Obviously you haven't spent much time in the Mississippi Delta . . . True poverty generally exists only in isolated pockets of America, but it definitely exists.
I was thinking more about starving to death than health care, but WHY with all the money we pay in taxes don't these areas have what other areas have? Why doesn't the Surgeon General, who is in charge of public health care, do something about that? Here we have poorER people in the Appalachian mountains, but they have health care and food -- certainly they don't have the same things that a middle class family has, but they have the basics.
It's certainly not on the level of a third-world country, where it is totally impossible to get health care at any cost, at any distance. For example, a friend of mine lived in a third-world country while she was pregnant. She's an American. She had money. She had transportation. She couldn't get access to a doctor for pre-natal care. She had to "apply" to see a doctor, and once she was approved, she had to take a day-long train trip to another city, where she saw a podiatrist once during her pregnancy! Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? But it's serious.
Here Social Services, the Health Department, and hospitals cover most possibilities. Certainly some areas have more than others, but our tax dollars are going to pay for those things for all Americans.
The dad said they spent a ton of money smoothing out the transition of blending the two families. Possibly because it seems that all the kids said they hated their step-siblings before they were forced into becoming a family?
I'm from a blended family, and I don't think our parents spent a penny for "transition". I don't even know what that means.
I'm the same age, and I have to thank my grandparents for sitting me down and teaching me those things because my mom never really learned them. I think that's fairly common for the baby boomers; they're the first generation raised in disposable, go-out-and-buy-it America; our grandparents fixed their own toilets and tended gardens and canned veggies and mended clothes. Our parents went to college so they'd have enough money not to do any of those things for themselves. Now our generation is having to relearn those "old fashioned" skills to deal with the current economic situation.
I was going to write something similar to this. I'm early-40s, but I think I was raised more like a previous generation. I am horrible at growing things, but I can preserve food, sew clothes, and do a great number of "old fashioned things". I don't necessarily do them all on a regular basis, but I know how. Perhaps the most important skill, however, is budgeting and living within your means.
I agree with you that people a little younger than me were raised in a much more disposable America. I think society took on the idea that young people were supposed to replace old-fashioned skills with a college education. They'd be able to earn money to buy things rather than do these things for themselves. When I was a kid, we learned sewing, housekeeping, and ettiquette skills in Girl Scouts and in youth group at church (along with other things). Today Girl Scouts has replaced those "too feminine" items with a "believe in yourself" curriculum, and church groups are more focused on missions. I'm not saying that these new things aren't worthwhile . . . but kids aren't getting those old-fashioned skills at home, they aren't getting them at school, and they aren't getting them from clubs.
I don't think, however, that these things are suddenly necessary again because of the current economic situation. I think we as a society got ourselves into the current economic situation -- in large part -- because we stopped using those old-fashioned skills, especially budgeting and making-do with what we have. We started buying everything, and that got out of control: People stopped cooking, started replacing clothes instead of mending them, etc. And our appetite for consuming grew.
