I’m listening to talk radio on CBC, and they’re discussing child poverty. Following the intro, the host asked the first pundit, “Have you ever been poor?” He answered yes, but that he had the gifts to work himself out of it.
Hmmm. I’m thinking no, he hasn’t been poor… and he doesn’t understand what poor really is. First off, I want to say that “poor student” doesn’t count. Sorry, you don’t get any points for that. Nada. If you were poor, you wouldn’t be able to afford to be a student. You don’t get it. Besides, the tight financial circumstances in which a student finds themselves is almost more a kind of right of passage, something that most of us experience. It’s also something that when we’re in the midst of it, we still know it’s going to end. That’s not poor, that’s temporarily cash-strapped. Oh, it helps us understand to some degree, but it’s fundamentally not the same thing.
Years later, we look back on our “starving student” years often with a kind of fondness, and say that we know how it feels to be poor, to not have any money. We don’t. What struck me about the pundit’s answer was this… the reply that welled up inside me to say, “Yeah, you don’t know anything. To tell me you look back on your student years as having been poor is a farce. Being a poor single student is nothing. Tell my you’ve been poor while trying to provide for a family, and then I’ll give you some credit for it.”
What do you think? Am I being unduly harsh, or is there something here? Have you ever been poor, and by what definition?
No, you are dead right in this regards. True poverty is far more complex than how much money you do or do not have. It is about all or any combo of such things as your support system (family and friends) or lack thereof, your education (and your ability to be educated), your race and gender, your appearance (a missing front tooth, for example, is a death sentence in the job hunt), mental health, family history, etc.
I’ve never been poor. I have had to live simply, but that does not even come close to truly being poor. I have many poor friends and neighbours. They destroy any casual or romantic notion of poverty that subtly shapes our understanding of poverty.
Great post.
Peace,
Jamie
you’re right jamie, it’s more complicated than mere numbers. We’ve been homeless and when we were first married we were “poor” according to the gov’t and we felt it but we had shelter, we were able to buy food and thanks to state aid, we were able to give birth to our oldest without becoming homeless. We also have family nearby and they’d never allow us to go without food or shelter. So I wouldn’t ever say I can identify with what it means to be poor in the true sense of it.
I find where we are now to be almost more difficult. Even though our income is higher, we live very simply on purpose. We also live on cash (no credit) on purpose. But as a friend recently said about poverty – we are one emergency away from homelessness – – meaning, 1 emergency and we wouldn’t be able to pay rent and would be evicted. Now, like I said, we have great friends and family who wouldn’t allow that to happen and I think that probably makes a huge difference in how we view our situation.
there have been times when i couldn’t pay my rent (because i mis-managed my fincances). there have been times when i didn’t know where my next meal would come from (because i spent my money on substance abuse). but these are not poverty issues. these are priority issues.
i think you are right when you assess an emotional need of the western civilian who like to think they were ‘poor’ at one point. i have a friend who lives in a condo on the beach in orange county, california. she thinks she’s poor because she can’t afford to fly to italy next week (she just got back from a 2 month vacation in nyc, ny and the hamptons). this speaks to perspective.
the child who hasn’t the opportunity afforded to ‘work their way out’ of poverty…i would consider poor.
brad
I agree with you. I remember living on about $200 a month right out of college, but I lived in community, and always had family I could call if I really got in a pinch. I don’t think that’s being poor, though I certainly didn’t have much cash.
Isn’t “poor” meant to be a relative term? Why the need to make it an absolute? Curious about the motivation here.
I’ve been re-reading Yancy’s “The Jesus I Never Knew” and he does a section on “the poor” while covering the beatitudes. I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, but his description of “the poor” didn’t seem to fit many of the folks I live around.
Cindy-lu,
I don’t think there’s any intent to make it absolute; I don’t think I see it in those terms, really. All I’m saying is that people who voice some kind of identification with poverty on the basis of having had a tough season themselves often fail to grasp the fundamental nature of poverty… i.e., their understanding is too shallow to identify as they claim. This, I think, cheapens the whole thing through a tendency to trivialize poverty.
I agree. I think it’s a way to justify certain attitudes. e.g. “I can judge gay people because I have a gay cousin” or “I can tell poor people that they can work themselves out of poverty because I was poor once”.
I don’t see anyone trying to make an absolute definition, in fact, I see the opposite here.
Well then, enlighten me. What does it take to qualify as “poor”? And is it possible to separate the term from “poverty”?
cindy-lu : I’m not sure what you intend your tone to be but you sound very antagonistic right now. You’d get a more productive response with a little more generosity and gentleness in your words.
I think your question is the whole point of this post….since brother maynard asked questions for you to respond to. So instead of getting combative, why don’t you answer the questions and participate in the dialog :) i’m sure we’d all love hearing your input
I would also suggest that in America, there is a certain dependence on a certain socioeconomic “status” because of how our economic system works. We are facing a crisis in America right now where we have an entire group of people called the working poor who are 1 medical emergency away from being on the streets. This is in part due to our increasingly independent lifestyles where we live far from family or are estranged and don’t really have a “friend network” to help. So there are many people who are not poor by definition but are in a crisis situation.
I think the importance of addressing this issue is that we cannot experience any sort of empathy or solidarity if we define poverty as having to buy thrift store clothes and live in a low income rental complex instead of a house in the ‘burbs. If the American attitude continues to be that if people work hard they’ll “succeed” (a current fallacy), then we’re not going to face and address the real situation.
I also want to emphasize that poverty is not necessarily a dire situation that should be pitied. And perhaps that attitude is what makes some defensive. Living simply is not the same as poverty.
I’ve been following this conversation with a lot of interest.
I think that any definition of poverty has to include some indication of opportunity to relieve the poverty. For instance, when I was growing up we had no money at all. My family was very poor. Often we did have to choose between the mortgage payment or food. However, we lived that way because of very clear decisions my parents made about their lives. The opportunity was there for us to have more, they chose not to. My brothers and I all went on get college degrees and more. So while we had a shortage of funds, and could (but did not) rely on public assistance, I would not count us as impoverished. There is a certain sense of opportunity there that most people who are beneath the poverty line do not have.
There is an excellent book written by Barbara Erhenreich, called Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America which outlines the problems of the working poor very clearly. People working two and three jobs and still not getting by or able to support their families. It’s pretty horrible. This is not something that will be solved by everyone working harder or even smarter.
Mak: I’m sorry you read so much tone into my comment. I’m simply looking for clarification before I decide whether I agree or disagree with the point being made. I do, in fact, have a habit of just putting my opinions out there and causing a fuss. I’m trying to avoid that by asking questions instead.
I looked up both “poor” and “poverty” on dictionary.com (sorry, haven’t made it to Wikipedia, yet) and found only the common thread of “lack of money and material possessions”. What causes you to add the bit about lack of hope for change? It caught my eye, because, while we would never consider ourselves poor in a material sense, we are lacking in any hope that the situation in which we live (raising a child with FASD) will ever change. Our child will never be able to learn some things. There will always be things we cannot do because of him. And – unless the Lord chooses to intervene – there is a likelihood that he will one day cause our demise. Since I have no promise from God that He intends to heal him, I have no hope of this ever changing. (sorry for the bunny trail)
Also – again, just curious, but is food or rent ever a real question here in Canada? With our social safety nets? Sure, addiction and such can play havoc with one’s choices, but is there ever NOWHERE to go and NO food to be had here?
When child poverty in Canada (I assume this is the context – please correct me if I’m wrong)is discussed, it’s MY neighborhood they’re talking about. My kids’ classmates. I see kids going to school in the middle of winter with no socks and a jacket three sizes too big with only a small sandwich for lunch. These same kids have a Nintendo at home and their parents all have cellphones. I don’t have a cellphone. (no, not a generalization – these kids play at my house on a daily basis and I volunteer in their classrooms) Some of these families are considered “working poor” and others are simply on social assistance.
I may be wrong, but may I suggest that current-day Canadian “poor” are not the same as 1930s depression era poor, or even the same as my mom’s 17-kids-in-the-family-dad-has-to-work-far-away poor? What image do you see when you think of “poor” today?