Not really judging them, but it does make me sad to think about the hungry people. I recognize that people have a right to spend their money on what they want.
I once bought a half price cake with my EBT, and the woman behind me said “I wish I could junk food with the government’s money.” I turned to her and said “It’s half price and it’s for my birthday.” THAT is judging people.
If you must nitpick rather than addressing the point, I’ll amend that to:
I don’t think it was said anywhere in the actual article that this was her “last $50,” or that she had no other money at all.
The idea that she had no other money is an assumption by the OP, who made a lot of other assumptions not based on anything in the article.
Man doesn’t live by bread alone (and kids certainly don’t. They live for pizza). As has been pointed out repeatedly, boosting the kids’ morale may be the best thing she can do with the money at this point.
One has nothing to do with the other unless you’re in China and have to answer to the thought police.
And on day 2 how’s that morale thing going to work with the kids on an empty stomach? Maybe carry around the empty pizza box so they can smell it? smear the grease on their clothes so they can dream about it in their sleep?
Personally I think the kids would like more food and a responsible adult would act on that premise.
Oh, the irony.
:rolleyes:
I’m astounded at the lengths you’re going to in order to die on this hill. Another Ned Crimwelt.
Holdupnow. If it’s shameful to take charity what exactly do you think that 10% you are tithing to the church each paycheck is going to? Definitely not taxes so… help me understand what exactly you think you are giving that money for.
That’s different.
you know, because reasons.
the people dying would be the ones who squander money because it made them feel for a few minutes.
All I’ve heard in this thread is the same tired excuse used for poverty or drug addiction. Instead of doing something positive to improve one’s situation it’s appropriate to do what feels good for the next 10 minutes.
:dubious: Poverty and drug addiction are not really comparable afflictions. Most poor people aren’t in poverty owing to poor impulse control or preference for short-term gratification over long-term prudence. That’s a “just world” fiction that many comfortably-off people like to cling to in order to feel better about ignoring the poor by tut-tutting about their “squandering” and “extravagance”, no matter how ridiculously trivial such “extravagance” may be.
Realistically, spending some unidentified subset of a fifty-dollar windfall on calorie-rich, satisfying food for one’s children when one’s circumstances are very insecure and one’s future very uncertain is not at all a bad decision. Getting some starchy proteiny fatty calories securely into the kids’ food-insecure stomachs, possibly with some leftover food and/or leftover money to help tide them over the next few days, makes far more sense than the absurd pretense that fifty bucks for a family of several people in highly unstable circumstances has any meaningful capacity to “do something positive to improve one’s situation” in the longer term.
A child will forget the pain of hunger but not the aching pain of wanting things - Betty Smith
It was horrible for me as an adult to not be able to eat as I chose. To have to live on cereal and peanut butter sandwiches cause that’s all I had.
It must be pure torture for a child not to be able to have an occasional pizza or McDonald’s.
The right to feel smug.
For charity, which is sometimes unavoidable.
Keep also in mind the distinction between working for a non-profit and thereby earning a salary, and not working and receiving charity.
Regards,
Shodan
if it’s “shameful” for one to receive charity, why would you give?
What difference does it make? You’re giving away 10% of your income, for what in return? And why is your church not “shameful” for relying on the charity of its members?
But shameful.
Because it is not shameful to give to charity, and sometimes it is unavoidable to receive it.
Because if you work, you earn, and what you receive is not charity. Even if you are working for a non-profit. If you didn’t earn it, yes, it is shameful, at least to the degree that you could have avoided it but didn’t. That’s a gray area, usually, and something you will need to be willing to understand before you can understand it.
If you can’t, I understand.
Especially if you waste the charity on things you don’t need.
Regards,
Shodan
I understand what you are saying, however I don’t understand how/why you get to define need. If someone hasn’t bathed in a month, is a shower something they “need”?
Do you define “need” as only the bare minimum necessary to sustain life?
You know there are tens of millions of children in the world that will never have a pizza or McDonalds?
How do you determine what you earn, vs what is given to you as charity? In your last evaluation, your boss may not have felt that you really had earned a raise, but because everyone else was getting one, he gave you one out of charity.
As there really is little connection between what you earn and what you produce, and even less connection with the amount of effort you put in, then you really should be considering anything that is given to you by anyone as charity.
This woman put far more effort into earning that $50 than you will ever put in to earn your presumably higher salary. Why are you not shamed?
There are children suffering all over the world, so what’s a few more, right?