My husband pointed this out to me earlier today and I never noticed it before. There is a tendency in the Mormon elite to romanticize poverty, especially when they have never been poor themselves.

How many gushy stories about poor widows have we been told by Tommyboy alone? Yes, these poor women without a mite to their name always find a way to enjoy their place in poverty. Or Ann Romney talking about her "little piece of heaven" with Mitt living off their parent's gifted stocks. With all the talking these people do about the thrills of poverty, it's a wonder we aren't all clamoring to throw our money into the streets and move to the local housing authority so we can be content and giddy like these people apparently were.

Am I the only person who didn't sit back and praise God for being poor? I didn't find it cute, quaint or praiseworthy. Being poor fucking sucked, and giving ten percent of my money when I was already poor sucked even more. I didn't enjoy one second of it, which is why now I don't mind working multiple jobs that terribly...because I will do anything in my power to never be poor again. I hated being on food stamps so I could eat three square meals a day, It was humiliating and a pain in the ass. I didn't enjoy living in the shittiest neighborhood in town just because I insisted on paying tithing.

I may only be a few dollars a month away from being poor again, but I am pretty happy about those few dollars. Being poor was awful. I am not saying you can't find happiness in the simple things, but god damn.

Maybe I missed something, because I didn't have fun having no money. I guess these people were super spiritual to enjoy such poverty.

Oh wait, they weren't actually poor.

Unless you don't have any. Then it becomes the most important thing in the world.

That is exactly what I always say!

People act like people who HAVE money care oh so much about it and are so greedy simply because we don't have to constantly obsess about it.

No. When we didn't have enough, we stayed awake night worrying. Now that we're comfortable, it rarely crosses my mind. (Which is not to say I'm not generous. I am an incredibly generous person; I just don't have to sacrifice my own well-being to help other people out anymore.)

Exactly.

In the name of Raptor Jesus, RRRRRAAAWR-men.

Only the wealthy can romanticize poverty ... since they've never LIVED it.

You aren't the only person who's not sitting back and praising God, MadameRadness, for being poor, I assure you.

A person *can* find happiness in the simple things of life, yes, and I try to every day, but it gets awful damn hard to smell the flowers and enjoy the pattering rain when it's midmonth and you don't know yet if you can make the rent.

Those wealthy bozos don't have a clue.

But I had a safety net. My parents were fine and so were my grandparents. If the bottom fell out, I had a net.

I don't understand why it's so hard in this country to admit that. I wasn't "slumming it." But I also wasn't completely on my own. I had a great support system, and I want to do the same thing for the children I'll possibly have in the future.

Wow, RJ. Good for you.

I was poor in college, too. But I was too proud to tell my parents I was starving. And too PTSD to find a job (I know that now, after many recent years of therapy). Decades after college, I'm *still* dealing with PTSD, *still* struggling with "issues" and poverty, but, yes, my family would be there if the bottom fell out of my life. *If* I would clue them.

It's hard, though, to be the "grandma" and be the poor one, the sick one. There's a kind of shame attached now that wasn't there 35 years ago.

^See that's my complaint. If someone like the Romneys could just say "hey, we lucked out and grew up in a very comfortable environment and we are grateful for that" I wouldn't have a complaint about their financial status. In fact, I would be like "oh, maybe they have a good idea about how to gain and maintain wealth then. Awesome for them", and leave it at that.

MadameRadness, I agree with your assessment of the Romneys. Why not admit they had it better than most? I think their idea of empathy is to say, see we were poor too. I think the only person Mitt can relate to is himself.

I grew up poor because my parents were both tithing faithfully- That's 20% of their total combined income that could have been used for a better life. There's nothing romantic about not being able turning up the heat because it's too expensive. You cannot live comfortably. You live in hand-me-downs from the previous decades, eat only beans and tortillas for dinner several nights a week, very rarely have any fun outings, and are afraid to get ill or injured.

I have struggled off and on my whole life. I am lucky to have a partner who can help me out if needed, Otherwise, I would be living hand to mouth.

I don't begrudge anyone for their wealth, but I get pissed when Mittens opens his mouth about how he and Ann struggled. It's fucking bullshit and anyone who buys that romantic claptrap is a fool.

I think your math is flawed.... '10% of A' + '10% of B' is '10% of (A + B)', not 20%.

Either way, my dad paid 10% on his income and my mother did the same with her income. It was definitely enough to keep us in the red through most of my siblings' and my childhood.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2012 11:38AM by Itzpapalotl.

"Money doesn't buy happiness," the half-wit wag enthused. I laughed in his face: "Any idiot knows that," I said, "what money buys is security."

No, Ann Romney was not financially deprived of anything she ever desired. Her only experience with poverty is intellectual.

when you're doing it for a lark, something to tell your kids later on.

It's not so easy when you are making your kid's christmas presents and hoping he likes them because you can't afford much for christmas -and the money available must go to buying the relatives their present.

But the mortgage ALWAYS came before tithing. I NEVER wanted to be out on the street and i was tbm for many years, but still i never believed that tithing trumped mortgage.

Spent years in debt tho, because of paying tithing using credit card cheques at the end of the year.

We were not dirt poor, living with no indoor plumbing, and i can't imaging what that must be like, and certainly don't claim to understand that kind of poverty. But i know what it's like taking 30 dollars and trying to buy the most food i could for that money for a family of 3 to make it til the next pay. I also didn't go for having tons of kids while not financially established.

College poor is not really poor, because unless yr parents kicked you out, there is a safety net. My dad was unemployed when i started college, so i knew there wasn't a lot of money for me ( i had saved up and applyed for student loans) but if i were actually starving, they would have given me some food, or some rent money. So college poor is just 'making it on your own', a self reliance thing.

I told my tbm cousin I don't want kids if I am poor. He then brings up scriptures saying the lord provides even though he knows I don't believe. I don't want to see my own kids suffer with hunger.

Remember hearing the bishop's wife telling me that's a bad neighborhood. I thought, gee that's where I live.

I just didn't understand mormons who paid tithing and then complained about not having enough money for food or bills.

Going camping in a state park with a station wagon full of equipment and food is NOT the same as living in the brush under a plastic tarp with no hope. I have done both. Fortunately some good people helped me find my way out; but the tarp is folded and under my bed as a reminder.

Definitely romanticising poverty. Had I not gotten married at 17 years old I would have been on the streets. My dad had comitted suicide(5 yrs prior), mother living on the streets and my aunt and uncle that I lived with and got about 500 in social security for me living with them had their house foreclosed on. They were not using the SS for me. Good thing I married less than two weeks later.

So I had no parents to ask for any help with college and still dont! I am finally starting college in the fall after 10 years of marriage and four kids later and no one to ask for help. So I will be getting grants and loans to cover all the expenses.

Romney and some others are obviously living in some priveledged fantasy land.

I'm so glad you're going to college.
I wasn't able to go until I was 40. I was divorced with 2 young kids. I had to basically start at the bottom, and relearn a lot of things from high school. But I did it. It's one of my proudest achievements. It wasn't easy. I often studied at 3am until my kids got up to go to school. I did whatever I had to do to make it through. It changed my life. It changed my opinion of myself. It was worth every thing I had to put into it.

I have no doubt that I will be getting little sleep most nights with homework. I am ready for this, I am going to do whatever it takes :)
I am glad you made it through, sounds like it was worth it. Great job!

The mormon leadership is trying to pretend that they understand the avarage members who indeed are poor in comparison. But since they have never been poor a day in their life they don't understand that poverty sucks.

Oh how great to wear clothes that doesn't fit and shoes that are worn out long time ago. Oh how glorious to eat noodles every freakin' day. How marvelous it is to worry about if you'll have enough to pay rent in the end of the month. What a blessing to never go out and have fun. How great it is to know that you can't afford anything unexpected (yet ofcourse the unexpected is bound to happen every other month).

I went to university, having qualified a year early, with the understanding that my parents, who were pushing me to go so they could say their 17 year old was at uni, would contribute absolutely nothing. There were still six kids at home and another three would be born before my mother's uterus would literally drop out.

I failed bigtime. My dad took me down to the recruiting office and I spent the next 16 years in the army, eventually getting my degree by distance study over 12 years.

There was no fall back position. When I got my student bank account and check book, it included a $200 overdraft facility. My first visit home, my mother discovered my overdraft and had me write out a check for the full amount of the overdraft. After I joined the army, it took years before I was able to resist demands for money and treat my income as my own.

Only since I married a strong minded nevermo (Caflick) have my mothers demands on my resources ceased. My younger sister, in a similar position to myself told me that after I was no longer available as a source of income, my mother would balance her budget monthly, writing out a massive check for tithing, then turn to my sister to make up the shortfall between income and expenses.

God, i wish we could sue, somehow.

Yes and I admit I'm bitter and still working through the scars the Mormons gave me and my family.

We were debt free, but "poor" in the eyes of the ward.

That made us "dirt" and Trailer Trash.

From the very people who would get up in church and tell those gushy stories about the glorious poor who were rescued by one or two bags of groceries!

My Bishop walked into my house when my husband was sleeping in the back room with the door shut. It was the only room the BP didn't go into! Thank God, or the Dalmatian would have taken his legs off! She was sleeping in there next to hubby, the kids were at school and I was at work.

So the BP later tells me we needed a new carpet! Just because ours was threadbare... good grief! We had a lot of other things going on and he wants our floor to "look good"?

but that's the Mor(m)ons for you.... you must look good but being poor is not one of them... only for gushy stories to perpetuate the myth that the TSCC takes care of the "poor".

So the members can go back to sleep and never ask SLC what were all those tithing dollars spent on since the numbers crunch out to less than $2.00 a member given to 'charity' for the last twenty years?????


The worst part about being "poor" in the eyes of the ward, was the 'open season' declared on my children by the parents of the ward.... my children were constantly ridiculed, slandered and snubbed by the kids behind my back and their leaders went out of their way to show the other kids that my kids were not acceptable.

Like when the Den mother took my clean dressed son in front of the scouts and told them he was a bad example because he wasn't wearing his uniform to cub scouts! He didn't have one!!!!(and there were no used ones or free ones or ones I could afford to buy!)

after divorce, I lived with my three year old son in my station wagon. I considered getting on the food stamp program to be a raise. Lucky I enjoyed camping out in the desert!

I once lived in a converted chicken coop. I had nothing. No car, no furniture, could barely feed myself. I tried to not use electricity unless I had to. But by damn I paid my tithing!

make the connection with their church leaders who are equally clueless and arrogant?

I am so pissed at Ann Romney's insanely lame suggestion that they struggled at BYU, that I am glad that she has a major health issue, MS.

I know that's cruel, but so is expecting me and others to believe her BS story. maybe the hag can learn what the word "struggle" really means. maybe dumbass Romney will get in the white house.
then Mitt can pat himself on the back and think all about how he was the chosen of the lord, chosen enough to become U.S. pres! ..... but not chosen enough to have his wife spared from MS.
Stupid ass MORmONS!

The romanticizing of poverty is a tool used by the Powers that Be for centuries. If they didn't tell the poor that they were "laying up treasures in heaven" and such, the poor wouldn't put up with it.

It's one reason people are so thrilled when lottery winners blow all the money and wreck their lives--"See? Being rich sucks! Let's be happy here in our slum!"

I've come to the conclusion that the ancient church had to make suicide a sin because otherwise the poor and miserable would hear about how wonderful life was in heaven, look around and say, "What am I waiting for?" Suffering had to be made an exhaulting experience, otherwise no one would put up with it.

at least--behind on my mortgage by several months and worried every time the phone rang or the doorbell rang. Power turned off, etc. I always knew my parents would take us in--it wouldn't be pretty, but they would have.

When I was in the worst financial position of my life--(I did declare bankruptcy and paid it for 8 years to keep my house)--but I saw Gene Simmons on a morning news show and he said something to the effect that "people who say you can't buy happiness would be wrong. When my mom needed surgery, I could her the best surgeon"--and other examples. I'd rather feel secure than happy.

When my mother had just died and my dad was dying--the new bishop came by the house. My parents lived frugally and my dad owned a farm with a house and the house in town. My dad said after the bishop left--"the bishop thinks I'm poor." My dad gave me back financial security when he left us money and the property he owned. I'll be forever grateful.

And I didn't mind romney much before his wife started talking. They HAVE NO CLUE.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2012 09:19PM by cl2.

Sonny and I were rich, and then Sonny and I were poor. I learned a lot being poor, but I liked being rich a lot better.- Cher

I often felt like the Church leadership really didn't understand the average Mormon Mike and Molly. After all, we won't be given well-paying positions on corporate boards or know that our books will sell well just because of the leadership position we hold.

When I was an older single with a good career and then later a mother with two young kids, working full-time, I felt they really didn't understand us folks down here in the ditches. They don't understand really what motivates faith or builds a community in true and geniune ways--because they base it on money and blind obedience.