As you might have previously read, I’m (well my boyfriend and I are) building a house.
In addition to being a full-time grad student, I hold two jobs:
Lab Instructor at Pitt
&
Marketing Associate at Ideal Integrations.
LIFE. IS. GOOD.
I’m a big fan of MoJo and currently have a spot reserved for her on my iGoogle dashboard.
I was reading an article that she linked to (find it here), and I found myself totally captivated by the story.
For those of you who don’t want to expend the time/energy reading the whole 5 page story, allow me to sum it up:
Family re-loacates to industrial town in search of new-found riches.
Mom and dad are both employed by same industry.
Said industry booms while US economy supports conspicuous consumerism for all.
US economy fails.
Said industry fails.
Mom and dad both lose job.
Mom and dad remain unemployed for close to a year, supporting the family by means of unemployment.
Mom and dad forced to pawn their possessions to pay rent an utilities.
Unemployment is no longer able to sustain their meager lifestyle.
Whole family is forced to move into mom’s mom’s cat-urine-soaked basement.
[Side note: They were probably McCain supporters last year]
So, I read this story and reflected on my own life:
I just graduated college, and I’m surrounded by stories of people who can’t find work. Many of my friends are going to grad school, so that they can avoid the inevitable: Having to pay back their college loans.
I’d like to think that I’ve struggled to get where I am, but I haven’t really… While I was in college, I was constantly reminded by my family and by my professors how difficult college is and how proud of myself I should be for “doing well” and then for graduating.
When I got my diploma in the mail, I was sort-of proud… But of what? For spending the last 4 years of my life amassing facts that (I’m constantly reminded by my friends and family, when I pull them out of my hat) are utterly useless? For kissing administrative ass, allowing me to make political connections that got me jobs paying 150% more than my peers enrolled in work study programs? For learning to play the game so well I was able to coast through college without much effort at all?
Now I’m enrolled in a grad program, taking the easiest classes I’ve ever taken. I pulled a 4.0 this semester, writing multiple 6 page papers a couple of hours before they were due…
So back to the above-summarized Washinton Post story…
I guess I’m just venting over the lack of true struggle in our lives (by “our,” I mean Americans-or any developed 1st world society, for that matter)…
The dad in the story was devastated over the necessity of living in his mother-in-law’s basement- literally psychologically devastated. His wife recently turned down a job, because she could “make more on unemployment than she could as a receptionist,” failing to take into consideration the positive effect a regular job might have on her resume. Their soon-to-be-high-school-senior son, who has been earning C’s and D’s in school, was playing XBox while his parents were trying to figure out how to pay the electric bill. The dad dropped $16+ dollars at a bar, after being relieved that the $100 he had just won gambling would scoop the family out of true financial hardship for the remainder of the current welfare check period. Does anyone else recognize the absurd unrealistic dichotomies herein?
It’s as though society has instilled some sort of barely-maintainable (even during the 90′s) sense of entitlement. And, when said entitled level is not attained, people just give up. I’m aware that this is a gross generalization, and that there are MANY people struggling with tremendous effort, but come one people- it’s time to wake up out of the capitalistic consumptive coma we’ve been in for the past 2.5 decades!
Millions of people around the world would work (and do work) 12 hour days to attain the same standard of living the aforementioned family is now relegated to- but not Americans. Why? Because we’re Americans. We deign to live as others dream to.
It’s time for America to start pulling its weight (in some other way than vomitting Wal-Marts, war crimes, and Christianity all over the world)!
