Sociopath - The New Middle Class American (1042 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.42 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Rawrg the Humbly Unstimulated (View user info) at 2005-08-30 13:48:26 EDT
People in America rarely have anything in their own lives to stand on for a moral pedestal. I'm not sure however, if it is the culture of America or the status of our economy and infrastructure as a whole that has caused many of the internal problems we have today. Many people are misled by the politicians and have canned reasons as to why we're bad, but I think when it comes down to it, America has become so self-apathetic or rebellious that it has lost any sense of identity or value it had.
Today when we hear the President talk, most of us question how genuine it is rather than how inspiring is was. Half of the country hates the other half. Minorities have banded into tightly-knit groups that war for power in politics and on the streets. People think that the weapons we kill with are the problem, rather than the killers themselves. That drugs are the problem and not the abusers. Casinos are the problem, and not the idiots that are taken by them. We're easy on crime and stupidity because we're afraid to punish. Afraid to be the person that holds someone accountable because we never were. We refuse to leap forward into new technology or procedures for dealing with problems. We're interested in security, not innovation. We simply turn on the news and watch the politicians explain reasons to vote for them. Our country is a gridlocked highway with a lane ahead and it will stay that way because the assholes in the fast lane will wait until the lane is closed rather rather than merging earlier and changing their path. Until people change their ways, or a whole bunch of people die, it isn't going to change either.
And at the base of everything? Values. What are your values? There are different reasons for every group of people, and even for those that have no groups that they can be classifies into. I'm a white, middle class American, and I know my group. You see, I don't hang around Mexicans or Blacks or Asians or immigrants. Not because I don't like them, but because we all have our cultures that we've become comfortable with, and we don't like stepping outside of that. My point is that I'm not a racist, and I can only speak for white middle class America, because that's who I know.
The entitlement mentality has plagued America for the last 20 years, ever since the yuppie movement in the 80's where "preppie" became the term, Middle Class Americans, domestically, have been on a downward spiral. A preppie used to be a person on his or her way to success, an upper class, smarmy, church-going, soccer-playing, straight-A student. Today, in 2005, those are the kids in school that are respected by teachers and parents. They're the happy people in the television commercials graduating medical school with honors like they're going to save the world instead of doing what most doctors do: hold people for ransom. They come from seemingly perfect families that go to church every Sunday, they're popular, beautifully groomed and they make their grades. They do all that is asked of them.
Before you know it, it's off to college where Mom and Dad shell out unfathomable amounts of money so that their child can go get laid and take courses based on scheduling and work ethic in the face of non-productivity instead of creativity and intelligence. They develop into budding American adults there. This is where they pick up their arrogance, their know-it-all mentality, and once they've graduated, they have a degree that states that they are now one step closer to being elite. Many people have forgotten that college is to enhance your knowledge and thus your abilities. Today, a diploma is nothing more than a ticket.
Those fresh graduates have been given offers to work for businesses all over the country, many with starting salaries just under 6 figures. They weigh their options carefully and choose the one that offers the most security and long-term benefits. Before you know it, they've been hired and are working for a multi-national conglomerate or a corporation. Instead of saving money though, most people are fast to rush into debt to get the things they want, now, because they want it.
They buy a giant SUV with leather seats and 4 wheel drive in case it snows (in Miami). Trucks which used to cost $16,000 brand new now costs $24,000 because they're in demand. People who used to use them for work have to buy them with interiors and options they don't need, but it's what the market is demanding. Soccer Moms in Excursions and business men in Excursions tool around from self-important event to self-important event, driving the demand for gas ever higher. They buy homes made from cheap materials because they can get a bigger home and stuff it full of things they'll never use from various antiques to a home theatre system that they rarely have time to watch because they work 60 hours a week.
Then there are the families. Two working parents have 3 kids, but still both of them work. My girlfriend used to baby sit for $6 an hour for a working mother who made $18 an hour. Her husband makes $80,000 a year which is plenty to support their family, but they wanted to live in a ritzy part of town and drive giant gas-guzzling status vehicles so they could bring home a bigger haul of cypress mulch from the Home Depot. So 18 - 6 = $12 an hour, but she's getting taxed on $18, which means she's really only making about $6 an hour. My girlfriend gets paid in cash, and damned if she's going to report it to the government, so she's making as much babysitting as the mother is at her job with 10 years tenure. She's not going to be there for her children's formative years when they need at least one parent at home at all times (obviously excluding nights out, vacations, etc...) Essentially speaking, her kids are even worth $6 an hour to her.
Six dollars an hour...
That's the biggest problem with middle class America. So desperate are people to have the nicest of things that they forget what's truly important. I hope the monster SUV or the home theatre is of some comfort when your kids are out getting stoned and vandalizing shit for fun because they have no image of authority in their minds. I hope the bail money doesn't stretch your budget so that you'll have to put of the cruise for another few months, although, paying bail at this point would be moot, everyone knows you don't give a damn about your children. You've been seduced by marketing and status for so long, you've forgotten what it's like to be human.
Every generation wants their kids to have it better except this one. This one doesn't give a shit about anyone except themselves. Long gone are the doctors that cared about lives instead of money, the police that cared about quality of life instead of power, the business men that cared about success, challenge and achievement instead of security, the parents that cared about their children over themselves, the people that aspired to have it all instead of the people that are never satisfied. And when they have every last store-bought antique and the latest computer with the biggest, smallest, flattest television, the powers that be come out with something better and the cycle starts over again until every last dollar has been gotten out of them. It doesn't matter, because they weren't going to leave anything to their little shit children anyways.
...
What were their names again? I was too busy ordering a coffee table on Ebay.
...
My advice: Don't have children if you're going to become a bloodless, money-grubbing status monger. You only get one chance at this life, are you really going to want your greatest achievment to be a home full of creature comforts that will be an estate sale within 2 weeks of your death?
User Reviews
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-08-31 08:22:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-08-31 07:50:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My advice: Don't have children if you're going to become a bloodless, money-grubbing status monger. You only get one chance at this life, are you really going to want your greatest achievment to be a home full of creature comforts that will be an estate sale within 2 weeks of your death?
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I'm going to take this as the point of your rant, which is cool. However I would like to say that things have always been this way, families get tired of kids and don't want to raise them and people have never really cared about 'values' or even 'society', they just care about the status quo and themselves. It's always been that way and, God willing, will remain so untill the end of time.
What we have nowadays is greater freedom to not raise kids if we don't want to, to drop out, step up and generally do what we want. We can freely converse, freely persue oppurtunities that would never have been so readily available or even occurred (sp) to out forebears.
Things aren't that bad. Chill.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-08-30 19:25:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice rant
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 17:44:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I know you weren't calling me that, I wasn't calling you that either (but it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?)
I respect your views, and I understand where you're coming from. In the end, life is all about comprimise. This is just where my values lie, and god knows, they'll probably change in a few years.
Submitted by Evil_Morg (user info) at 2005-08-30 17:27:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good rant.
I thought of a few points to add but i'm too lazy to type them out.
In short, its going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Submitted by userpete86 (user info) at 2005-08-30 17:09:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweetness.
You get +2 just for defending your rant, though I don't think these changes would solve the problems that you're talking about. Remember, to the asshole elitists you're talking about kids are part of the status.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-30 17:07:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Note that I did not say you were a spoiled little shit, I said you were coming across that way. I suspect that you're not really like that.
Here is the thing though, there is such a thing as an ideal world. In this ideal world, two people meet, fall in love, marry, have a family, raise the kids to be functioning members of society, etc etc happily ever after.
But the real world does not ever seem to work out that way. I agree that it would be best if children were brought into the world by two people who are committed to doing everything possible in their best interests, but things don't always work out that way.
People have kids for the wrong reasons, with the wrong person, at the wrong time in their lives, or maybe they just don't know what they're getting into, who knows. I don't know shit about raising a kid. If heaven forbid I ever ended up with one, I would have to take parenting classes or my kid would end up totally fucked up. I can't keep the damn cat from jumping on the kitchen counters, how would I get a kid to behave and not act like a little shit.
At the end of the day, I think that most people out there are doing the best they can. It sounds really cliché, but hindsight really is 20/20. There are plenty of things that I've done in my life that if I had the chance to do over, I would have done completely different. You know what though, you'll go nuts if you allow yourself to wallow in that kind of thinking. All you can really do is move forward.
Quitting work to stay home with kids is a huge, career sabotaging decision. I have seen it backfire more than I've seen it work out. At the end of the day, it is a personal decision far too important to allow someone else to make for you.
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 16:28:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Posted by Loki:
Based on your assessment here, you really come off like a spoiled little shit who has never had to struggle and always had everything handed to you. If so, then that is really sad because it means that someone out there busted their ass to do everything possible for you to have a cushy life and you don't seem to appreciate it.
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I've had some breaks, and some not. I'm spoiled in the sense that I had parents who cared about me and raised me to consider other people in my life if I'm going to establish a relationship with them. I'm spoiled in that my father taught me how to work and gave me skills that I can carry on for the rest of my life. I'm not spoiled in that no one else has ever paid for my college or that I go to a community college. I'm not spoiled that my job has more responsibity than 95% of the 22 year olds that I know. I am spoiled that I get paid well for it though.
On the President, you took that out of context. I've never been a fan of Bush, I wish we had a president that we could at least get behind even if we didn't vote for him.
On single parents, there are extenuating circumstances of course. However, a VAST majority of single parents are the results of poor judgment on the parents part, marrying the wrong person or not using birth control. Don't try to make me feel guilty for expecting people to be accountable. I've been accountable my whole life. I was making half the house payment when I was 16 by working 4 hours a day after school, so excuse me if I don't cry for the single mothers of the world, most of whom don't expect my pity anyways. The single mother's I know got pregnant because of their own poor judgment, but they're all very young too because I am.
In your response you come off as a pushy bitter woman trying oh so hard to make sure everyone knows she's independent. I've met people like you before, many of them are my closest friends. You like to find points in an idealistic rant and apply them to situations to which they do not apply to feel like you're making an inarguably strong point. I didn't speak with any absolution in my rant, it's about how there ARE people who don't pay attention to their children and there ARE people who are more concerned with their damned sports car than their children's futures, otherwise they'd spend time earning their children's respect by being a good parent rather than a mid life crisis dad or a woman so busy trying to hedge her bets on her husband with her career that she has to hire a babysitter for her 4 year old for 8 hours a day during that child's developmental years.
I'm sure many people have had certain aspects of their lives that have been hard, and I respect that. I've also met a lot of dumb motherfuckers who would rather blame circumstance and other people rather than their own poor judgment. So far, spoiled or not, of the many mistakes I've made with college, living arrangements and poor contracts, I haven't made any of the mistakes I've listed so far. If I dont feel ready to have a kid by the time I want to (27-33) then I'm not going to have one and fuck it up.
As far as painting a drab world, since when did I say only men should work? They need A parent to be around at the very least, and when fathers get off work or mothers, they should still focus on parenting. Kids aren't some fucking accessory to make you feel more like a man or woman, they're the next generation, and selfish people are ruining them. My drab little painting is better than a one filled with broken homes and abused children for the sake of people not wanting to be, OH NO, tied down by their children. I've got news for you, children tie people down, end of subject. If you don't want it, buy birth control, it's $30 a month, anyone can afford it.
Submitted by Wrightcopy (user info) at 2005-08-30 16:22:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I absolutely agree with pretty much everything you've said. Talk about taking the words out of someone's mouth. I knew someone whose parents, at around the age of 50 or 55, adopted a baby girl from China. The both of them are workaholics and work god knows how many hours a week. They've gotten all kinds of babysitters for her because they're never home. The last time I heard the girl was calling her parents by their first names instead of mommy or daddy because that's what the babysitters called them. It makes no sense to me that two people who work 50+ hours a week can't afford to take a couple hours off a day to be with their daughter.
I feel couples should plan way in advance for children. Wait until you both earn enough to not need both parents to work 50 hours a week. Save up money for a while. Then, when you have a kid, and you start working fewer hours, you aren't struggling for money. I don't think either the mother or the father should completely quit or work more hours to balance things. Both make the sacrifices by working fewer hours, and the child sees both parents equally. I don't have kids so I may be making this simpler than it is, but this just makes sense to me.
Anyways, good post. Really made me think about some things.
Submitted by brokenlizard534 (user info) at 2005-08-30 15:22:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by djgray (user info) at 2005-08-30 15:17:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I agree with about 90% of this post. Materialism and status-mongering is going to be the downfall of the society of America I do believe. Before I go on and get too many people to hate me around her.
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-08-30 15:08:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking A
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:58:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It is an ugly drab world you paint with men forced to work all their lives to be the sole provider for their families. Families that they are not going to be allowed to enjoy because they will be working all the time. Then the woman in this scenario lives solely for breeding purposes and to then care for the offspring, by herself since the husband is working all the time.
If for one hot second, I thought that this was my personal future, I would end it now. I get claustrophobic just thinking about this world you see as utopian.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:55:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:28:48 (#)
Ranking: 0
"Because I can only speak for Americans just as I can for the middle class. "-
What percentage of middle class Americans do you know? I would guess it is an incredably small percent. If you feel you know them well enough to represent all of them it is a small step to include other western countries. But I guess this is more a style issue with me, when you single out America for a negative post, you are implying that other countries don't have similiar problems and it annoys me.
"The working parents is an illustration of how little they care about their children. Surely two working parents can work through scheduling occasionally, but families need parents who pay attention to their children and are actually present for them."
Most (public, not even private) colleges cost over 40k. If you plan on buying a house two cars and raising three kids on one salary 80k a year isn't enough to pay for your kids college unless you plan on saddling them with some serious debt when they start life. This normally requires two parents working. I paid for college myself and graduated around 25k in debt, not fun. I paid it off in a year, but I am a badass, for most people this is a serious debt that will follow them around for a while. Do you honestly think that a family having two people working do it because they are greedy?
Even with a babysitter, there is the cooking, cleaning, washing, yada, yada, yada that still needs to be done. You think working 40 hrs a week and taking care of this is greedy?
"You're taking a rant targeted a sub-group of people and are applying it to society as a whole, probably due to my not spelling that out."
Your sub group is...a poor choice. Blaming Dual income parents greed for bad kids? Greedy is better than greedy and lazy. Poor parenting comes in every type of income and family situation. To somehow find fault with dual income households doesn't make sense to me.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:51:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
How do you feel about single parents? I suppose it would be a great travesty for them to drain the nation's resources by living on welfare and yet obviously they otherwise could not be home 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 18 years.
Odd to that you seem to think that the population should be swallowing whatever the president says simply because he is the acting president. I realize that this particular president thinks he is above the people, but in reality, the president is a servant of the people. He works for us and is supposed to have our best interests in mind. It is your duty as a citizen to listen to our elected leaders objectively. I would go so far as to say that the failure to properly weigh the words of our esteemed leader is the very reason that we are in the endless quagmire that is the Iraqi war today. If more people questioned his motives and arguments, maybe this war would never have happened.
I too had a completely different take on the college experience. It is a time to expand your horizons, find out who you are, and yes obtain the basic skills necessary for a career. I certainly did not get a ticket to sweet paradise with my degree. It opened doors for the career I know have, but college was so much more than a mere business school training ground. My parents also did not pay one red cent for my education. I paid for it myself and am still paying for it.
Based on your assessment here, you really come off like a spoiled little shit who has never had to struggle and always had everything handed to you. If so, then that is really sad because it means that someone out there busted their ass to do everything possible for you to have a cushy life and you don't seem to appreciate it.
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:50:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I think your rant is a little off center. You sounded like I did when I was younger.
As much as I would love to stay home with my son like my mother did, but that's not an option for many families today, not because of the "I need this" mindset, but more of a security thing. My father has had one job his ENTIRE life. He's worked at the same job for over 30 years. That is just unfathomable to me. I got laid off twice last year alone.
Corporations don't care about people the way they did a generation ago. We are all disposable. I think about how there will be no social security for my generation. Coupled with the fact that I've never held a job that offered any kind of pension, than yeah, money is a big motivator.
As a single mother I live paycheck to paycheck. The only savings account I have is in my son's name. That way if anything ever happens to me he will be okay, and I don't have to worry about someone taking my money from him when I kick the bucket. I choose this life because I spend way too much money on taking him to experience things he may not remember in ten years. Movies, amusement parks, museums, fairs, carnivals, the circus and shit on ice all cost money.
So yeah, he won't get much money when I die, but he can sell the house that I bought if he needs money that bad. He's only four, but he's well adjusted. We went out for dinner on Sunday night. I asked him if he was paying for dinner. He told me that he couldn't pay "because he's broke." I jokingly asked him when he was going to get a job. He asked when he was allowed to and I told him "when you're sixteen you can have a job." He motioned for me to bend down and he whispered in my ear that "When I get a job here, you can come in and I will give you all the free milkshakes that you want."
If anyone else's kid that said that too me; the sweetness probably would have made me vomit.
Now I'm rambling so I will shut the fuck up.
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:40:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Loki:
I will give you the point of the death of her husband though, that's a tough one.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:35:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
interesting points.
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:33:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Loki:
Those problems are all due to a missallocation of values. If people were raised to value their children and to have respect for themselves, it might have an effect on that woman's self confidence and the man's mid life crisis. The mother (as should the father) should feel fulfilled by raising her children to be good people. The father should feel fulfilled by providing for his family. Surely people are tempted by dreams of sex with other people and what it would be like to be a high-powered career woman, but if you're going to have children, you need to have values centered around them. There are enough people in the world thank you, we don't need any more fuck ups.
Not that this will solve all the problems, but I think it would help.
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:28:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Because I can only speak for Americans just as I can for the middle class.
The working parents is an illustration of how little they care about their children. Surely two working parents can work through scheduling occasionally, but families need parents who pay attention to their children and are actually present for them.
You're taking a rant targeted a sub-group of people and are applying it to society as a whole, probably due to my not spelling that out.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:14:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Well I think it is plain stupid to think that two parents working is the root of the problems with American middle class. I am also curious why you think this is a big problem with America, but no where else.
I know plenty of people with only one parent working that are fucked up because there parents didn't pay enough attention. Which seems to be you point up until.
"Every generation wants their kids to have it better except this one. This one doesn't give a shit about anyone except .....doesn't matter, because they weren't going to leave anything to their little shit children anyways."
Where you seem to imply that people being greedy and not caring about their job is the problem. I am confused why you think people care significantly less now. And if they do how is this a more significant problem in America?
I am also confused about your interpretation of college. Maybe your goals in college is the problem. I went for engineering. People who went for engineering 10, 20 and 30 years ago learned roughhly the same thing. A set of skill that woud prepeare me for a job. How is that different now? My degree wasn't a ticket, I don't know anyone like that. People got jobs because of grades, internships, and BS abilities in interviews.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:12:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
interesting rant
You make some good points, but you are dead in the water when it comes to women with children working outside the home. Take this little scenario you paint with the woman making $18 an hour, that is roughly $36k a year which is not bad depending on the field.
Now suppose that this woman spends 10 years or more out of the work place. When she goes back, the working world will have changed. Just think about the advances in technology that have hit the workplace in the past ten year, there is no reason to think that will slow or stop. So she goes back to work and finds that she is technologically behind and has to work that much harder to keep up. How much would she be worth on the job market? I'm guessing less than the $36k she made before she left. All of her former peers are not managers, directors, and VP's and not only has she not moved up, she's moved backwards.
Better yet, say she doesn't bother to reenter the job market. That works out just wonderfully if her husband decides to go head first into midlife crises and swap her out for that hot little secretary with the perky tits. Here she is with no marketable skills and yet men bitch and moan about the inherent unfairness of alimony.
OR, say the love of her life is killed instantly on the freeway. It's not that uncommon, it happened to the daughter of one of my coworkers. What does she do then? Oh yea, secretarial work, how satisfying.
Then the kids leave home and she has no life outside of raising kids. She's getting older, feels useless and has nothing to live for. Enter major depression, possibly even suicide attempts. Think that is uncommon? Think again, I've seen it first hand to some shall we say, very very very close relatives.
I also find it interesting that you place the blame for not being home with the kids squarely on the woman's shoulders. I guess these kids were hatched or something since apparently, they are not in any way the responsibility of their father.
Submitted by goose (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:06:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jeanneee - hippies are never the answer.
Rawrg - excellent rant, man - I'm there with you.
Submitted by TheSpook (user info) at 2005-08-30 14:04:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Hey man, only idiots go in over their heads.
Submitted by Mister (user info) at 2005-08-30 13:59:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-08-30 13:57:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Disagree?
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-08-30 13:56:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-08-30 13:55:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That hippie commune in Missouri is looking better and better every day.