ELLE magazines depicts single mother as helpless, without responsibility "Hypereducated And On Welfare"

[Canoe_Captain]

Here is an article from the December 2014 issue of ELLE magazine on a 35-year old single mother needing food stamps with a master in avant-garde poetry. She barely makes enough to feed herself and her disabled son.

 

The article is currently advertised as a "must read" #1 on the top of the Elle.com frontpage.

 

She had some unfortunate, difficult events in her life: she was adopted, a former boyfriend got murdered and her son is disabled, but should not some responsibility be attributed to this woman for the life she is currently living? I did not find one sentence in the article that does attribute some responsibility to her.

If you study only english literature and deliberately decide to be a single mother, should you not anticipate that you are having a lot of challenges ahead?

 

HYPEREDUCATED AND ON WELFARE: http://www.elle.com/life-love/society-career/debt-and-hypereducated-poor

 

 

Some excerpts from the article:

 

"When I see couples who have jobs," she says, "couples who look perfect, I want to ask them: 'How did you do it?'"

 

“Brianne Bolin thought her master's degree in English would guarantee her at least a steady income.”

 

“She just learned that the woman and Finn's father, a blacksmith, are getting married in a few weeks, and they won't be able to take care of the boy during that time. It's all on her, again.”

 

“At the moment, she has $55 in the bank and $3,000 in credit card debt. “

 

"My dreams did this to me."

 

“I was living an extended youth."

 

“Then, at 28, she got pregnant, the result of a random hookup with a 20-year-old in a band she liked. “

 

“She knew she'd be raising her child mostly on her own, but Bolin says she never considered not having the baby.”

 

“She has thought about supplementing her income with some kind of retail job, but Finn's child-care costs would eat up her paycheck.”

 

“Being poor takes a huge amount of mental work. There is a constant need to weigh the merits of spending even the smallest amounts of money. … The point of the social-psychology research is that when so much mental activity is devoted to basic survival, little is left to engage in long-term thinking or to muster willpower—which Bolin well knows.”

 

“Lately she's been looking into work as a campus union organizer, to capitalize on her interest in improving adjuncts' lot”

 

"I need to smoke to relieve the pressure," she tells me as she feverishly rolls her own cigarettes one evening when I take her out to a bar, where she also finds relief in the form of plentiful margaritas.”

 

“She's self-medicating, she says; other times, she uses Xanax for anxiety. She also takes a daily antidepressant”

 

“She stops in a feminist bookstore, wishing she could spring for a book on sex and feminism.”

 

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I am not really surprised by the tone of the article, but I find this is a sad example of "It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others."

 

This reminds me of the following video by Stefan hosting the Peter Schiff Radio Show where he talks about a similar situation, beginning at 14:22 

 

[Pepin]

The story is pretty rediculous. Whether the individual ought to be in that financial state is very testable, and though bad luck can occur, it likely is mostly bad money decisions. She would likely be resistant to pro bono financial counseling, or simply not follow through.

 

I have been pushing back against this stuff at work. Someone said that they did not even have enough money for food on thanksgiving, so I asked about how they were handling their money. They said that despite three jobs, they were broke, to which I pointed out their new top of the line phone complete with expensive monthly rates. They cited some stats on the economy and said it was not their fault, to which I said that they are nor managing their money well.

 

There are young girls with kids at my job, and I hold them fully responsible for that. Unfortunately, most people are happy for them, especially the parents. If they paid the full cost, that would be one thing, but the costs are instead socialized in so many ways.

 

I think Rand had a lot to say on this, which is pretty valid. The culture of no responsibility is very appealing to people.

[Alan C.]

Being educated is not the same as being enlightened, nor is being intelligent the same as being wise (eg. Thunderf00t). It's possible for people to retain specialized knowledge and expertise while possessing no marketable or productive abilities.

Although she was subjected to some unfortunate circumstances, she is responsible for her sexual proclivities and choice of degree and career which were like firing torpedoes into the side of a ship.

 

On another note, there are many young people at the company where I work who pay $100/month or more for their smart phone plans and who complain about being broke all the time. It's ridiculous.

[andkon]

If the woman who 1) took out the loans and 2) had consensual sex to have a child isn't responsible, then why are taxpayers who did neither of those things? When someone is forced to pay taxes, the taxing agency says, "You are responsible for this. If you don't pay it, you will go to prison, especially if you make a principled case against us." How is "society" at large more responsible to pay her bills than the woman herself?

[Magnus]

Hypereducated and on welfare

 

I think this headline is trying to show some sort of incongruity -- as though being educated should insulate you, all by itself, from poverty. 

 

This basic premise and assumption behind the article (and this woman's entire way of life) is absurd.  She made a baby with an irresponsible man.  Now everyone else in society is supposed to pay for that?  Because she went to school to study poetry, the entire world owes her a more comfortable living?  Where do people learn this sort of thinking? 

 

Are highly educated people not taught basic reproductive biology anymore?  Cause and effect?  I've given up expecting "educated" to have SOME MINIMAL sense of economics or business.  (I've even met some economics professors who have no idea whatsoever about how the world of business works.)  But I'm fairly sure that anyone with a master's degree would know where babies come from. 

[PatrickC]

She clearly was educated enough to do an engineering or computer science degree..

[J. D. Stembal]

Anyone who doubts that Feminism is Marxism 2.0 needs to read this article, which has Chicago, the birthplace of the labor movement, as its backdrop. Check the comments. People are crying foul about labor abuses and that teachers need to earn more.