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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Father Terrence who wrote (52216)8/19/1999 10:58:00 PM
From: epicure  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
Oh you poor poor productive creature. And you produce such wonderful stuff here. I sure wish you were around here so I could shovel some of your produce on my garden.

Amazingly enough, before safety nets, children did starve, and go barefoot, and people were in terrible poverty. I really think you have no idea. You did not answer me about your "relatives" socioeconomic status. Do you know any poor people? Any people who have been REALLY REALLLY poor? Because I do. And they are not all grasshoppers. My mother grew up in a slum in Chicago. Her father was a drunk. He abandoned the family. When my mother was 7 her little brother died of scarlet fever- they had no money to get a doctor, and no heat.

My grandmother took dangerous factory jobs for extremely low wages. She was in the first sit down strike in Chicago for better pay or working conditions- maybe both. She lost her little finger in a machine at that time- but continued working anyway. My mother stayed by herself- doing housework and cooking meals after school. My grandmother was too proud to beg when she was in between jobs so they went hungry instead of relying on charity.

I don't think it did anyone any good that my mother was poorly nourished and sick her whole childhood- when with proper food and clothes she could have been healthy. I don't spite any poor person food even if they are a grasshopper. I think maybe there should be some limitations on grasshoppers reproducing if they want subsidies- but I do not think the sins of the father (or mother) should be visited on the child.

My paternal grandparents were quite wealthy during the depression. They did not suffer at all. But they were not immigrants, like my German grandmother. They probably felt the same way you do about grasshoppers and ants. Ants can be very smug about grasshoppers - and it is especially easy to be smug when one doesn't even know any grasshoppers, or even any poor ants.
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