In [Barbie] Snodgrass’s shoes, it hardly made sense to draw a paycheck. “You’re working for what?” she asked. She hadn’t finished college, and the two jobs that kept her “constantly moving” brought in a little more than forty thousand dollars a year, but after the mortgage (a thousand a month), car payments (three hundred and fifty), levies for supplies at the girls’ public high school, fuel, electricity, stomach medicine, and a hundred dollars’ worth of groceries each week (down from eight bags to four at Kroger’s supermarket, because of inflation) there was basically nothing left to spend. She could cut corners—go out for a McDonald’s Dollar Meal instead of spending seven dollars on a bag of potatoes and cooking at home. But that meant the end of any kind of family life for her nieces.“These days, you have to struggle,” she said. “As a kid, I used to be able to go to the movies or to the zoo. Now you can’t take your children to the zoo or go to the movies, because you’ve got to think how you’re going to put food on the table.” Snodgrass’s parents had raised four children on two modest incomes, without the ceaseless stress that she was enduring. But the two-parent family was now available only to the “very privileged.” She said that she had ten good friends; eight of them were childless or, like her, unmarried with kids. “That’s who’s middle-class now,” she said. “Two parents, two kids? That’s over. People looked out for me. These kids nowadays don’t have nobody to look out for them. You’re one week away from (a) losing your job, or (b) not having a paycheck.”
Now that is a sad story to hear. But honestly, Barbie, what are you doing? You're a single parent working two lousy jobs, and you own your own house? My family wasn't any better off when I was a kid, and we rented our house. Owning a home is not free money. And why not get an apartment? I know rich families in Japan who live in apartments; would that be hell for you?
And why is the two-parent family available only to the "very privileged"? Are you telling me that you were too poor to raise kids in a two-parent family? You sound too poor to raise kids in a one-parent family. If your husband was a jerk and ran out on you, that sucks, and I'm sorry to hear that. But don't tell me you were too poor to do the two-parent thing.
Yes, the middle class is working hard. But they're working hard so they can buy stuff. So they can buy big houses. So they can drive inefficient big cars. So they don't have to stay married for economic reasons. In other words, so they can totally ignore all the constraints of reality that my parents had to obey. No president, be he Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or Jesus Christ, will be able to wave a magic wand and give Barbie Snodgrass the ability to trade whatever skills she has for a comfortable wealthy life. She is living beyond her means.
I'm not calling America a nation of whiners here. I'm saying that Americans need to learn not to buy thing they can't afford. Rent your house, even if it means not being able to brag about owning a house. Drive a little compact car, even if it means you get bullied all over the road by some redneck in an F-350. Even consider (gasp!) staying married for economic reasons. OK, maybe you and your spouse won't be the world's most romantic couple. But if you're Barbie Snodgrass, you're probably not going to be the world's most romantic couple with anyone, any more than you're going to bully that F-350 off the road. You just cannot afford it.
There you have it: my angry old conservative rant. But geez, if my party is going to use the government to help out people like Barbie Snodgrass, I wish they'd make it easier for us.
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