<p>An acquaintance of mine has been essentially bedridden with a degenerative disease that will, sooner rather than later, take her life. Her husband left her (penniless) when their quadruplets were still in diapers (then subsequently died due to heavy drug use). To say they are poor doesn’t begin to paint the picture of how this family has lived. The quads are now freshmen in college. They were the top 4 kids in their high school graduating class. 3 had a perfect ACT score; the 4th had a 35. All 4 were National Merit Finalists. Although they didn’t even have a real bed until one was donated to them when they were 14, they each somehow found a way to learn an instrument, play a sport, and hold down a job during high school.</p>
<p>One of the quads is at Stanford. On top of full financial aid, they also provide for her travel expenses and a clothing allowance. Her mother could not be with her when she moved cross country this fall to go to college. Mom could not be there for any of the quads when they moved into their respective dorms. 2 others go to top 20 schools with a combination of merit and need based aid. The community has filled in the gaps so these kids have clothes to wear and a way to get back home for the holidays.</p>
<p>These kids have accomplished so much. It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone would have any objections to their academic opportunities because their mother can’t pay.</p>
<p>YK, busdriver, as a young girl I grew up in a rowhouse probably 12 feet wide, in a neighborhood that none of you really want to live in these days, where my grandmother still lives and where no one really wants to walk alone at night. My family and I have done quite well and I have quite a nice life now, but I do try to make it a point to remember where I came from. </p>
<p>I do consumer research for a living. I get to interview “the average American” for whom yes, an airplane ticket is an incredible luxury and when they stand in the grocery store deciding on cereal or cheese, they darn well are choosing the cheapest they can get away with and when they look at their household budget, they have to decide between new sneakers for Joey who is outgrowing his, and whether they should bite the bullet and get braces for Susie. I have worked with CEO’s and others who were quite obnoxious about how raising the cost of their products impacted “the little guy” because from their perspective - what’s the big deal about an extra dollar - and have had to lead “consciousness-raising” workshops with them where they have to feed a family of 4 on $X a week or whatever. So yeah, if I’m preachy, well, so be it.</p>
<p>busdriver, it was likely sorghum’s conclusion that an impoverished family with a child getting a full ride to Harvard is actually “poor + $250,000” that really set some of us off. </p>
<p>Belle, that is an incredible story. I can’t imagine raising quadruplets under the best of circumstances. To have done so well with such challenges is a real testament to the mother and her kids. Good for them.</p>
<p>“busdriver, it was likely sorghum’s conclusion that an impoverished family with a child getting a full ride to Harvard is actually “poor + $250,000” that really set some of us off.”</p>
<p>But I think you are misinterpreting sorghum’s conclusion, and filling in the blanks with assumptions. I believe this, exactly, is the conclusion: “Anyway, going back basics. If you make 200K, lose 100K to taxes, deductions, and the cost of being in the place to do your job, and Harvard takes away 60K of the remaining, then with your remaining 40K you have a right to feel not rich. Without guiltily comparing yourself to starving people (foreign or domestic). And without the need to correct yourself with thought that being in a wheelchair would be worse”</p>
<p>Getting all wrapped up in what you (and I don’t mean specifically you) think one person must have meant, and generalizing it to all those other rotten people think, is just a straw man argument.</p>
<p>“YK, busdriver, as a young girl I grew up in a rowhouse probably 12 feet wide, in a neighborhood that none of you really want to live in these days, where my grandmother still lives and where no one really wants to walk alone at night. My family and I have done quite well and I have quite a nice life now, but I do try to make it a point to remember where I came from.”</p>
<p>And many of us have come from poor backgrounds. If you always had heat, indoor bathrooms, and running water, then your family lived better than mine, and certainly your average American lived better than us. So what?</p>
<p>“I have worked with CEO’s and others who were quite obnoxious about how raising the cost of their products impacted “the little guy” because from their perspective - what’s the big deal about an extra dollar - and have had to lead “consciousness-raising” workshops with them where they have to feed a family of 4 on $X a week or whatever. So yeah, if I’m preachy, well, so be it.”</p>
<p>If you feel like the CEO’s need preaching to, then preach to them. I have no idea whom you are constantly lecturing to on this thread. Everyone? Anyone? One person, over and over again? </p>
<p>I was listening to a church member talking to a little kid from a poor inner city neighborhood about things that were important to him. One of the first things he mentioned as really important to him were cotton balls. The church worker asked what was so important about cotton balls. The little kid said he could shove them in his ears at night and they kept the cockroaches out so he could sleep. </p>
<p>busdriver, I’m not filling in the blanks at all. He said this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is simply not true, and is incredibly faulty logic.</p>
<p>Your conclusion is likewise flawed:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Harvard is not “taking away” anything. No one HAS to send their kid to Harvard. If you make $200K and you want to have more money on hand after taxes, the solution is simple: just don’t “buy” what Harvard is selling. Send him/her somewhere that costs less. If your kid is smart enough to get in, great–he or she can get up to a FULL RIDE at numerous colleges. It’s really not that complicated.</p>
<p>Of course his or her child does not need to go to Harvard. The point is, they made the choice, and after paying taxes, there isn’t enough left to feel rich. That doesn’t sound like anything to disagree with, lecture to, or claim it is complaining. It just makes money feel tight for that family.</p>
<p>And that was not my conclusion, but I agree. Not enough, after those expenses, to feel rich. Other people might feel they were flush with money, but it’s purely a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>“I was listening to a church member talking to a little kid from a poor inner city neighborhood about things that were important to him. One of the first things he mentioned as really important to him were cotton balls. The church worker asked what was so important about cotton balls. The little kid said he could shove them in his ears at night and they kept the cockroaches out so he could sleep”</p>
<p>I would have advised him that you don’t need cotton balls. You can wrap the sheet up over your ears and head, and cover your entire face, except leaving a small hole for your mouth. Of course, you could always put the entire sheet over you, but who likes to breathe into a sheet.</p>
<p>No cockroaches in my family home, but lots of spiders and rodents. We had cockroaches when we lived in the South, and they are the worst.</p>
<p>I think your outrage is a bit over the top. Poor families get some nice free stuff, that’s fact. And all this started from the outrage that a 200K family can deny feeling rich.</p>
<p>Oh yes, I’m sooooo jealous of the women who got to stand in line for their WIC-approved milk and cheese while I, like the fool I was, had to schlep off and actually open my wallet to buy my own milk and cheese. They had it so easy!! </p>
<p>Get real. There are few “nice things” that poor families get that would make me want to trade my life. Including free rides to Harvard. </p>
<p>I remember being jealous of my friend on Medicaid. For those people who feel like they’re paying through the nose in taxes, getting little return, paying the full bill and feeling it, I can see it.</p>
<p>I was on second year pay and my husband was recently laid off. No job in sight, and we knew I would be laid off within months. Newborn baby and a toddler, very little in the bank. Don’t know if we’d be eligible for Medicaid, but we wouldn’t even consider checking. My friend, though both her and her husband worked full time, were on Medicaid. Don’t know how they did that, maybe getting paid under the table? I don’t know, but they were.</p>
<p>We had our babies right about the same time. I paid 3K, she got hers delivered for free. We were so broke, I requested no drugs, no epidural, to save money. Insurance kicked me out of the hospital about 12 hours later, taking my baby home while I was bleeding and exhausted. So much pain, the experience was so miserable, I remember thinking, please, someone just kill me now, I’d rather be knifed to death than die this way, with a head stuck in my (fill in the blank). She chirped about what a wonderful experience she had, the epidural and the drugs were awesome, it was all so beautiful! She thought she’d stay a third day and relax, she didn’t want to have to go home and do housework. May as well rest awhile longer, it wasn’t costing her a thing.</p>
<p>Yeah, I can understand being jealous of someone else getting free stuff, when you feel like you’re struggling, and you’re paying for their freebies. Even if I don’t mind people getting lots of free stuff now, it doesn’t mean I’d invalidate anyone else’s feelings.</p>
<p>That sounds really unpleasant, but I think childbirth is supposed to be miserable. In my world it’s a badge of honor to have a fully natural (no drugs) birth. I had two of them. And yeah, it hurt like hell.</p>
<p>If you’re jealous of that woman you should be angry not at her but at your insurance company for being more profit-driven than concerned about its patients. Twelve hours is not enough time to recover from childbirth! Given what you’ve said I’m surprised you don’t support medicare for all.</p>
<p>It doesn’t bother me. It baffles me that some people don’t even think it’s worth anything. I think everyone should be try to happy with what they got (and you can be happy without without feeling rich).</p>
<p>“If you’re jealous of that woman you should be angry not at her but at your insurance company for being more profit-driven than concerned about its patients. Twelve hours is not enough time to recover from childbirth!”</p>
<p>I was never angry at her, merely jealous at all she was offered for free, when I was broke and paying for my care. She just took what was given to her. It is easy to take as much as you can when it is free. If someone else is paying, there is no reason to think about costs.</p>
<p>“Given what you’ve said I’m surprised you don’t support medicare for all.”</p>
<p>Why would you think that I don’t? I do, and have for years. I think that would have been a far better idea than Obamacare forced upon everyone. Take a system we already have, and expand it to whomever wants it. Don’t force it upon everyone, but make it available to anyone who wants it, priced on a sliding scale.</p>
I guess I’d have to say that a person who can afford to send a kid to Harvard, full-pay, out of current earnings, is rich, whether they feel rich or not. That’s like saying that you no longer feel rich after paying cash for your Mercedes.</p>
<p>Let me just add that I don’t want to excessively interfere with the right of all Americans to complain about the high prices of things, and college educations in particular. To me, that’s a different issue from whether one is, or feels, rich.</p>