Why am I here? How did I get here? Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they may decide to….. Ok, never mind, that’s not what I mean. I mean, why am I here, sitting at my desk writing this blog for sociology while watching Sex and the City? What are the sociological influences that led to me attending the College of Charleston?
Familiarity is where it all begins. I was born in a hospital room with an open window in Portland, ME. My first breath was a major inhalation of salt air, and that became an integral part of who I am. Perhaps that’s the reason the ocean has held such captivation for me over the years. And that’s the first reason that I even applied to the College of Charleston. I wanted the proximity to the ocean, but more importantly, the marine bio program (that worked out well…).
At my high school, it was a social norm to apply to upwards of 10 schools. My friends at other schools applied to maybe 3. They had a very clear idea of where they were going. If I had applied to three or four or five or even six schools, College of Charleston would not have made the list. I never thought I’d be going to South Carolina. My list was predominantly small private schools in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, and had I not thought about marine biology, I never even would have found C of C. In addition to this, I didn’t apply to the College on time. I forgot about it, left it in the dust. Two weeks after the application deadline, I had a moment of panic. Not one of the schools that I applied to was in a city, which was where I really wanted to end up. Perhaps the city is another major reason I am here. All my life I’ve lived in small towns (my current hometown has a whooping 1400 people), and something about the city, the electricity that seems to run through the people that crowd the sidewalks and buildings pulls me in; it’s almost magnetic. So I called up the admissions office, and asked to be able to send in my application. The answer they gave me is obvious as I sit here typing on Calhoun Street.
My mother influenced me a great deal, although in a very interesting, unusual manner. Call it a complex, but I know that I will never be as good as her. She is the best person I know, beautiful, brilliant, an unbelievable athlete, graduated from an Ivy League school with academic awards and athletic records, beloved by everyone who shares even the briefest of conversations with her, she’s just perfect. For all of my juvenile life, up until maybe 8th grade, I wanted to be just like her. Then I realized that I also share her sense of competition. I need to be the best. And I realized that I would never be as good as my mother in certain aspects of life. I stopped forcing myself to try and enjoy playing basketball, and instead focused my energy on volleyball. I didn’t worry so much about history in high school, and instead pursued Spanish, and I didn’t even try to get in to those Ivy League schools; I went south. I became comfortable being myself, not a miniature clone of my mother. Cliché, but true nonetheless.
The last real factor that led to my appearance in the College of Charleston is horrible and embarrassing, and I beg anyone who reads this not to judge me. It was the movie Sweet Home Alabama. I wanted to be in a land where community was highly valued and kindness was a priority. When I saw that movie, I envisioned myself living that kind of life. I wanted to raise my kids in a Christian community. I wanted them to go to kindergarten and high school with the next door neighbors, and swim in the creek, eat barbeque, play baseball, and attend town picnics. I saw it as the American Dream. Up in New York, there were conflicts. People weren’t all the same religion, and there was a major clique problem at my school, which resulted in kids graduating in a 50 person senior class, and still not knowing everyone’s names. I envisioned the south as some sort of long lost American paradise. I see now that that notion is utterly ridiculous, but it’s easy to be blind when you want something so badly. I wanted the stereotype to be true. I wanted little Suzy and little Johnny and Mrs. Jones and Reverend Smith all to exist and eat apple pie together at the church picnics every Sunday. I wanted to see a gaggle of freckly children running through my lawn after school on their way to a game of pickup ball. I wanted video games and alcohol and drugs not to exist. I thought that would be the case in South Carolina, even at the college level. Clearly I was wrong.
SO what can I do now? Now that I know that the American dream is just that – a dream? It’s a life lesson for sure, but I’ll just have to make the best of everything. Perhaps next time I won’t be so naïve. I won’t listen to the stereotypes, or try to emulate my role models but I will remain here in Charleston, breathing in that ocean air, which seems to be the one thing in my life that will never change.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
How much do I need to make to live in Poughkeepsie?
HOW TO SURVIVE IN POUGHKEEPSIE, NY
New York State is widely recognized for having some of the highest taxes in the entire country. In fact, the Basic Family Budget Calculator shows that the estimated minimum budget for living in the Town of Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area is over $17,000 more than the estimated minimum budget of a place like Charleston, SC. Some places in Dutchess County are nicer than others, and many of the tiny villages in the area are home to multimillionaires. However, I decided to look at one of the biggest towns in Dutchess County, the Town of Poughkeepsie.
Poughkeepsie is a very blue collar town, and many of the residents live just barely above, at, or below the poverty level. Because of its excessive violence, crime, and illegal substance abuse, Poughkeepsie has affectionately earned the nickname of “the ghetto” to its inhabitants and residents of the surrounding region. The schools are well-known as some of the worst and most overcrowded in the county, although they have some phenomenal sports teams. The current mayor John C. Tkazyik has been working on transitioning the Town and as a result, many neighborhoods are becoming more habitable, the crime rate has been declining, and the standard of living has been going up.
For this blog, I decided to be very specific, and actually assumed the role of the head of a four person household, interested in residing in Poughkeepsie. I looked into housing, health insurance, food costs, transportation costs, and child care, among other things. I totaled up the sums of all of the above to give me the minimum cost of living in Poughkeepsie on both a monthly and annual basis. I have broken it down by category, some of which come from the EPI Family Budget Guide, others that I have made up myself.
Housing: $1,200/month = 14,400/year
Housing was probably the most straightforward category. Assuming the role of a prospective renter, I scoured the internet for the perfect house to raise my two dependents. Among the things that I considered to be important were cost, size, and proximity to schools/places of business. I eventually found a decent house on craigslist.com. It’s a 3-bedroom duplex, and we would be inhabiting the upper floor. The house is right on the main street in Poughkeepsie, creatively named Main Street. It is very close to both of the grocery stores, the train station, and Poughkeepsie Middle School. With water and sewage included, the total cost came to $1,200/month.
Pros:
-Proximity to school
-Water/sewage included
-It’s an actually house vs. an apartment
-City bus stops nearby
-Train station nearby
-Several different shops in walking distance
-Child care provider nearby
Cons:
-Questionable neighborhood
-Situated on busy intersection
-Heating/electric not included in overall price
Food: $672/month = $8,064/year
Given New York’s extremely high sales tax, food is more expensive in Poughkeepsie than it is elsewhere, in other aesthetically and economically similar cities in other states. One big problem with Poughkeepsie grocery stores is that they are small and individually owned, therefore the food is oftentimes more expensive. To calculate what the minimum food budget would be for a semi-nutritious diet, I went to http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2010/CostofFoodFeb10.pdf and typed in the Poughkeepsie zip code, 12601. I then averaged the lowest and the next to lowest average budgets to come up with my final number.
I then called up my mother, and had her do just a little research for me. I asked her some of the prices she pays for groceries at home, and did some calculations. The total cost of food that my family pays per month came out to be about 35% more than the government estimate, but I have a 21-year old brother living at home who is a former athlete and eats like one, as well as a 16-year old brother who eats roughly as much as the average race horse. I decided that the number that I found is an accurate one for a family of four with two small children.
Transportation: $482/month = $5,784/year
Transportation was the most complicated category that I had to decipher, given the specific combinations of public and private transportation that the average citizen of Poughkeepsie uses. In order to be fair, but realistic, I decided that my family would have only one car, given that we have only two drivers in our family. In addition, I researched the bus rates, which are $1.50/trip. The last thing, the most interesting factor of the transportation category would be the train usage. Many people in Poughkeepsie commute to NYC every single day, and I decided that either my spouse or I would travel down to the city once a week, bumping up our family budget to acquire four round trip train trips to Grand Central Station.
Most citizens in the Town of Poughkeepsie use the bus daily for travel, so I decided that if the four members of our family averaged a total of six bus trips per day, the total would be about $232/month or $2,784/year. This would include commuting to and from work for one of the working parents, plus travelling around the cities for basic needs such as groceries, or appointments.
I “googled” the average MPG of a regular, functional American car, and I found that it came out to be about 17 mpg. Since we live in a small city, the car wouldn’t get much more use than travelling to and from the train station, or driving down the street to get groceries, or pick the kids up from daycare. If the car was used roughly about 15 miles per day, that would be 100 miles per week. The cost of gas in Poughkeepsie is about $2.92 per gallon, which means that roughly $70 per month would be spent on fueling up the car.
Commuting to New York City once a week would be very expensive, but it is mandatory for many jobs, so I decided to include it. A round trip train ticket from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station is $40. If I commuted once a week, it would come out to be about $160/month or $1,920 per year.
Child care: $125/week = $500/month = $6,000/year
I searched for child care like I did for housing, scouring the corners of the Internet to find the best deal. On craigslist.com I found a woman whose children had left for college who wanted to be a full time nanny. She was very reasonably priced, so I decided that she might be more beneficial for my children than a daycare. She has her own transportation, so she’d be able to pick the kids up from school, drive them to her own home, which is in a much safer and nicer area than our home, and drop them off at a given time every weekday.
I did have to give this serious consideration, the daycare vs. nanny dilemma. In the end, I chose hiring an inexpensive nanny over sending my kids to the local child care service, Little Apples Daycare.
Pros:
-Less inexpensive
-One on one attention
-Safer neighborhood
Cons:
-Less socialization with peers
Healthcare: $362/month = $4,344/year
In order to figure out the appropriate price for healthcare for a family of four, I went online to get a free quote. It was as simple as pushing a button. I found Empire Healthcare, which allowed me to insure my entire family for as low as $362 per month. It’s not the most comprehensive plan on the market, but it is a solid plan that includes coverage in case of accidents or serious illnesses.
Taxes: $812/month = $9,744/year
Taxes were very tough to calculate based on the fact that I don’t know how much my alleged spouse or I make per year. To estimate this figure, I looked at the EPI budget estimate, then went to http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html. It’s true that the income tax in New York is much higher than many other states, but since I’m renting a home instead of owning one, I don’t have to pay a property tax or a school tax. Again my mother helped me come up with this figure.
Bills:
Electric: $2,000/year
This is the big one. Since we have a fairly small home, the electric bill won’t be overly large until the wintertime when the heating bills elevate everything. Since I would expect to pay about $125/month in electric bills during the fall, spring, and summer months, and $250/month during the four winter months (curse those cold upstate NY winters!)
Other:
Phones: $125/month = $1500
Instead of having a landline, I opted for two cell phones, one for each of the adults in the family. This eliminated the phone bill at the house and will keep our electric bill just slightly less. The plan does not include texting, and we only have a set number of minutes per month, which is fairly low.
Garbage Removal: $30/month = $360/year
In the Town of Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area, it costs money to have your garbage picked up every week.
Clothing: $1200/year = $100/month
My home is right down the street from the Salvation Army store and Goodwill, so the family doesn’t have to spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothing. The children will probably get around $250 of new clothes each in the fall for the upcoming school year, and the adults will probably spend about $350 each on clothes throughout the year.
School/work/home supplies: $402/year = $33/month
The kids will need new school supplies every year, and I’m guessing that my alleged spouse and I will like to keep some office supplies in the home, such as paper, paperclips, staplers, pens, and pencils just to name a few. The kids are going to need new notebooks, paper, folders, pens, pencils, art supplies, and backpacks just to name a few things. This also includes things like paper plates and plastic utensils or cups and dishwashing liquid/soap.
Car Maintenance: $100/month = $1,200/year
The average older car needs to be maintained often, and while it may not require $100 every month, it will probably require major fixings at least once or twice a year that can total up to $600 each session.
Car Insurance: $145/month = $1,736/year
Auto insurance is a requirement in order to be able to drive your car on the road. I went a website and looked up a quote for the car which my older brother and I share, a 1997 Ford Taurus station wagon.
A TABLE OF MY EXPENSES
Expense Cost per month Cost per year
Housing 1200 14400
Food 672 8064
Transportation 482 5784
Child Care 500 6000
Healthcare 362 4344
Taxes 812 9744
Electric Bill 125-250 2000
Phone 125 1500
OTHER
Garbage Removal 30 360
Clothing 100 1200
School/work/home supplies 33 402
Car Maintenance 100 1200
Auto Insurance 145 1736
On the website with the EPI Family Budget Calculator, the basic budget for a family of four was about $63,000. I only used $56,532, but I am not the head of a household. I have never had to support a family. I don’t know what expenses are hidden with that responsibility. I tried to think of everything that would cost a family money, with the exception of eating at restaurants, vacations, and other unnecessary factors, but I am sure that there are more expenses.
The total cost of living per month is $4,711. The total cost of living per year is $56,532. The national poverty line for 2009 for a family of four with 2 children under age 18 was $21,832. That’s a difference of 34,700. This is clearly unacceptable. I don’t understand how the government expects a family to be able to survive when even the most basic of budgets far exceed the national poverty level. In fact, this basic existence in Poughkeepsie, NY is 259% of the poverty level. I find it surprising that the government still calculates the poverty level based on how much a family spends on food, when the percentage of income that the family has to spend on food has gone down so much over the last 5 decades. I think it’s time for the government to come up with something new. Perhaps they should just take the bottom 15% of incomes and classify them as “below poverty”, or something as simple as that, because this system that we have in place currently is obviously not working.
New York State is widely recognized for having some of the highest taxes in the entire country. In fact, the Basic Family Budget Calculator shows that the estimated minimum budget for living in the Town of Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area is over $17,000 more than the estimated minimum budget of a place like Charleston, SC. Some places in Dutchess County are nicer than others, and many of the tiny villages in the area are home to multimillionaires. However, I decided to look at one of the biggest towns in Dutchess County, the Town of Poughkeepsie.
Poughkeepsie is a very blue collar town, and many of the residents live just barely above, at, or below the poverty level. Because of its excessive violence, crime, and illegal substance abuse, Poughkeepsie has affectionately earned the nickname of “the ghetto” to its inhabitants and residents of the surrounding region. The schools are well-known as some of the worst and most overcrowded in the county, although they have some phenomenal sports teams. The current mayor John C. Tkazyik has been working on transitioning the Town and as a result, many neighborhoods are becoming more habitable, the crime rate has been declining, and the standard of living has been going up.
For this blog, I decided to be very specific, and actually assumed the role of the head of a four person household, interested in residing in Poughkeepsie. I looked into housing, health insurance, food costs, transportation costs, and child care, among other things. I totaled up the sums of all of the above to give me the minimum cost of living in Poughkeepsie on both a monthly and annual basis. I have broken it down by category, some of which come from the EPI Family Budget Guide, others that I have made up myself.
Housing: $1,200/month = 14,400/year
Housing was probably the most straightforward category. Assuming the role of a prospective renter, I scoured the internet for the perfect house to raise my two dependents. Among the things that I considered to be important were cost, size, and proximity to schools/places of business. I eventually found a decent house on craigslist.com. It’s a 3-bedroom duplex, and we would be inhabiting the upper floor. The house is right on the main street in Poughkeepsie, creatively named Main Street. It is very close to both of the grocery stores, the train station, and Poughkeepsie Middle School. With water and sewage included, the total cost came to $1,200/month.
Pros:
-Proximity to school
-Water/sewage included
-It’s an actually house vs. an apartment
-City bus stops nearby
-Train station nearby
-Several different shops in walking distance
-Child care provider nearby
Cons:
-Questionable neighborhood
-Situated on busy intersection
-Heating/electric not included in overall price
Food: $672/month = $8,064/year
Given New York’s extremely high sales tax, food is more expensive in Poughkeepsie than it is elsewhere, in other aesthetically and economically similar cities in other states. One big problem with Poughkeepsie grocery stores is that they are small and individually owned, therefore the food is oftentimes more expensive. To calculate what the minimum food budget would be for a semi-nutritious diet, I went to http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2010/CostofFoodFeb10.pdf and typed in the Poughkeepsie zip code, 12601. I then averaged the lowest and the next to lowest average budgets to come up with my final number.
I then called up my mother, and had her do just a little research for me. I asked her some of the prices she pays for groceries at home, and did some calculations. The total cost of food that my family pays per month came out to be about 35% more than the government estimate, but I have a 21-year old brother living at home who is a former athlete and eats like one, as well as a 16-year old brother who eats roughly as much as the average race horse. I decided that the number that I found is an accurate one for a family of four with two small children.
Transportation: $482/month = $5,784/year
Transportation was the most complicated category that I had to decipher, given the specific combinations of public and private transportation that the average citizen of Poughkeepsie uses. In order to be fair, but realistic, I decided that my family would have only one car, given that we have only two drivers in our family. In addition, I researched the bus rates, which are $1.50/trip. The last thing, the most interesting factor of the transportation category would be the train usage. Many people in Poughkeepsie commute to NYC every single day, and I decided that either my spouse or I would travel down to the city once a week, bumping up our family budget to acquire four round trip train trips to Grand Central Station.
Most citizens in the Town of Poughkeepsie use the bus daily for travel, so I decided that if the four members of our family averaged a total of six bus trips per day, the total would be about $232/month or $2,784/year. This would include commuting to and from work for one of the working parents, plus travelling around the cities for basic needs such as groceries, or appointments.
I “googled” the average MPG of a regular, functional American car, and I found that it came out to be about 17 mpg. Since we live in a small city, the car wouldn’t get much more use than travelling to and from the train station, or driving down the street to get groceries, or pick the kids up from daycare. If the car was used roughly about 15 miles per day, that would be 100 miles per week. The cost of gas in Poughkeepsie is about $2.92 per gallon, which means that roughly $70 per month would be spent on fueling up the car.
Commuting to New York City once a week would be very expensive, but it is mandatory for many jobs, so I decided to include it. A round trip train ticket from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station is $40. If I commuted once a week, it would come out to be about $160/month or $1,920 per year.
Child care: $125/week = $500/month = $6,000/year
I searched for child care like I did for housing, scouring the corners of the Internet to find the best deal. On craigslist.com I found a woman whose children had left for college who wanted to be a full time nanny. She was very reasonably priced, so I decided that she might be more beneficial for my children than a daycare. She has her own transportation, so she’d be able to pick the kids up from school, drive them to her own home, which is in a much safer and nicer area than our home, and drop them off at a given time every weekday.
I did have to give this serious consideration, the daycare vs. nanny dilemma. In the end, I chose hiring an inexpensive nanny over sending my kids to the local child care service, Little Apples Daycare.
Pros:
-Less inexpensive
-One on one attention
-Safer neighborhood
Cons:
-Less socialization with peers
Healthcare: $362/month = $4,344/year
In order to figure out the appropriate price for healthcare for a family of four, I went online to get a free quote. It was as simple as pushing a button. I found Empire Healthcare, which allowed me to insure my entire family for as low as $362 per month. It’s not the most comprehensive plan on the market, but it is a solid plan that includes coverage in case of accidents or serious illnesses.
Taxes: $812/month = $9,744/year
Taxes were very tough to calculate based on the fact that I don’t know how much my alleged spouse or I make per year. To estimate this figure, I looked at the EPI budget estimate, then went to http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html. It’s true that the income tax in New York is much higher than many other states, but since I’m renting a home instead of owning one, I don’t have to pay a property tax or a school tax. Again my mother helped me come up with this figure.
Bills:
Electric: $2,000/year
This is the big one. Since we have a fairly small home, the electric bill won’t be overly large until the wintertime when the heating bills elevate everything. Since I would expect to pay about $125/month in electric bills during the fall, spring, and summer months, and $250/month during the four winter months (curse those cold upstate NY winters!)
Other:
Phones: $125/month = $1500
Instead of having a landline, I opted for two cell phones, one for each of the adults in the family. This eliminated the phone bill at the house and will keep our electric bill just slightly less. The plan does not include texting, and we only have a set number of minutes per month, which is fairly low.
Garbage Removal: $30/month = $360/year
In the Town of Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area, it costs money to have your garbage picked up every week.
Clothing: $1200/year = $100/month
My home is right down the street from the Salvation Army store and Goodwill, so the family doesn’t have to spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothing. The children will probably get around $250 of new clothes each in the fall for the upcoming school year, and the adults will probably spend about $350 each on clothes throughout the year.
School/work/home supplies: $402/year = $33/month
The kids will need new school supplies every year, and I’m guessing that my alleged spouse and I will like to keep some office supplies in the home, such as paper, paperclips, staplers, pens, and pencils just to name a few. The kids are going to need new notebooks, paper, folders, pens, pencils, art supplies, and backpacks just to name a few things. This also includes things like paper plates and plastic utensils or cups and dishwashing liquid/soap.
Car Maintenance: $100/month = $1,200/year
The average older car needs to be maintained often, and while it may not require $100 every month, it will probably require major fixings at least once or twice a year that can total up to $600 each session.
Car Insurance: $145/month = $1,736/year
Auto insurance is a requirement in order to be able to drive your car on the road. I went a website and looked up a quote for the car which my older brother and I share, a 1997 Ford Taurus station wagon.
A TABLE OF MY EXPENSES
Expense Cost per month Cost per year
Housing 1200 14400
Food 672 8064
Transportation 482 5784
Child Care 500 6000
Healthcare 362 4344
Taxes 812 9744
Electric Bill 125-250 2000
Phone 125 1500
OTHER
Garbage Removal 30 360
Clothing 100 1200
School/work/home supplies 33 402
Car Maintenance 100 1200
Auto Insurance 145 1736
On the website with the EPI Family Budget Calculator, the basic budget for a family of four was about $63,000. I only used $56,532, but I am not the head of a household. I have never had to support a family. I don’t know what expenses are hidden with that responsibility. I tried to think of everything that would cost a family money, with the exception of eating at restaurants, vacations, and other unnecessary factors, but I am sure that there are more expenses.
The total cost of living per month is $4,711. The total cost of living per year is $56,532. The national poverty line for 2009 for a family of four with 2 children under age 18 was $21,832. That’s a difference of 34,700. This is clearly unacceptable. I don’t understand how the government expects a family to be able to survive when even the most basic of budgets far exceed the national poverty level. In fact, this basic existence in Poughkeepsie, NY is 259% of the poverty level. I find it surprising that the government still calculates the poverty level based on how much a family spends on food, when the percentage of income that the family has to spend on food has gone down so much over the last 5 decades. I think it’s time for the government to come up with something new. Perhaps they should just take the bottom 15% of incomes and classify them as “below poverty”, or something as simple as that, because this system that we have in place currently is obviously not working.
Proud to be an Irish-American?
My maternal great grandfather immigrated to the United States from Germany when he was nine years old. His name was Conrad Eimers, and he came alone to live with some relatives. My paternal grandmother immigrated to the United States from Ireland when she was just a small girl. Mary Blayney had a Gaelic lilt until she left grade school. Eventually their descendents, Margaret Meier and William Blayney met, fell in love, and produced me, an Irish-German mutt (but mostly Irish). Whenever someone asks me what ethnicity I am, that is my response ‘Irish and German, but mostly Irish.’ I love the color green, all types of potatoes, and respect the symbolic significance of the claddagh ring. Oh, and I tolerate bagpipes considerably more than the average human being.
I met my best friend, Priscilla, in the 10th grade. She’s 100% Mexican, her parents having immigrated here the year before she was born. When we got to talking about our respective background shortly after we met, I noticed a difference in our behavior. While I calmly talked about how much I liked St. Patrick’s Day, Priscilla launched into an impassioned speech about the “el orgullo de ser Mexicana” that left her glowing with pride for her heritage. She talked about food, music, family traditions, holidays, and everything in between.
Our conversation resonated with me for a very long time, and left me feeling totally disconnected from my ancestors. I began to pore over my family, our traditions, the food I was raised on, the music I listened to over the years, and I came to the conclusion that I am not what I thought I was. I am not Irish or German. I am American. The first food I remember requesting at the age of three was a hamburger. The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, and Billy Joel, are among my favorite music artists. I celebrate Christmas, along with Independence Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Presidents Day. My family’s idea of bonding time is crowding around the TV and hurling insults and curse words during March Madness. All of these different factors of my life are untied with one single thread – they are distinctly American.
This is a part of the sociological theory that states that even though people may be of different races, they can still be the same ethnicity. This idea was especially prevalent at my boarding high school. The girl who lived across the hall from me was named Liz Fu. She’s Laotian, and possibly more American than I am. While she is capable of speaking broken Chinese, and her father and mother are very faithful to their heritage, Liz is much like me. We both have the symbolic ethnicity, that is to say, we place emphasis on such concerns as ethnic food and music and holidays rather than deeper ties to our respective heritages. She loves wontons and orange chicken, and she enjoys the presents that accompany the Chinese New Year, but she said herself that on a recent trip to China to explore her heritage, she “couldn’t wait to get back home to California.”
Is it bad that I don’t identify with my heritage? Maybe. Am I going to lose sleep over that thought? Absolutely not. I don’t see the benefit of trying to keep my Irish heritage alive, when it has no influence on who I am as a person. Symbolic ethnicity is not the same thing as truly being proud of your ethnicity.
I got my census today, and I am stumped as to what to put for ethnicity. In the end, I ended up putting European, but I know in my heart and my soul that I will never be anything other than American, and while some factors (ahem, Kanye, obesity, Octomom) may be embarrassing, the freedom and independence that America stands for will always fill me with a sense of national pride.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Gender Socialization
In the fifties, it was all the same. The father went off to work, the mother stayed home and kept house, and the children were for the most part well-behaved with traditional values. Fast forward 40 some odd years, and that’s still the norm, but things are well on their way to changing. In the early 90s, the typical father still brought home the bacon, and the mother kept the kids in line, but there were more and more exceptions every year.
Family enforcement of gender socialization is almost always the first kind of gender socialization a child experiences. The child sees the way their parents, brothers, sisters, and occasionally extended family members act on a daily basis, and this serves as template for the motions that the child will emulate. Most girls are socialized to play ‘house’ while little boys are taught to roughhouse and run around. But what would happen if a girl grew up in a household where she didn’t have a permanent female figure in her life, where she was just surrounded by males the majority of the time? I have a hypothesis that comes from experience.
My family was incredibly atypical in the early 90s. My mom worked, and I mean WORKED. She was a salesperson for IBM, and she traveled out of state at least once a week for an overnight trip. We were lucky if she got home by 6 most evenings. My dad, on the other hand, quit his job when my older brother was born, and he was around the house to take care of me when I was born. Add another little brother in the mix, and you’ve got a house full of boys and me.
For the first 5 years of my life, contrary to what most people would think, I was the epitome of a girly girl. I don’t think it had so much to do with me identifying myself as a girl, and more so with the toys that were under the Christmas tree every year. Along with dresses and hats and shoes galore, I would receive costume jewelry and Barbies and the olden day Polly Pockets. My brothers both got legos, footballs, race cars, and other stereotypical “boy stuff”. Well what has more influence on a kid? Their family enforcement of gender socialization, or the toys their given and expected to play with.
Even though I’ve lived it, I’m not sure what influenced me the most. Sure I was a girly girl, wearing dresses and ribbons in my hair every day until the age of 6, but once six hit and I got that urge to play with all the other kids, I ditched the dresses, the ribbons, and the other girls in my class. I sought out boys to be friends with, emulating my brothers’ behavior in the classroom and in social situations. It was very curious. Instead of playing with my Barbies and my dress up, I would roughhouse with my brothers, or climb trees, or try to catch frogs and slugs in the garden. I copied Jack and Danny like they were the divine role models for young children. My hair was never combed, my room was never neat, my clothes never matched, my manners were atrocious, etc. I was even kicked out of my 4th grade class for my excessive burping one time. In short, I had gone from being a little princess who liked My Little Pony and pink, to the biggest tomboy west of the Mississippi with my spitting skills and tree climbing expertise on par with even the biggest 5th grade boys.
Let’s look at the sociological factors behind the transition. When I was a little girl, my dad treated me like a princess, bought me pink, and even played Barbie with me on occasion. I had 2 girlfriends in my neighborhood, and we all liked the same things – playing kittens, touting our sundresses, and skinny dipping in the ocean. As a collective unit, we loved pink and Disney princesses. I also clearly remember knowing what boys and girls were supposed to like, and was a strong advocate for gender enforcement. I remember telling my older brother – “since I’m a girl, I have to like pink. And since you’re boy, you have to like blue.” My mom smiled and shook her head, but I knew I was right. Sociologically, I was influenced by both my friends (whom I saw almost every day) and the mass media (after all, look at how happy the little girls on all the Barbie advertisements were). It’s very interesting though; I had almost no family enforcement of gender socialization from my mother. She wasn’t the stereotypical housewife, and she still isn’t. She wears all black or navy business suits, sports a very short (yet becoming) hair cut, and didn’t start wearing makeup on a daily basis until she hit the big 5-0 a few years ago. She much preferred basketball to Barbies, and I attribute all of my athletic prowess to her. In short, she wasn’t exactly the epitome of femininity.
However, I moved from Maine to Minnesota when I was 5 years old, and this had a tremendous impact on me. First of all, I left my main source of socialization (my two best friends) behind, and secondly and more importantly, the little girls in my new school all HATED me from day one (I don’t know why, but they just did). Because of this, I only had boys as friends for around 4 years. My mother also began to work later and later, and I was lucky if she was home before I went to bed. With this complete lack of feminine influence, I rapidly transitioned from the pink-loving little girl into quite the tomboy. My brothers were my only friends for awhile, and they didn’t play Barbies with me, so I had to learn to like football and wrestling, as that might be the only interaction I had with kids the whole day. And once I did make friends with the boys in my class, I didn’t want them to think I was weaker or worse at sports than them, so I began to copy them. From simple things like the way Jack held the bat in t-ball, to the way my friend Mark could burp the whole alphabet. So here’s another sociological contributing factor to my tomboyishness – PEER PRESSURE.
It was that age where if I was going to hang out with the boys, I’d better be able to keep up with the boys. And when my mom began to fly out to another state on Monday, and only return again on Friday, I really lost my already wavering grasp of any sort of femininity. Even if she wasn’t the perfect example of it, at least she was a girl. I had no girl friends, no female influences except for my teachers.
Things eventually sorted themselves out when I went to boarding school and was forced to live in a dorm with 35 other girls. I finally found the healthy balance that comprises the woman I am today, happy to wewar dresses once in awhile, but still unable to deal with petty drama and applying makeup on a regular basis.
Sociologically,the main factors that I found contributed to my different stages of life were family enforcement (having only brothers) and peer pressure (wanting my friends at school to accept me). But even though I was a huge tomboy, I was always proud to be a girl, which leads me to the conclusion that gender socialization and gender identification are completely unrelated, an argument for the nature side in the “nature vs. nurture” feud.
Family enforcement of gender socialization is almost always the first kind of gender socialization a child experiences. The child sees the way their parents, brothers, sisters, and occasionally extended family members act on a daily basis, and this serves as template for the motions that the child will emulate. Most girls are socialized to play ‘house’ while little boys are taught to roughhouse and run around. But what would happen if a girl grew up in a household where she didn’t have a permanent female figure in her life, where she was just surrounded by males the majority of the time? I have a hypothesis that comes from experience.
My family was incredibly atypical in the early 90s. My mom worked, and I mean WORKED. She was a salesperson for IBM, and she traveled out of state at least once a week for an overnight trip. We were lucky if she got home by 6 most evenings. My dad, on the other hand, quit his job when my older brother was born, and he was around the house to take care of me when I was born. Add another little brother in the mix, and you’ve got a house full of boys and me.
For the first 5 years of my life, contrary to what most people would think, I was the epitome of a girly girl. I don’t think it had so much to do with me identifying myself as a girl, and more so with the toys that were under the Christmas tree every year. Along with dresses and hats and shoes galore, I would receive costume jewelry and Barbies and the olden day Polly Pockets. My brothers both got legos, footballs, race cars, and other stereotypical “boy stuff”. Well what has more influence on a kid? Their family enforcement of gender socialization, or the toys their given and expected to play with.
Even though I’ve lived it, I’m not sure what influenced me the most. Sure I was a girly girl, wearing dresses and ribbons in my hair every day until the age of 6, but once six hit and I got that urge to play with all the other kids, I ditched the dresses, the ribbons, and the other girls in my class. I sought out boys to be friends with, emulating my brothers’ behavior in the classroom and in social situations. It was very curious. Instead of playing with my Barbies and my dress up, I would roughhouse with my brothers, or climb trees, or try to catch frogs and slugs in the garden. I copied Jack and Danny like they were the divine role models for young children. My hair was never combed, my room was never neat, my clothes never matched, my manners were atrocious, etc. I was even kicked out of my 4th grade class for my excessive burping one time. In short, I had gone from being a little princess who liked My Little Pony and pink, to the biggest tomboy west of the Mississippi with my spitting skills and tree climbing expertise on par with even the biggest 5th grade boys.
Let’s look at the sociological factors behind the transition. When I was a little girl, my dad treated me like a princess, bought me pink, and even played Barbie with me on occasion. I had 2 girlfriends in my neighborhood, and we all liked the same things – playing kittens, touting our sundresses, and skinny dipping in the ocean. As a collective unit, we loved pink and Disney princesses. I also clearly remember knowing what boys and girls were supposed to like, and was a strong advocate for gender enforcement. I remember telling my older brother – “since I’m a girl, I have to like pink. And since you’re boy, you have to like blue.” My mom smiled and shook her head, but I knew I was right. Sociologically, I was influenced by both my friends (whom I saw almost every day) and the mass media (after all, look at how happy the little girls on all the Barbie advertisements were). It’s very interesting though; I had almost no family enforcement of gender socialization from my mother. She wasn’t the stereotypical housewife, and she still isn’t. She wears all black or navy business suits, sports a very short (yet becoming) hair cut, and didn’t start wearing makeup on a daily basis until she hit the big 5-0 a few years ago. She much preferred basketball to Barbies, and I attribute all of my athletic prowess to her. In short, she wasn’t exactly the epitome of femininity.
However, I moved from Maine to Minnesota when I was 5 years old, and this had a tremendous impact on me. First of all, I left my main source of socialization (my two best friends) behind, and secondly and more importantly, the little girls in my new school all HATED me from day one (I don’t know why, but they just did). Because of this, I only had boys as friends for around 4 years. My mother also began to work later and later, and I was lucky if she was home before I went to bed. With this complete lack of feminine influence, I rapidly transitioned from the pink-loving little girl into quite the tomboy. My brothers were my only friends for awhile, and they didn’t play Barbies with me, so I had to learn to like football and wrestling, as that might be the only interaction I had with kids the whole day. And once I did make friends with the boys in my class, I didn’t want them to think I was weaker or worse at sports than them, so I began to copy them. From simple things like the way Jack held the bat in t-ball, to the way my friend Mark could burp the whole alphabet. So here’s another sociological contributing factor to my tomboyishness – PEER PRESSURE.
It was that age where if I was going to hang out with the boys, I’d better be able to keep up with the boys. And when my mom began to fly out to another state on Monday, and only return again on Friday, I really lost my already wavering grasp of any sort of femininity. Even if she wasn’t the perfect example of it, at least she was a girl. I had no girl friends, no female influences except for my teachers.
Things eventually sorted themselves out when I went to boarding school and was forced to live in a dorm with 35 other girls. I finally found the healthy balance that comprises the woman I am today, happy to wewar dresses once in awhile, but still unable to deal with petty drama and applying makeup on a regular basis.
Sociologically,the main factors that I found contributed to my different stages of life were family enforcement (having only brothers) and peer pressure (wanting my friends at school to accept me). But even though I was a huge tomboy, I was always proud to be a girl, which leads me to the conclusion that gender socialization and gender identification are completely unrelated, an argument for the nature side in the “nature vs. nurture” feud.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
New York State's own DELIVERANCE
Dutchess County, NY is a charming little place known for its scenic location on the Hudson River, Woodstock, and its picturesque foliage every fall. It is a fairly affluent community, yet there are farms and cities in addition to the beautiful villages that dot the landscape. However, there is a little well kept secret that has become less secret in the past few years. Dover Plains, NY is a tiny little town about 10 miles from where I live, and up until a YouTube video posted a few years ago, this village harbored a dangerous secret, known only to people in the surrounding communities. Oniontown Road in Dover Plains, known only as Oniontown is much more than a simple country road. It deviates from the main road onto what Oniontown’s residents have decided is private property. Oniontown is an incredibly poverty stricken community where chickens walk around in the roads, broken down cars are more common than the occasional working car, and there are trailer parks galore.
Oniontown is more than just some ramshackle little village on the side of the road. It’s a scary place. Its residents are completely secluded from the public; most of them do not have jobs or go to the local schools. You don’t leave this ghetto, either. Even though the population hovers around 100 people typically, inbreeding has become a fairly common practice ensuring that the inhabitants don’t ever leave and outsiders NEVER gain access. A few years ago, some affluent young teenagers drove up from Westchester County, and made a YouTube video of them driving through Oniontown chuckling at the poverty and the desolation. The film gained notoriety among on the Internet, and all the real trouble started when the residents of Oniontown discovered it. Copycat teenagers began to trickle into the destitute neighborhood with different intentions, some making YouTube videos, others just wanting to be able to say “I went to Oniontown and lived.” That’s when the violence started. Unrecognized cars in Oniontown became the target of rock throwers and tire slashers. One resident stipulates that around 30 cars have been horribly vandalized since the original YouTube video, which has since been taken off the Internet. The little community gained nationwide notice two years ago when two kids were put in the hospital for serious injury, delivered to them by a completely unsympathetic resident. Authorities, instead of raiding the village and arresting all the parties involved, told the media – “There’s not that much we can do about the situation. These people are dangerous. If you’re not a resident, stay the (fug) out of Oniontown.”
Sociologically, this is one of the best examples of deviant subculture one can hope to find in the homogenous area of the mid-Hudson Valley, NY. A few hundred years ago, a village that was self-contained and was unknown to many people living only a few miles away might have been the norm, but in the 21st century, this group of isolated retreatists and rebels define what deviance is. Their practices of isolation, hostility towards outsiders, and lack of desire to improve their situation all run against the normative grains of society.
The first time I ever heard a real reference to Oniontown was over this past Christmas break while driving with friends. We were listening to Abba, and my friend joked that we should go to Oniontown and open all the windows and blast the same CD, and “it would be like a survival game. How long can we last?” I was intrigued, unable to believe that some place like this existed in 2009, so I investigated and found that sure enough, a deviant subculture has been sitting right under my nose for a long time.
So who’s to blame for the Oniontown mindset? Is it the work of social reproduction? I noticed that the psyche of the residents of O-town is startlingly similar to that of the Hallway Hangers in Jay Macleod’s book Ain’t No Makin’ It. The children from the village don’t seem to think that there is any point in trying to attain a better life, or even have any dreams or goals, because their parents have been denied any slack in society. And I think that there is a common mindset that exists in any ghetto – if everyone else around you has the same terrible living conditions as you, there is not much reason to better your situation. If everyone around you is comfortable with their squalid circumstances, it is easier to be comfortable with yours as well.
I think the most interesting part of the whole Oniontown fiasco is the reaction of the authorities, and I am very critical of it. This is a completely illegal thing occurring here; it’s a huge form of discrimination which has culminated in multiple violent attacks, some that even lead to hospitalization. Shouldn’t the police and the NY State Government pay more attention to this matter? I guess when your statewide economy is tanking, you have more important things on your mind, as a government official, than some small deviant community that keeps attacking non-residents….
Additional links:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/07/04/2008-07-04_teens_attacked_in_oniontown_ny_.html?comments=1
http://hubpages.com/hub/Oniontown-Has-Had-It
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Impersonality in Bureaucracy: is it really so bad?
Impersonality is often one of the main complaints in dealing with bureaucracy. Since we are individuals to ourselves, it is difficult to wrap our heads around the fact that other people do not automatically see our uniqueness and distinctive qualities. However, those workers at the DMV and the secretaries in the College of Charleston administration dare to group “me” (the individual) with the rest of people who visit (the rest of society). How could they do something like this? I am an interesting, unique girl with experience and a personality that differentiate me from all the rest of those identical clones that ask for assistance. I AM AN INDIVIDUAL! And then I remember my first real job.
It’s nothing fancy, just a few days a week stapling brochures together at a printing press for $6/hour. Since I’m 13 and don’t yet have my working papers, getting paid $6/hour under the table is like a dream come true. There are about 5 other teens in my group, all of us stapling paper together and avoiding eye contact with each other. There’s a woman that oversees my group; she sits with us and makes sure that we don’t talk too loudly and that we’re completing our brochures properly. Another woman comes around and whispers with her every so often, discussing progress and performance, and she answers to one last person, a big man named Marcus who talks very loudly and ignores us as a whole.
Although I wasn’t aware of it, this is a stereotypical bureaucracy, as defined by Weber. There is the division of labor – a few different groups of teenagers settled around the big building, doing a multitude of different jobs. Some staple papers, some assemble pamphlets, some fold brochures, etc. We are not the ones who take inventory, dole out paychecks, or speak with customers. There are other usually older workers who take care of that. And then there is the hierarchal structure. I was part of the wide bottom crust. There were probably 20 teenagers employed at the printing press during this school vacation. The next level was occupied by the women sitting with each of the 4 groups of kids. They were our direct superiors, our supervisors. Above them, there are two women who oversee everyone. It is their job to make sure that all the pamphlets and brochures are assembled correctly and that everyone arrives on time and is paid accordingly. They are also allowed to interact with the customers. On the highest level, Marcus resides in all his glory. His biggest job is to deal with the customers, especially when complaints are filed, but he also takes care of the business. Rent, water, electricity, these are all his responsibility as owner of the Millbrook Central Printing Press. The written rules and regulations were all inside the employee handbook, even though it was only 3 pages. And employment was based on what skills you had or didn’t have. For example, I never would have dreamed of interacting with customers or taking inventory. There were people trained to do this. I was content just to daydream while my fingers worked by themselves assembling the endless brochures. And the biggest bureaucratic characteristic I witnessed was impersonality.
At the time, I wondered why Marcus didn’t interact with the teenagers. After all, what middle aged business owner doesn’t adore sullen sleepy kids? He would say a brief hello in the morning, and then the two overseers would give us any orders that he had from us. If a mistake was committed by one of the floor workers, the women always reacted in the exact same way; it didn’t matter who committed the error. It could be the youngest girl there (me) or the oldest woman, we received the exact same treatment. I was never late, but I witnessed a few boys get soundly chastised one day for slipping in 15 minutes after 11:00. They tried to explain themselves, but the older women did not want stories or excuses or anything of that sort. They just wanted the work to get done. In a work environment, personalities don’t really matter. Beyond the pleasantries exchanged, the superiors didn’t really care how your day was going or what your favorite color was or where you wanted to go to college. I was there to work, and nothing else.
The social structure in the printing press was a basic bureaucracy. The definition of the situation, as defined by W.I. Thomas, was uncomplicated. We were in a warehouse, with employer/employee relations, and there was no leeway. We were not to act in any manner unbecoming to an unskilled laborer; even talking loudly was frowned upon. We were to work quickly and finish unthinkable amounts of brochures in any given day. It was just the way things were.
And is there a problem with that? Is impersonality an issue? I think not! When interpersonal ties and bonds develop, that’s when problems start in the workplace. In a capitalist society, the personality of a business does not matter outside customer service. What matters is efficiency. And impersonality is a helping hand in developing efficiency. I may not know your name, but I can tell you what you’re doing wrong. This is the mentality that many employers have. It may not be this extreme, but impersonality still exists. Even in the Office Space blurb that we watched, the movie made fun of extreme impersonality when the main character was reprimanded about 17 different times for making a slight error. While it was annoying and probably unnecessary, I can guarantee that he will never again make that particular mistake.
Take the Office on the other hand. Michael Scott, the boss, is trying to get rid of all impersonality in the workplace. He insists on referring to his employees as friends, instead of the workers, or even coworkers. While this may sound like a more humane place to work, he glides over major mistakes that harm the company overall. This is not the way a business should be run, and I am fairly certain that were a company in real life run the same way, they probably would not survive for a very long time.
So, overall, while I am not a big fan of being a nameless human being in certain circumstances, I understand that impersonality and maintaining distance are important factors in the ways enterprises are run. And I understand that when the DMV worker, or the secretary addresses me as ‘miss’ instead of Nancy, I shouldn’t be insulted. It’s not their job to know my life story, just to help me as a consumer.
It’s nothing fancy, just a few days a week stapling brochures together at a printing press for $6/hour. Since I’m 13 and don’t yet have my working papers, getting paid $6/hour under the table is like a dream come true. There are about 5 other teens in my group, all of us stapling paper together and avoiding eye contact with each other. There’s a woman that oversees my group; she sits with us and makes sure that we don’t talk too loudly and that we’re completing our brochures properly. Another woman comes around and whispers with her every so often, discussing progress and performance, and she answers to one last person, a big man named Marcus who talks very loudly and ignores us as a whole.
Although I wasn’t aware of it, this is a stereotypical bureaucracy, as defined by Weber. There is the division of labor – a few different groups of teenagers settled around the big building, doing a multitude of different jobs. Some staple papers, some assemble pamphlets, some fold brochures, etc. We are not the ones who take inventory, dole out paychecks, or speak with customers. There are other usually older workers who take care of that. And then there is the hierarchal structure. I was part of the wide bottom crust. There were probably 20 teenagers employed at the printing press during this school vacation. The next level was occupied by the women sitting with each of the 4 groups of kids. They were our direct superiors, our supervisors. Above them, there are two women who oversee everyone. It is their job to make sure that all the pamphlets and brochures are assembled correctly and that everyone arrives on time and is paid accordingly. They are also allowed to interact with the customers. On the highest level, Marcus resides in all his glory. His biggest job is to deal with the customers, especially when complaints are filed, but he also takes care of the business. Rent, water, electricity, these are all his responsibility as owner of the Millbrook Central Printing Press. The written rules and regulations were all inside the employee handbook, even though it was only 3 pages. And employment was based on what skills you had or didn’t have. For example, I never would have dreamed of interacting with customers or taking inventory. There were people trained to do this. I was content just to daydream while my fingers worked by themselves assembling the endless brochures. And the biggest bureaucratic characteristic I witnessed was impersonality.
At the time, I wondered why Marcus didn’t interact with the teenagers. After all, what middle aged business owner doesn’t adore sullen sleepy kids? He would say a brief hello in the morning, and then the two overseers would give us any orders that he had from us. If a mistake was committed by one of the floor workers, the women always reacted in the exact same way; it didn’t matter who committed the error. It could be the youngest girl there (me) or the oldest woman, we received the exact same treatment. I was never late, but I witnessed a few boys get soundly chastised one day for slipping in 15 minutes after 11:00. They tried to explain themselves, but the older women did not want stories or excuses or anything of that sort. They just wanted the work to get done. In a work environment, personalities don’t really matter. Beyond the pleasantries exchanged, the superiors didn’t really care how your day was going or what your favorite color was or where you wanted to go to college. I was there to work, and nothing else.
The social structure in the printing press was a basic bureaucracy. The definition of the situation, as defined by W.I. Thomas, was uncomplicated. We were in a warehouse, with employer/employee relations, and there was no leeway. We were not to act in any manner unbecoming to an unskilled laborer; even talking loudly was frowned upon. We were to work quickly and finish unthinkable amounts of brochures in any given day. It was just the way things were.
And is there a problem with that? Is impersonality an issue? I think not! When interpersonal ties and bonds develop, that’s when problems start in the workplace. In a capitalist society, the personality of a business does not matter outside customer service. What matters is efficiency. And impersonality is a helping hand in developing efficiency. I may not know your name, but I can tell you what you’re doing wrong. This is the mentality that many employers have. It may not be this extreme, but impersonality still exists. Even in the Office Space blurb that we watched, the movie made fun of extreme impersonality when the main character was reprimanded about 17 different times for making a slight error. While it was annoying and probably unnecessary, I can guarantee that he will never again make that particular mistake.
Take the Office on the other hand. Michael Scott, the boss, is trying to get rid of all impersonality in the workplace. He insists on referring to his employees as friends, instead of the workers, or even coworkers. While this may sound like a more humane place to work, he glides over major mistakes that harm the company overall. This is not the way a business should be run, and I am fairly certain that were a company in real life run the same way, they probably would not survive for a very long time.
So, overall, while I am not a big fan of being a nameless human being in certain circumstances, I understand that impersonality and maintaining distance are important factors in the ways enterprises are run. And I understand that when the DMV worker, or the secretary addresses me as ‘miss’ instead of Nancy, I shouldn’t be insulted. It’s not their job to know my life story, just to help me as a consumer.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
As Seen on TV!!!!!!!
It’s like an emery board for your cats that is specially designed to keep their nails trimmed and rounded! And the special scratchable material is infused with catnip to keep your kitty coming back for more! Only $29.99, but if you call in the next 10 minutes, we’ll knock off a whole $10, to make a special low price of $19.99!
I want one. I don’t even have a cat. I don’t even like cats. I think they’re frightening. But I WANT a special kitty scratching post. It’s so convenient. I would never have to clip my nonexistent cat’s nails again! I also want an egg boiler, a Sham Wow, the entire Bare Minerals makeup collection, the Ab Rocket, and maybe a Slap Chop for good measure.
I know that these items are stupid. I already know how to boil eggs in a pot, and I don’t even really like hard boiled eggs. Sham Wows don’t work at all. Bare Minerals can’t possibly be as good as the infomercial touts, the Ab Rocket doesn’t o anything about stomach fat, and, while I may not be as efficient as a Slap Chop, my cutting board and paring knife are just as useful. So why in the world do I want to spend my hard earned money on these things?
Maybe it has to do with the second and third most important of the fourteen core American values as defined by Robin Williams: individual comfort and success, and material comfort. Raised in a middle class family, I am no stranger to individual and material comfort. My mom’s car gets good gas mileage, I have a cell phone and an iPod, and I go to sleep every night on a nice comfortable bed with no doubts that tomorrow I will be able to enjoy the same comforts. However, I am also programmed to strive to better myself.
Another of the 14 core American values is practicality and efficiency, that is, doing the most work the fastest and with the least amount of energy. And that’s where “As Seen on TV” comes in. Even as a small child, I marveled at the speed at which the Slap Chop could turn tomatoes, onions, and cilantro into a tasty and delicious salsa treat. I wanted it. This didn’t change as I grew older and wiser. I was assured by a handsome and charismatic salesman that this little device would change my life. He led me to believe that it didn’t matter if my parents died, I got straight F’s, my dog had an accident in the house, etc. With one push of the Slap Chop’s smooth hard plastic top, all my troubles would disappear, the Heavens would open up, and angels would sing the Hallelujah chorus…. And I believed him.
Alas, one day over winter break, my mother decided to dice up some vegetables for a salsa. I went to the drawer to grab the old knife and cutting board routine, but apparently the charismatic salesman had reached my mother too, because she stopped and pulled out… voila! A Slap Chop! My heart sped up and my palms began to throb. I watched as she put the first tomato on the counter and placed the Slap Chop over it. She let me do the honors.
I looked around my small kitchen for the last time, expecting to be transported to a gigantic mansion with a fully equipped kitchen and a refrigerator with double doors as soon as pressed down on the chopping button. I took a deep breath, applied a little pressure, and closed my eyes…. Pop! Nothing happened. I looked at the tomato in the Slap Chop. Half of it was stuck in the metal chopper and half of it was still not cut up. What? Blasphemy! I slapped the button again and again and again. It was terrible. Such disillusionment I would never wish upon another person. It was if I had discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real again! The Slap Chop was just a piece of trash and instead of having finely diced tomato pieces, I had a mushy tomato glop that was seeping onto everything on the counter. I was crushed.
My soul felt as mangled as the tomato. I had a Slap Chop, so why hadn’t my homework disappeared and my old puppy dog risen from the dead?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that naivety. I saw the infomercials. I saw the old woman talk about how easy the Slap Chop made her life, and I wanted to be as happy as her. But By wanting that, I only pushed happiness further away. My contentment at chopping vegetables had ebbed and flowed as the Slap Chop took over my psyche. NOT HEALTHY.
Now I am an adult. My first time with the Slap Chop was not a success, and it led me to understand more about the values of individual and material comfort. If you think you have a high level of comfort, you do. It’s all subjective.
To conclude, I still enjoy watching infomercials. Billy Mays is still a hero of mine, and I mourn his passing like a friend. And I still want EVERY SINGLE THING that I see on those stupid commercials. Maybe my life would be more comfortable if I had a shoe rack that hung on my closet door, or a special set of Tupperware containers that were stackable and easily organized. But the point is, convenience does not equal comfort. How long until I start throwing my shoes in the bottom of my closet again, or before I stop stacking my Tupperware and start shoving it in drawers. Stupid products don’t change a person’s habit. Tupperware can’t make me a more organized person, just like the Slap Chop can’t help me be a better cook.
For two easy payments of $39.99, you too can come to a life changing conclusion like this. But, if you call in the next 10 minutes, we’ll double your order. Yes you hear right, that’s TWO life changing conclusions for only two easy payments of $39.99. You must be 18 or older to order
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