    middle-class women.  (This is tough in NH.)
    
    We have trouble, because people tend to join groups with others that
    are like them and of course, they know.
    
    I have to wonder if part of the problem is that people who are on the
    financial edge spend a lot of time just trying to survive.  They may 
    have more than one job, may have unrealiable transportation, and many
    other problems that prevent them from getting involved.  
    
    Of course, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to deal with problems 
    that can help them.  Anything but.  
    
    judy 

    Elitism has been a change laid against the women's movement as well as
    the antiwar movement, the pro-choice movement (!!), ecology, you name
    it.  One of the realities is that to be active in a movement you need
    free time.  Free time is all too often a side effect of discretionary
    money.
    
    The feminist agenda is certainly addresssed to all socio-economic
    classes.  However, the people who actually have the time (and the
    transportation, and the spending money, and the baby sitters) are
    usually middle class.  Also, as a result of class upbringing,
    middle-class people have an idea that things can change and an idea of
    how to effect change.  The American middle class is empowered by its
    upbringing, education, expectations. 
    
    Most of us are scared to walk into a room when we don't know anyone.
    How much more frightening when the room is filled with people who
    obviously outclass us.  When I say class I am not being elitist.  Class
    is a reality although its not a polite term.
    
    Feminism has class-related concerns.  Some of us are worried about the
    simple act of putting enough food on the table to feed our family. 
    Simple act?  Not for many, many women.  Some of us are worried about
    getting into law school and becomming a partner in a prestigeous firm.
    Equality of opportunity, equal pay, education are areas that affect
    both of those concerns.  Both are worthy aims, but survival is more vital.
    
    It is difficult for all of us to get what we want/need/desire from
    life.  The early women's movement called for BREAD and ROSES.  I wonder
    if we have forgotten the bread issues because the roses are 
    more attractive?  
    
          --Margaret

    
    re:.13
    well put!
    

    Re .0
    
    It drives me nuts, too.  Seems to me the people who most need reform
    are the ones who will not participate.  Hard to condemn, though, when I
    stop and think about the powerless-ness they feel; if you can't make a
    change in your NEAR surroundings, it probably feels as though any
    effort you put out to change the world/country at-large is futile. 
    Participating in the process of change takes a leap of faith (the first
    few times - until you see that you DID make a change, and if you don't
    succeed at that change, what next??).
    
    Re "unwise" with money - 
    
    1.  If you grow up poor, you often do not learn the how/what/why of
    budgets.  That lack of understanding is very difficult to correct.
    
    2.  Poverty is emotionally debilitating, incredibly so.  Every time you
    examine your financial situation, you are faced with your own inability
    to meet obligations, responsibility.  If you *don't* look at your
    finances, you are able to forget it for a while.  It's like being
    unemployed: you get so beaten down by the desparate search and the
    inevitable rejections (even though those rejections come to the very
    successful, too) that it becomes more and more impossible to TRY.
    
    3.  If you need $10K and have $500, what do you do with that $500?  It
    doesn't even come close to meeting that $10K.  If you put it towards
    that debt/need, you are still broke and $9.5K in debt/need.  Unless you
    have SEEN how it is that many small payments eventually clear your 
    debt/need, it is hard to believe that those small payments make any 
    difference whatsoever.  
    
    4.  In poor cultures and subcultures, the "foolish" expenditures (fur
    coat for your mother, expensive cars, big tv, etc) are often the best
    way of investing: having a little stashed away in a bank does not
    convince them to loan/give you $$, but expensive items can be pawned or
    sold, and people you have given presents can be relied on to help you
    out - with goods/services like shelter, meals, food if not $$ - when
    you yourself are down.  This was well documented in the sixties for
    urban poverty, and I think a lot of it applies to rural poverty too,
    although rural poverty is a different animal from its urban cousin.
    
    The people I know whose childhoods were not *always* poor have learned
    the skills to manage smaller_than_desired amounts of money, while I and
    many of my friends never learned these things.  We know how to live on
    ZERO money, but regardless of the amount we have now, we are all pretty
    "stupid" with our bucks.  It's been years since I've been poor, and I
    am STILL trying to lose my infantile spending habits - incredible how
    long it took to realize that spending extra $$ on food was a 24-hour
    investment, whereas clothing lasts years...
    
    Not trying to flame, just trying to talk about poverty from the point
    of view of someone "born and raised" in it - learning habits is a lot
    harder in my twenties than it was before I was ten: I had no good
    models for $$ - just the TV...
    
    Lee