An Infinite Number of Monkeys

families that make under $25K a year are twice as likely to divorce.

I am pretty sure 25k a year is less than minimum wage if both parents work... and if both parents don't work... Daddy or Mommy needs to get a better freakin' job, especially if they have kids to take care of.

I used to think social services like welfare and the like were the best thing since sliced bread, until I saw that the people who NEED it don't use it and the people who DON'T take advantage of it. *sighs*

...If only we could help those who NEED it only...

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tersa.livejournal.com

I now have all six episodes of 'Thirty Days'.

...and the first thing I thought of 'you could burn it to DVD, if you'd like!' :) (That would also get it off TiVo, but I'm not sure if you're in any rush to do that.) If you want to use one of my DVD-Rs, feel free.

Watched 'Last Boy Scout' and 'Presumed Innocent'

And I'm sorry that my next disk claimed your Presumed Innocent slot; I'd bumped it up to the top of the list as I sent the 2nd disc back yesterday, not knowing you'd sent back Presumed as well. But, you should get your next disk in tomorrow's mail.

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Looks like, according to wikipedia (not neccessarily a trusted source), You can expect to make $10,300 a year on federal minimum. So both parents working full time would be making over $20 before taxes (and before childcare unless they have kids who are old enough to not go to school and stay home to take care of the kids).

But yeah. It'd be nice to be able to tell who needed the help and who's just slacking.

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I was actually considering burning them. It'd be nice to be able to do it without the adverts, as it'd get closer to fitting them on one disc and make them more pleasant to watch. (:

I've got plenty of movies I can watch that are here in the house, plus all the Veronica Mars episodes. I'll be fine with a day or two delay.

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tersa.livejournal.com

If there are only six, one-hour episodes, they will all burn onto one DVD since I think they were recorded at 'Basic' quality. But burning without adverts would be impossible off the TiVo.

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bumblepudding.livejournal.com

One problem with Mommy and Daddy working is that day care for baby often costs yearly the equivalent of a minimum wage salary. So Parent #2, contemplating work, can be left in the unpleasant position of either finding something very good, or at night (not exactly a boon to domestic bliss) or nothing at all. Or trading child-time for work with no appreciable change in the family finances.

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Hmmm... sorry I live In California... I forget our Minimum wage is much Higher than the federal Minimum... lemmie see... in 2001 the federal minimum wage was increased to $6.25 from 4.75 that it was brought to in 1997. That means in 1997 the pre-taxed pay for one person working full time was at LEAST $9880. In 2001 it was raised to $13,000.

Yeah, Momma and daddy need to be gettin' better than minimum wage jobs... then again, people who, in their adult lives, married and with children who one parent doesn't work and the other parent is working a minimum wage job... have a LOT more problems than just the money they are bringing in.

Most people who just need help are too prideful to take advantage of government assistance... *sighs*

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Definitely... I am planning on being a Stay-at-home mom at LEAST until my kids are in grade-school...

but then they should have thought about what they are making in money and how can they responsibly raise a child before having one... yeah I know 'accidents happen' ... but man... this is a child's life and future we are talking about... someone needs to get off their heiney and get a better job...

If for some reason my husband was unable to work or lost his job, I would take on as many jobs as possible to bring in the money needed to support My husband and child... I don't understand why so many people have a problem with that... *sighs*

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And, in the end, my dry and satiric point was not that we need a more generous welfare state but that--again--I think that if the people who say they're concerned with The Family and Sanctity Of Marriage have more effective things that they could be focusing on than gay marriage. In my opinion.

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Indeed.

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Bah. With proper english usage:

And, in the end, my dry and satiric point was not that we need a more generous welfare state but that--again--I think that if the people who say they're concerned with The Family and Sanctity Of Marriage are concerned with those things, they have more effective things that they could be focusing on than gay marriage. In my opinion.

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"but then they should have thought about what they are making in money and how can they responsibly raise a child before having one... yeah I know 'accidents happen' ..."

For an overwhelming majority of Americans, having a family is the only part of their lives that they get to decide. If you walked through some of the more impoverished neighborhoods and suggested to people that they don't make enough money to take care of their children, and are therefor irresponsible for having them ... be ready to run.

More than that, though, is a prejudice issue. You are sitting above the median looking down, seeing the unwashed poor wallowing in filth and raising their Jerry Springer audience members, uneducated, shiftless, and without a future beyond what their parents had, and you are saying that what they are planning for, what they are accepting, is not sufficient. The implication is that they and their families and their lifestyle have not been sufficient, and that it is irresponsible of them to have children that will perpetuate their culture.

Make no mistake; poverty in America is a culture. My ex comes from a Poor White Trash background, and PWT is not merely poor and uneducated. There are real cultural values that go with the background, and not all of them are bad values. 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.

Poverty does not live in a world of choices.

"someone needs to get off their heiney and get a better job..."

I've been working toward a better job for more than two decades. I still make less than $6 over minimum, and am in high demand. Getting a better job is nearly impossible without the appropriate (and expensive) wardrobe, the appropriate (and expensive) tools, the appropriate (and expensive) education.

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er.

That appears to have pushed a button. Sorry.

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I needed it and was refused, on three occasions over 15 years.

The rules are set up to support the system the way it is used.

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Trust me, I don't look down on the poor. I look down on the people who are lazy and don't try to make the money they need for food and clothing and the simple needs of their family, instead turning on the government to help them.

My husband-to-be came from a family that was in all right, impoverished. What is worse is that his father was a freakin' rocket scientist, he had the schooling and until the defense cutbacks in the 90's he had a very good job. Because of his fathers age at that time he couldn't find a job in his industry to save his life. His family had to move in with his sister for a time being just so they could have a roof over their heads. The man worked his ass off to provide what he could for his family, always trying to improve himself and his family. I admire that, and I think that taught his children more than any school ever could.

Don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to have children... What I don't understand is the people that DON'T work their ass off for their children and just sit and take money from the government never trying to improve the situation they are in at all... ("the situation" being that their children don't have food every day, not that they don't have a shiney new bike).

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hey, thats cool. As long as you don't hate me for not being very well spoken. :)

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My fiance's mother needed her social security and disability. She was riddled with cancer and sick constantly...
...she fought for it for years...
...she got her first social security check one week after her funeral.

The system is broken.

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Hopelessness goes along with the poverty culture. See the above point bumblepudding made about day care. When there is no appreciable change in the net income, why bother to try?

As for the possibility of working too many jobs, too many hours...it works, but it takes a toll. I have held multiple jobs while going to school full time, for years. It's ugly. It eventually produces a situational insanity characterized by an inability to prioritize -- not a joke. My ex couldn't even work a single job, be a mother, fight with me, and go to school; she had to quit to do the schooling. My current gets shell-shocked at long hours; two jobs would brutalize her. The ability to hold multiple or long-hour jobs is not as minor an ability as one might think.

If the jobs you can hold are low paying, the stress that comes from working more than one can require treatment (in terms of ice cream, beer, dinner out, so forth) that negates the extra earnings, and, in the end, reduces the laborer to a point that being a spouse and parent are completely beyond him. I worked my tail off, performed as superman ... and, frankly, was not a very good father during that time.

It would have been better for my kids if I'd worked less hard, we had gone to welfare, and they had had me around for guidance, a lack they are paying for now.

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I hate no one, and only hold one person in extreme disregard. You ain't her.

'Sides, you talk purty as y'needta.

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:nods:

The nature of any set of rules is that they will produce patterns of behavior, and eventually people will learn those patterns and play them for the best return. Any system will be broken.

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so how about no systems?

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*laughs* Sure I talk perty, but damned if I can get what goes on in my brain to actually be represented by the words that spew forth from my fingertips.

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Also broken.

Is it better to not try to help people, or help them ineffectively?

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The thing is you did your best for your children.
You taught them, inadvertently about life and about hard work.
You taught them about work ethics and life ethics.
You taught them about responsibility and how to be an adult.

You didn't teach them how to take advantage of the system and how to be lazy and just get away with it.
You didn't teach them that they can place their responsibility onto others.

Thats very admirable.

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