Shake that thing!

[cyrano]

I now have all six episodes of 'Thirty Days'. I was just struck by the factoid that families that make under $25K a year are twice as likely to divorce. So... sanctity of marriage people, how about a raise in the minimum wage law to preserve marriage? Or a more healthy and robust public welfare system? Think of the children!

Watched 'Last Boy Scout' and 'Presumed Innocent' this weekend. Netflix Noir Film Festival. (: I really enjoyed both of them--very different but at the same time very similar. Each gets four wags.

I got to see my friend Anne (who is now a teacher in Bakersfield) and help her with her lesson plan yesterday, even if I was sad and lame lying on my back guy.

Sitting on the couch very quietly, currently on the 'heat' of the 'heat and cold' programme. The heat is a sticky pad so it's going to hurt to remove it. Plus I'll have to get off the couch to get the freezy thing. I'm not in a big rush. (:

Comments

[cerulean-me.livejournal.com]

You might believe that raising clean, educated children is the best choice for the kid, but they would tell you it is better to raise a girl that won't drink too much and a boy that will stay with his wife even after they grow to hate each other.

My parents were poor. I was clean and educated. My friend's parents had money, but she drinks too much and has a drug problem.

These attributes have little to do with money, and more to do with how you raise your children. My children are generally clean- I have a toddler and a preschooler. My children are bright and well educated for their ages. We are careful to ask that people enroll our children in classes at the community center, rather than buy them stuffed animals for birthdays and such.

One can lead a rich life while still living below the poverty line.

[mnarra.livejournal.com]

"My parents were poor. I was clean and educated."

By which I deduce you and your parents were poor, but not poor white trash, that is, not part of that culture.

My parents were poor when I was young; we were not befouled & ignorant. I have been very impoverished since then; I buy groceries and clothing instead of beer and cigarettes. I am not part of that culture, either.

It is tempting to decide, since it is possible to quantify clean, educated, and addicted, that this is a matter of appropriate priorities and that calling PWT a culture is making an excuse on their behalf. I've watched the Clan (my ex's family) for two decades, and disagree. I can't support my feeling with anything but anecdotal evidence.

Mind you, I still want my children to be clean, educated, to know they are loved and be able to say and show that they love in positive ways, to know that violence (emotional and physical) is unacceptable and avoidable, and that (this is the big one, perhaps the defining anti-characteristic of PWT culture) what they do can have a positive effect on their lives. I'm three quarters of the way there; my daughter is there, my son is halfway there.

...which just means that, preferring my culture to theirs, I am willfully prejudiced, trying to supplant the Clan beliefs with my own. I'm okay with that, but that would be the "willful" part of my prejudice.

[mnarra.livejournal.com]

...and you are right. Money is not the sole defining characteristic of the situation. I would say that the difference between Poor and Poor Trash (no need to get racial) is the belief that "what I can do can have a positive effect on my life".

It's a fairly monumental difference.