This was a well written article. I think because "I started from the bottom and now in here", I have less sympathy in some instances.
Getting myself out of poverty was very very tough. I do feel that choices can play a role. There were times I went hungry to ensure I could afford gas to go to school. The beginning of the article states their car was towed and they couldn't pay because it was a few hundred $. My immediate thought was how did your car get towed? It's excuses and poor planning that make me unsympathetic.
I can empathize with why you feel this way, though I don't agree. Having come from generations of poverty and fighting my way out - things got very ugly for me often on the way. When everything is geared toward keeping you where you are, it's easy to get hard. Heck, for me it was necessary to get hard or I would have had more than one nervous breakdown along the way.
I've experienced having roommates move out owing rent you can't pay and ending up homeless (with a baby) and having an uninsured motorist total my car that I could in no way replace. After years of this kind of setback, when I was doing all the things society tells me I should do to "bootstrap" myself up, with abosolutely no support system, I had to shut down emotionally to survive. This made me, for a time, very judgemental of others who I viewed as having it so much easier than I did who were still failing.
Luckily, I made it out - both emotionally and financially, eventually. I can remember what it was like and be empathetic without being resentful or feel like I'm in a kind of "who has experienced the most misery" pissing contest with the world.
And even if having her car towed was her mistake, things happen that are completely blameless every damn day that have the same effect on the poor.
My debit card number was stolen this week. My bank, which has lobby hours from 9-5 only, requires an in-person affidavit to get the funds back. If I'd had a lower paying job with inflexible hours, I'd be screwed and faced with the choice of losing my job or getting my money back.
I also got a flat tire. Drove over a nail and it blew completely. Tires aren't cheap to fix. Again, if I can't front the money for a new one ASAP, I can't get to work, and you do the math there again.
I agree with everything this article says. I grew up food stamp poor in the projects and mom spent my childhood on welfare. She was a young mom (had me at 20) and my dad took off. Her family didn't know how to help her, and they lacked the resources to do so anyway. We struggled greatly all the time. If not for my grandmother, we would have gone without food far more often than we did.
In contrast, when I became a mom at 18, XHs family helped us up and out of what would have been a repeat of the poverty cycle. They helped us get an apartment, helped XH attend training school, and then helped us with DD so we could both work. We then were able to bootstrap it on our own. If not for their help, we'd have ended up in the projects with no way to get ahead. It is so very expensive to be poor. Even with help, we made stupid financial decisions because we lacked the resources to choose wisely. I didn't have $1000 for a car repair, but I did have the credit score necessary to get Into an upside-down car loan.
This was a well written article. I think because "I started from the bottom and now in here", I have less sympathy in some instances.
Getting myself out of poverty was very very tough. I do feel that choices can play a role. There were times I went hungry to ensure I could afford gas to go to school. The beginning of the article states their car was towed and they couldn't pay because it was a few hundred $. My immediate thought was how did your car get towed? It's excuses and poor planning that make me unsympathetic.
The anecdote about getting towed actually hit home for me. Back when we started dating, dh drive a piece of shit car. He left it parked on the street when he went on a week long business trip. Came home to find it missing and learned it had been towed as "abandoned" after not moving for three days. It cost several hundred dollars to deal with it, plus missing work for the day. He was able to cope because, despite his car choice, he is an engineer and makes decent money and can be flexible with work.
This probably would not have happened if he'd parked a nice car on the street. The area was revitalizing and we think that's why they jumped on getting his car towed - it was the type of car that would bring down property values. Before this, neither of us knew that not moving a car for the days is considered abandonment in our area.
Even at the time we marveled at the implications of a simple mistake that would have ruined him had he been working two or three low paying jobs.
I would bet you are right about that car versus a nicer looking car and this is just another example of ways our society makes things harder for poor people in ways that might not be as obvious.
I had two vehicles totaled in accidents that weren't my fault. One car was only worth $500 and my minivan was worth $1100. Both times I ended up having to pay a lot more out of pocket to get a similar vehicle. I've never been able to buy vehicles in that price range that didn't need at least a few hundred dollars of immediate work even if it's just replacing the tires.