The poor are EXHAUSTED

[teresafloyd]

Originally a reply to Elf M. Sternberg. writing about poverty.

I was raised by poor parents, and poverty extended into adulthood for me. If I wanted to spend time with a parent, I had to help them with the work they were doing simply because there was no other time in their days.

I don't remember more than a dozen times that my brother and I played a board game with an adult. My father never played anything with us - he would come home from work, eat, sleep, and get up and do it again. My mother was a stay at home parent, but filled her days with growing, gathering, and preserving food; making and repairing clothes; housework; and a half hour per day of watching one soap opera.

On the bright side, Mom did talk to us as she worked, and my parents did provide us with good, open-ended toys, and lots of books. When we were very little, Mom would stop to read to us, but by the age of 5 I took over reading to my brother.

Today, what I see of poverty is even worse. Now, unless they live only on income assistance, all available parents are working full time - possibly at more than one job. Many need to spend a lot of time traveling to their work extending their days even more.

They simply don't have the kind of time and energy that it takes to actively play with and educate a child and they know it! I know that their children are lacking stimulation, but I think that the parents need to have levels of stress reduced before they'll have anything else to give.

Besides, being a poor adult really does suck.

Comments

so very true

[hillbillie.livejournal.com]

A pet peeve of mine, as an educator, has been that the economy is to blame for a lot of children's bad behaviour and lack of moral compass. With both parents working their asses off just to keep afloat, when do they get to have any family time?
Or for that matter, any "civil" time, doing things in their community, taking an interest in the world around them or even just having coffee with friends?

We have a lot in common here..I may not have grown up in poverty, at least not the kind I've experienced as an adult, but I'm afraid my kids did, and my own is ongoing.

Somewhere in my journal I crossposted a thing about what it's like to live poor. It was dead on, in many ways. I added comments of my own.

I'll try to dig it up, and see if we can compare notes, so to speak.

Re: so very true

[laplor.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Poverty is never good, and I've no rosy glasses on when I look back at rural agrarian life - I was there and in many ways it was horrible.

But the fact is that over-commitment of time has more of a negative impact on children's lives than lack of funds.

In the early part of the last century, even the poorest female farmer or urban worker had opportunity to interact with other adults with children nearby. These days that only seems to happen in the horror of shopping malls.

Stay at home parents who do not enroll their children in (usually expensive) activities are often isolated, and working parents are over-extended and generally seem to feel guilty.

Re:over-extended

[hillbillie.livejournal.com]

exactly.
when they do come home, the workers are so battered ane worn in spirit if not in body, and someitmes that too, that

all they can think about is recuperating enough to erase the mess of their day, their lives.
So they collapse in front of the TV, looking for relief, for lightheartedness, for beauty. Though it's true that that's a poor place to find them, when you have no energy and a bleak outlook, that's the most readily available source, the flashing light that seemingly reconnects one to the world (well it does have that potential).

And lo, here come the mindless "reality" shows, the crap and pap, and above all the ads for ever more expensive products which promise healing and happiness.

At the end of the day, the laborers of all collars only want to lose themselves, long enough to recuperate and then have some moments with their family after all..but then suddenly it's time for bed. And up early for the commute the next day..

I am reminded of the Degas' " l'absinthe "..
back in the fifties, we were led to expect the workday/workweek to get shorter and shorter, as mankind's lot just got better and better. It was an optimistic era, we had confidence in the future.

Corporations did not apparently share the vision. They want more and more and more from the their emplyees, for less and less.
Can we say downsizing?
Outsourcing?
No health benefits..or any benfits..
lay off those with seniority, to hire "new blood"..pensions? HA!

And so it goes.

Greed greed greed, and the families are paying for it.