<p>EPTR, BillyMc offers an alternate point of view from yours. Why are you finding that threatening?</p>
<p>You might have to protect the poor kids from the rich ones:</p>
<p>[Heroin</a> Moves Into Connecticut Suburbia - HartfordInfo.org](<a href=“http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documents/drugs/htfd_courant_122108.asp]Heroin”>Heroin Moves Into Connecticut Suburbia - HartfordInfo.org)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cpbn.org/program/where-we-live/episode/wwl-heroin-suburbs[/url]”>http://www.cpbn.org/program/where-we-live/episode/wwl-heroin-suburbs</a>
Just another story…</p>
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You are stating that a person should follow the rules of a system that harms the poor. Your only reason so far has been that it works for some people (ie, the rich) and that a poor person should follow the system so they don’t screw up how well it is working for the rich, regardless of what’s best for their child. I don’t see what I’m getting wrong here.</p>
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Don’t you have someone else to be condescending towards?</p>
<p>I think we need to separate the issues here. Supporting the rights of the children within a school system does not suggest a lack of empathy or understanding for the struggles of the poor, whether they are drug dealers or not. They are separate issues. Related, yes, in some ways and certainly part of a greater problem that is systemic in our country and culture. All of this bears thinking about and acting upon. Poverty is the number one predictor of problems in school. That needs to be addressed. I agree that every child in our country is entitled to the same level of excellence in their educational experience as any other child. Again, it is a big problem that needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the system we have right now is the system we have. Parents who lie, and make their own children accomplices in that lie, to gain anything, are not part of the solution. This doesn’t help anyone, least of all the child who has been put in the position of living a falsehood on a daily basis in order to enable an agenda that he or she is not even equipped to understand.
The child in this story is doubly blessed to have a drug addict, dealing mother who places him in a situation that creates even more anxiety and instability.</p>
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But until rich government leaders decide to take notice of these problems, the poor should just be content to let their children attend these failing schools so they can get trapped in the cycle of poverty? Maybe the hope that it might one day get better for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren will help. </p>
<p>Or they could oppose the system that cares not for them.</p>
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I thought we were just talking in general, not towards just this specific case. As it has been shown, the woman only needed to sign in at the homeless shelter she was staying at for her to be allowed to send her kid to that school. Forgetting to sign in/not knowing how it worked… huge crime. Back to examining the system as a whole, I think it’s best for children to receive a good education at the cost of a lie than to be trapped in the cycle of poverty because society doesn’t really care about them.</p>
<p>Let’s remember the “crime”: she didn’t register staying at the homeless shelter. No “lie” on a daily basis necessary - she only had to stay there (as she did) once, and register that she had done so.</p>
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Deborah,
It’s not that I find his posts threatening as much as I feel that he is being deliberately provocative in a way that is not really informing the discussion. The comments of mine that he has responded to have been twisted in a way that conveys a meaning to my words that is not what is intended. I suspect that most other readers would get my meaning so I can only assume that he is being antagonistic. That’s fine, but it isn’t really addressing the issue that was brought up here. I am more than happy to debate the issue and I have no problem with alternate points of view. If I did, why would I even post?</p>
<p>BillyMc, when you are older, out of school, and working your butt off to make a good living for your family, you’ll probably have a better understanding from where some of us are coming with our views on this situation. DH and I are not considered “wealthy” but we do live in an area with what is considered to have a very good school system. We moved here because it’s beautiful, offers what we wanted in a school system, and is just the next county over from where my husband was born and raised. We work very hard and have provided our daughter with a good education. She graduated college last May and is working three jobs while waiting to hear if she has been accepted to graduate school. She learned her work ethic from us. Sadly, we have citizens here just like every other city … those that suck the system dry because they are too lazy to get a job. I see it with my own eyes … those who are physically and mentally capable of working but choose not to do so because they get a check in the mail from a government that’s funded by working, honest people like me! </p>
<p>This is a true story of which I have personal involvement. When our DD was in middle school, she played basketball. DH and I always attended the games. The boys played immediately after the girls, and it was always dark when we left. Two particular boys, who were friends of DD’s, lived in the “projects” of our small town, so DH and I would drive them home to prevent them from walking. No one from their families ever attended the games. I learned from our first visit to their neighborhood that a raised hand at the stop sign was not a friendly greeting … it was a “hey, I’m selling” thing. No one from their families ever attended the games. Several families from our school were involved in these boy’s lives and they often went to dinner, church, movies, etc. with these families. One of the boys lived with his aunt and her boyfriend because dad had not been around for years and mom was in jail. The other boy lived with his grandmother because dad was in jail and mom had too many other kids to care for them all. Sadly, when the boys left for high school, they became involved in drugs and gangs. Several of the families with boys of the same age from the old middle school continued to try and be involved in the lives of those boys. When they stole from them and assaulted one of their children, the families cut ties. One of those boys has been in prison since his junior year (2006) of high school for murder and the other is currently in jail as he was arrested three weeks ago for armed robbery. We can’t save everyone, but we can save some. I do not feel at all sorry for the adults that choose that lifestyle. I do, however, feel beyond sorry for the children they create. </p>
<p>People who are hard-working and are able to provide for their families are not necessarily wealthy. Do I believe in stealing from the hard-working people to give to the lazy? No! And until there are NO “hiring” signs in local businesses or employment opportunities listed in the paper, I will never believe that someone “can’t” get a job. It may not be the job they want, but when you have a family to support, any job that pays should be considered.</p>
<p>I really like what SplashMom wrote.</p>
<p>Many people would consider our family to be wealthy, but it’s because I’ve been willing to work overtime whenever it’s been available, because we drive used cars instead of new cars, and because we are willing to sacrifice and spend as little as we can.</p>
<p>We have relatives who are very poor, and also very lazy and very wanting of stuff. They have tons of material possessions but no idea where the rent money will come from. They both have college degrees from prestigious universities so it’s not like they haven’t had opportunities in life. My wife and I have degrees from a non-prestigious universities.</p>
<p>It’s not black and white, rich and poor. There are a lot of factors that make every situation unique.</p>
<p>I believe your story is a true one, and a good one, and one work remembering.</p>
<p>I’m 61, thank you. And I believe that hardworking, church-going, “nice” people in Stamford and Greenwich and Danbury have committed criminal acts that have resulted in the losses - to real people - of billions of dollars, and that their crimes, very real crimes, dwarf those of the woman who didn’t register at the homeless shelter. </p>
<p>I do feel sorry (I really do) for those people in Stamford and Greenwich and Danbury who have “chosen that lifestyle.”</p>
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I’m glad you were able to provide your daughter with a good education; sadly, not everyone can do so. Further, I’d rather not turn this into a welfare debate. However, I would like to point out that, given the social and economic hierarchy of our capitalistic system, poor/working class people have to toil to keep the system standing. If most poor people didn’t work, society would look very different. So while there are those who do not, there are many more who do.</p>
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If you feel sorry for the children, would you agree that the children of the poor do not deserve to be doomed to subpar education and a cycle of poverty, just by virtue of birth?</p>
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I’m sorry, but not everyone can get a job in this economy, and not everyone can pull their families up from poverty just by working. From experience, I know that there are many people who regularly work 80-90 hours a week in spite of horrible health problems, and their family still deals with poverty. There is a whole range of jobs that serve to further trap people in poverty, barely sustaining their families while often being harmful to the worker.</p>
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That is unfortunate. However, you cannot say “Poor people are lazy because my anecdotal evidence says I know a few.”</p>
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Sadly, it usually is about rich and poor. Even racial divides usually break down into another reflection of rich/poor.</p>
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<p>I don’t see what that has to do with this issue, though. How does the behavior of the people in Greenwich have any bearing on whether it is right or wrong to lie about your residency to take advantage of other tax payers dollars? And if this particular woman didn’t lie and simply didn’t understand to sign in to the homeless shelter, okay. But we are debating the act of lying to gain an advantage. Whether the “victims” commit crimes of their own is immaterial to me.</p>
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I never wrote the word “most” when referring to the poor. There are many working poor. My daughter is one of them … she works three jobs where she makes a low hourly wage and has no benefits. She’s working, though, because she doesn’t need to suck from the system. Many of the non-working don’t need to suck from the system, but choose to do so due to laziness or lack of desire to provide for the family … after all, someone else (us!) will do it, right? “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Sadly, we can’t make people learn or care, but we can try.</p>
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NO child deserves to be doomed to sub-par education and a cycle of poverty, and that is why their parents should get up and do something about it. There are opportunities that are declined because it would mean giving up a check. When I was in college, I worked part-time in the tax department at the local City Hall. A woman from the Community Development office was complaining that one of the welfare recipients had been offered the opportunity (and funding) to go to school and receive free childcare so she could eventually provide for the children on her own. The woman declined … it was too easy to stay home and collect a check. If people won’t help themselves, why should others? </p>
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NOT true! Anyone who is physically and/or mentally capable of getting a job can get one … it just might not be the one they want.</p>
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I do believe this. These people, however, are the ones for whom I have respect. I resent those who are capable of working and choose not to do so.</p>
<p>Getting back to the original topic, if this woman had simply done as she should have, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. It’s really not too hard to follow the rules and the law.</p>
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I prefer welfare take the form of the New Deal, when the country was put to work and there was extensive job training. However, while there are some people on welfare who could otherwise be working, there are also those who are working or who can’t work. In some states with privatized welfare, you have to work to be on it (a few years back, a 1st grader shot and killed another 1st grader… the mother was being bused every day to another town to work for minimum wage just so she could be eligible for welfare and social programs for her child).</p>
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One of the responsibilities of government is to promote the general welfare. The current system, which could aptly be called an economic oligarchy of the rich, makes it impossible for everyone to escape poverty. The government has a responsibility to correct this.</p>
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There are more workers than jobs, this is a fact. Further, the unemployment rate is quite high (note that “unemployed” ONLY refers to those actively searching for jobs, and thus excludes those who have given up).</p>
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So should the government do anything to help the children of the working poor? Is it the child to be held responsible for whether the parent works or not?</p>
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She probably didn’t realize that she could just sign in to the homeless shelter to send her son to that school.</p>
<p>I sometimes think it helps to realize that this woman is probably one of the children who we have already failed. I’m not sure how many generations we have to fail before we understand that if we do not assist the mother, we are not assisting the child.</p>
<p>I understand all the perspectives here, but finally that might be the only one that really matters.</p>
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Correct; I wouldn’t think she had top-notch schooling herself. Hence, the cycle of poverty continues.</p>
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</p>
<p>She could have asked someone at the shelter, someone in the Bridgeport school system, a social worker, etc. Instead she knowingly gave a false address in another town, and not even an adjacent town. This kind of fraud goes on all the time. And don’t assume it’s always impoverished parents looking for better schools (though that’s the appealing narrative). I’ve known several people who have fraudulently registered their kids in the towns where they work, or in the towns where grandma, who babysits after school, lives, because it’s more convenient. It’s theft of services, it’s a crime, and perhaps finally prosecuting someone for it will help stop it.</p>
<p>I don’t understand what the anecdote in post #48 has to do with the fact (as we presently know it) situation in Norwalk.</p>
<p>Incidentally MommaJ, I’ve visited Norwalk on ocassion, particulary the Jackie Robinson Jazz Festival held every summer on a lovely former estate (now a public park, I believe). And I’ve been to restaurants and the Aquarium downtown. Sure, there are blue collar and even depressed areas in Connecticut towns, but I didn’t see much of that in Norwalk.</p>
<p>It’s a crime against a system that keeps the poor in poverty and the affluent in affluence. Such a system doesn’t deserve to be followed.</p>
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That’s a terribly sad story, and though I know nothing more than what you wrote, the fault lies with the negligent person who left a gun (probably still loaded since most first-graders wouldn’t know how to do that) in a place that could be accessed by a child. I’m not sure what it has to do with a mom being on a bus going to a job. Working parents are on buses, trains, planes, etc. on a daily basis in order to get to their jobs. Several posters on this very site commute for more than an hour each way to go to their jobs on a daily basis.</p>
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It is the responsibility of the parent to provide for their child(ren). </p>
<p>You and I obviously have differing opinions, BillyMc and that’s what makes the world go 'round. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. </p>
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It doesn’t. I got off topic. </p>
<p>The woman in the referenced story lied and stole services. I disagree with her actions.</p>