In the white trash southern town where I grew up being a teacher at $35k/yr is considered one of the better jobs available. Military service is the best option for young men who want to provide a living wage to their families, especially since no education is required. A few dozen doctors and dentists and veterinarians make bank and live like kings (not really joking... think giant sailboats docked at their beach mansions with 4 car garages), but a big part of the problem is that there is no middle class. There's a huge chasm between $35k and $350k, with no opportunities. In a community that is that poor even entrepreneurship seems like an impossible choice. How can you make money in that community when nobody has got 2 pennies to rub together?
Another problem is that the culture does not value those things which empower young people to rise. Even among the top 5% of my high school class, I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship state university because they wanted to follow God and marry a nice boy from their church, or needed to stay home to help care and provide for members of their family. It's traditional and tribal, and looking off toward the horizon and going away for fancy schooling just doesn't rank highly on most peoples' priorities. In a community where many kids' parents attended the same high schools and the grandparents are local, wanting to leave is considered odd.
The only reason I'm not still there today is that for some reason, as a nerd and social outcast, I rejected that path from an early age and my top priority out of high school was to get the hell out. School was hell, but I consider myself fortunate not to be working minimum wage jobs and living in a trailer park like two of my siblings.
Growing up in Hattiesburg, MS, innovation was stagnant. There were no technology related jobs other than Tech Support at Comcast(who I regarded as pure evil at the time).
People do not want to leave Hattiesburg. It is completely foreign to them. They want to marry young, have children, and stay within a few blocks of their family.
Move to California? You're going to fall into the ocean. Move to New York? Too much city. Move to Texas? Too hot. Each of those arguments is easily debunked. The humidity makes it hotter in MS.
My life changing moment was taking a Greyhound to Wisconsin with $1,000 and starting my life over. Afterwards, I moved from place to place knowing I could make it where ever I ventured to.
I have female friends in MS who got Masters/Ph.Ds and married the same year they got the piece of paper. Never used it once. It saddens me. Some of those people are brilliant beyond my abilities. Yet, they chose to follow the culture of the community.
People are so miserable there, but it all by choice. My mother had cerebral palsy and received a check for $500/month. We lived in a trailer, and I made it out when I was ~21-23. I had no car, fallback, or family to depend on. I just had to take a risk and go with the flow. It pays off well now.
I have offered people from MS jobs here or connections to jobs here. They would never take that bus.
This attitude--which I more often than not share with you--suffers strongly of confirmation bias and a lack of empathy. You, we, tend to believe that the priorities we've chosen are better than those of everyone else, and are obviously so. Pursuing knowledge, technology, wealth, is of course a higher aim than raising a family. It's obvious, right? But it's not. They choose "to follow the culture of the community" because the culture is important to them. Because, perhaps, success, to them is made up of different things than it is for us.
I can really appreciate this opinion of my comment. It is truly genuine and a great analysis! There is much more truth to your words than I would like to admit in other facets of my life.
Their priority is indeed far from mine. Many times, I find it hard to empathize and easier to just point the finger at the obvious choices they have made.
Yet, there is a community type punishment and resentment for people who fall into these traps of life. Prioritize reproduction over stability. OK! Community rules: 1) Don't come to 'us' for handouts. 2) Don't get on welfare/medicaid because you dug yourself into a hole. 3) Don't fall into the great apathy device of drugs to help you forget.
If you break the rules, you will be shamed and feel guilty.
The glorious church folk at the Southern Baptist Church in Oak Grove began the silent treatment on my family due to my great grandmother utilizing the meals on wheels services in the area.
Poorness is not acceptable, in some of the poorest communities of the US. It is absolutely glorious.
There is just so much more than I could hope to explain in a comment. The racism, classism, politics, and circular ideologies that are passed down in those areas is a novel on its own.
You are correct. I pity their choice, and often feel my choices are superior. Yet, more often than not, they also pity their choices, and envy my choices.
And I guess that's the important dichotomy here. There are many, many choices that people can make in life that are qualitatively neutral. For instance, the decision of those female Ph.D.s to value marriage over a career utilizing their education. It saddens you, because it does not mesh with your priorities, and so it seems like a bad choice. But qualitatively, it's just a difference of taste and preference.
But there are certainly choices that are qualitatively worse. Such as building, or letting yourself be dragged down by communities that destroy you with shame, racism, classism, politics, etc. Or, as you pointed out, the choice to ignore the imperative to create a foundation for one's family, to have some way to provide, if family is your priority. Because that is actually a failure of their own priorities as well.
We've just got to not muddle those types of choices too much. Our preferences vs. other's preferences vs. truly damaging choices.
The people he left behind may be happy and successful on their own terms, but they are not "socially mobile". It seems that social mobility depends on the culture of the area more than the cost of living.
Why should you be sad about personal choices others make? Stop judging people, learn to accept them and you'll be a happier person. For those "masters" - they likely put a higher priority on family than on career, so the view that they 'did nothing with it' is idiotic. They just have different priorities than you.
I wrote up this large spill about this being their personal feelings, financially drowning and overdrafting $500 each month. Husbands being the sole income providers ranging from $18k-29k a year for 2-4 kids. Jobs going at a very fast pace and very often not returning for a long period of time.
It is much akin to building a home without a foundation. Reproducing without a security blanket for when times are harsh is an equation for depression. I agree, they have different priorities, but there is not one group (out of my 7) that is happy with their choice. They are riddled with embarrassment and guilt. You get to the gas pump with $1.50 to put in the tank... and have a clean consciousness that you were correct in prioritizing a large family over creating a foundation. Don't worry though, the doctors still write prescriptions of Oxycotin, Valiums, and a myriad of antidepressants to reinforce that they made the right choice! I judge them not, I relay their silent cries that they hide from the community, because they fear communal judgment. A far greater damnation than my single judgement in that type of atmosphere.
I know a family in an expensive neighborhood of an elite east coast city where the wife has spent the 5 years since receiving her PhD at home with her kids.
I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship state university because they wanted to follow God and marry a nice boy from their church, or needed to stay home to help care and provide for members of their family.
Thing is, my success is not your success is not their success. If they lead happy and fulfilled lives in that way, is it wrong?
I get that, and I accept it. I'm just trying to explain my perspective on why people in these communities are unlikely to have much intergenerational mobility of the kind discussed in the article.
This sound very similar to where I grew up. I'm also from a "white trash" rural Southern area. And I grew up near the beach, so you saw huge contrast between the million dollar+ beach houses at the private end of the beach, and the rest of my county which was mostly rural, tobacco farms, timber logging for the paper companies, and Green Swamp[1].
I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship state university because they wanted to follow God and marry a nice boy from their church
Uuuggghh... "follow God"... uggh. Makes me want to puke. I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is just a cult, no better than any of the others, just bigger. And due to its prevalence and ubiquity, more damaging.
The only reason I'm not still there today is that for some reason, as a nerd and social outcast, I rejected that path from an early age and my top priority out of high school was to get the hell out.
Same here. This is why I have mixed feelings about a lot of the commentary on poverty and education and what-not, however. On the one hand, a lot of my county does live in poverty and maybe that argues for some of the social intervention stuff that the Socialist / Progressive camps tend to push for. OTOH, I know from experience that, even growing up somewhere like that, if you want to get out and go build a better life, it is possible. Yeah, it means moving away, but I don't see why that should be considered such a big deal... in the course of human history, people have always moved to new areas to look for better opportunities. Not all will, but those who are motivated to do so, do.
> Uuuggghh... "follow God"... uggh. Makes me want to puke. I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is just a cult, no better than any of the others, just bigger. And due to its prevalence and ubiquity, more damaging.
Those kinds of comments belong on /r/athiesm not here.
It's one thing to disagree with the choice of the person, the teachings of a particular branch, or even the idea of a God.
But statements like yours are equivalent to Christians walking around claiming that all gays are evil and will burn in hell.
They are stereotypical hate statements that lead to emotional responses instead of intellectual discussions.
While generally I agree with you, in this particular thread people are sharing personal, impressionistic origin stories.
He's providing colorful detail, a small part of a larger story, and offering a bit of emotional support for the earlier commenter's attitude. (He's not proselytizing, or inviting anti-/pro-religion as a main topic, though there's always a risk someone else will take it that way.)
I would suggest that in such a thread, there should be more space for heartfelt honesty, rather than self-censorship-for-the-sake-of-decorum-and-equanimity. There's a time and place for all styles and topics of communication... and it can shift in just a single screen or replying under a different parent comment.
Exactly. I'm not here to start a big atheism / christian debate, but my life experiences have left me with a very negative view of the outcomes associated with religious belief and some of the stereotypical mindsets you find among religious adherents, vis-a-vis education, achievement, etc.
I don't hate Christians, and - being from the "Bible Belt" - many of my family and friends are Christians. But I still consider it (and most - if not all - other religions) to be a scourge on society.
Hate doesn't enter into it, unless you take a pretty damn expansive view of what "hate" means. I think Christianity is damaging to society, but I don't hate anybody.
that lead to emotional responses instead of intellectual discussions.
So? Not every discussion is some deep intellectual debate which needs to be held to rigorous academic standards. Sometimes people are just talking and sharing observations.
But statements like yours are equivalent to Christians walking around claiming that all gays are evil and will burn in hell.
In reading anecdotes like this it seems that in the south, "Christianity" has been hijacked to have something to do with keeping up the status quo or patriotism or something, which is radically different from my experience (and not at all reflective of the bible). God doesn't live in Alabama, so I'm not sure why you'd have to follow him there....
In a "white trash southern town" isn't $35,000 a year likely to be solidly middle class? Just because there aren't a lot of $60-90,000 jobs doesn't mean that there is no middle class in a given area.
I'm sure it broke a lot of teachers' hearts to see intelligent, gifted pupils throw away a better life to stay in a small town and get by on a HS diploma.
Things are definitely relative. You couldn't rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the Bay Area for my parent's mortgage on a three bedroom house, which my dad manages to pay as career military. But there is huge resentment against teachers because of how much they make compared to the bottom half in town.
My real concern isn't with the take home pay of the local college educated elite, but rather the tremendous gulf between what professionals make and what "regular people" make. By national standards the community doesn't have many truly wealthy, but the disparity is still there. For example, an acquaintance of mine who is a kindergarten teacher had to cancel a class field trip because her principal wasn't comfortable asking parents for $3/child to cover the busing cost. To me, that suggests a big problem with poverty.
I wonder what my teachers think of me? I never felt the need to leave my rural community and "get by" just fine on my HS diploma.
I remember in high school my peers would lament about getting out of here as soon as possible, but I never had the same affliction. I always felt I could bring the perks of the world to me, and feel like for the most part I have succeeded with that. I've maintained "big city" programming jobs for more than a decade now, and I get to do a little farming on the side for the enjoyment of it, which brings in it's own not-insignificant income.
I feel like I might lose a little bit on the entertainment side of life, especially as I get older, but frequent trips to the city does mitigate that problem somewhat. On the flip side, if anything, access to technology might be better here. For instance, the farm has a fibre optic connection to the internet and top notch cell service. I don't even find that when I visit the neighbouring cities. I think that is pretty important for someone with an interest in technology, like myself.
I guess I just don't see why teachers hearts would be broken. The rural life is pretty great, and really not all that limiting, in my opinion. Maybe once upon a time, but technology has bridged most of those gaps.
Clearly there is a world of difference between being a telecommuting programmer earning a large salary and remaining in your hometown because you want to be a stay-at-home parent and follow God.
I admittedly missed that context, but it doesn't exactly seem mutually exclusive either. Why can one not follow God, be a stay-at-home parent, while also being a telecommuting programmer (or whatever suits someone's interests and abilities)? Staying in a small town does not really seem to be the limiting factor.
That's not at all consistent with my experience. I'm from rural MS, but was educated in Memphis. I went back to a small town (population: 4,500) to run a business there. Before I moved on, we had built it up to just over 40 employees. Except for technical jobs (finding programmers was damn near impossible), general labor jobs were easy to fill with a variety of skill levels.
The people we paid $35,000 were quite well off in that in that town. Hell, I rented one of the largest houses in the area when I moved, and only paid $800/mo (for 4,000 sqft). Nice two bedrooms ran $400-450, with three bedrooms running a hundred or so more.
The single wide culture fell into three main camps, as far as I could see:
1) Those who bought land and put a single wide on it, so they could own their place. Usually the intention was to some day build a house. Not a horrible decision.
2) Those who were renting, and opted to have a smaller trailer on a lot of property (to be able to have horses, etc), instead of going for a real house in town. I can respect that decision too.
3) Those trapped in the "pay weekly" rent treadmill. I feel bad for this group, because they're paying as much or more overall for their trailer rent as a decent rental house ran. But it's almost as bad as the payday loan treadmill .. once you get on, it's hard to get off.
I didn't notice your reply otherwise I wouldn't have deleted my post. In my home town in northwestern MN there is an agricultural experiment station which paid $35,000 for a programming job a couple years ago. I made a spreadsheet and even as a single guy with my car paid off I'd only be able to save about $700 a month on that salary. And that's as a renter. Granted, heating costs are much more expensive in northwestern MN than they are in the south and a rental is a bit more expensive than $400. That said, if I had kids to support I would have had to live in a trailer park and would have qualified for food stamps.
I don't think that living in a rental and saving $700 a month is "solidly middle class" in the USA. Perhaps it is now, though, in a world of permanently diminished expectations.
You may be slightly out of touch if you think saving $700 a month is poor. Huge portions of America have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Many more have only a few hundred in savings total.
Not being able to save $700/month or to come up with $2,000 in an emergency situation in the USA is poor, no matter how much useless crap you bought with the rest of your money.
For some weird definition of "middle", I guess. "Middle class" is a designation without meaning, the kind of label that nearly everyone is eager to claim for themselves. Hardly anybody but the most indigent will admit they are poor, because in the US it's like admitting a moral failure. Otherwise you'd be middle class, just like everyone else.
Is the median $55k household in the US reasonably comfortable, able to have a family and buy a home without frequent financial stress over expenses like buying groceries, filling up the tank, or paying the water bill? If it's true that most Americans could not quickly produce $2000 in an emergency, I find that hard to believe. $55k DINKs are doing okay, but add a couple babies to the mix (not unreasonable for a "solidly middle class" family), and I think you're in for a rough time if you're saving for college and retirement like you ought.
I do go back to see my family and one teacher who had a big impact on me, but I'm not really good friends with anyone who stayed anymore. I came out to one of my oldest friends at Christmas, and they told me if I didn't leave my partner of 4 years and give up the gay lifestyle that I would burn in hell for eternity. This lecture was delivered in a crowded restaurant, with about a dozen people looking on.
At one point in college I wrote an editorial for my hometown paper and the minibio was something along the lines of "ABC High School Valedictorian, Class of 200X, and current MIT student"; as a result the comments were all incredibly nasty and irrelevant to the content of the article, along the lines of "Who does this liberal/atheist bitch think she is?" The only positive comments were from old people saying "Wow, I've never seen anybody under 30 submit a piece to the paper."
Truthfully, in person people are usually a lot more gentle (southern hospitality and all), but there's definitely an undercurrent of resentment after initial pleasantries. Sometimes it can be really awkward when I reciprocate their "It's so good to see you, and how are you doing?" and get a really depressing story back. (Got knocked up, laid off, foreclosed, etc.)
Even people in my own family can be hostile. It feels like I can never give anybody any advice, ever, because "they can't all live perfect lives" like me. It sucks.
I don't disagree that culture is a real problem (and not just in rural Southern towns), but since I also grew up in a rural Southern town I think the lack of interest in education, the general focus on getting enough money to pay the rent and buy a case or two of beer for the weekend, and wealth displayed through big trucks and jet skis is a much deeper problem then "I'm top in my class, but aw shucks I need to stay home and love me some Jesus so I can find me a nice boy and take care of Mamma"... that does happen, and sometimes its not for the best, but it's not nearly as common as "I got a job in the factory after high school and check out this kick ass Mustang I got".
I don't suppose you can comment on the state/locale this was in? I have some personal connections to more rural/"redneck" areas, and I try to understand what makes those areas what they are.
Another problem is that the culture does not value those things which empower young people to rise. Even among the top 5% of my high school class, I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship state university because they wanted to follow God and marry a nice boy from their church, or needed to stay home to help care and provide for members of their family. It's traditional and tribal, and looking off toward the horizon and going away for fancy schooling just doesn't rank highly on most peoples' priorities. In a community where many kids' parents attended the same high schools and the grandparents are local, wanting to leave is considered odd.
The only reason I'm not still there today is that for some reason, as a nerd and social outcast, I rejected that path from an early age and my top priority out of high school was to get the hell out. School was hell, but I consider myself fortunate not to be working minimum wage jobs and living in a trailer park like two of my siblings.