I’m not really familiar with lindsay’s life. What does/did she study in college? Obviously something more “important” than social work or English. Is she planning to become a doctor like her parents? (Ooh, how original).
Don’t hate on me too much, but I can kinda-sorta get why people don’t understand English majors. I don’t share that attititude because I love being able to read and write, and I’m sure at least one of the English teachers I have had through the years majored in English. But social work? Maybe I’m biased because that’s essentially what my mother did for a living, but without social workers, kids would be left in abusive homes, handicapped people wouldn’t have access to services to help them live independently, homeless people would stay that way forever, and elderly people would also be lost in the cracks. Not to mention, licensed social workers provide almost identical services as clinical psychologists. Social workers are one of the most valuable commodity our society has. They should get paid more than they do because they see those horrible things first-hand that we only see glimpses of on the news.
I too am kinda sensitive about this issue because my SO is a social worker, and—believe me—she’s quite bright (modulo a little math anxiety). It’s not easy, say, to find placement for the psychiatrically ill and disabled when discharged from the hospital. Without social workers (or those in social work roles) no one solves the dirty little problems.
And they really get little respect. A lot of people seem to think of social workers as meddling baby-stealers; but even beyond that perception they’re often treated as a low-paid commodity. Where my SO works, nurses with baccalaureate degrees doing the same job are paid more than the social workers, who must have master’s degrees. It simply doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (especially given that it isn’t what nurses are even trained to do).
In the interest of perfect fairness, however, I suppose part of the perception must come from the fact that there are dumb social workers. Most grad programs have ridiculously low entry requirements, so the least intellectually capable simply aren’t weeded out as well—and given the extremely low pay higher competitiveness is a double-edged sword.
It is merely a product of growing up an Army brat (oh the riches), paying for my own education through an athletic scholarship, and working through law school. Now that I’m a public defender, I spend the big bucks however I choose. Suck it, proles!
First of all, I would like to apologize if I am breaking any cardinal rule around here by making my first post a pit post. My boyfriend has been here a while and I have usually lurked under his username…just on and off. He told me about this lindsaybluth character a few days ago and at first I thought he was just exaggerating about her attitude and I told him that you all were probably being too hard on her…UNTIL I started reading this thread and reading all her previous posts.
On a side note…we are not as privileged as I thought we were. We only have one useable plastic…yes plastic colander. The other one we have has rust in its tiny holes. I am waiting for all the tiny holes to fill up with rust so I can use it as a bowl. It will be…um…rustic.
And I sent my daughter without fruit to school today since our home ran out of fresh fruit two days ago. Forget fresh…we don’t even have frozen fruit.
But, on the brighter side, I have a phone that autocorrects the word “privileged” for me. Now…isn’t that frickin’ interesting?
I hereby award you one-half of a shiny new internet and a voucher good for waivering either the “Squid” or “Goat” (but not both) portions of your SDMB Initiation Ritual for that pun.
When I die, I hope that folks will remember me for the colander thing…and not as the lady who allowed FutureHilter to rise up and annihilate the entire western world.
