4259.2: The Vulture
Posting 'cause this is interesting:
Lynn's Notes:
Here, Michael decides to come clean about the money he's lost and Elly treats the whole situation like the lesson that it is. I got letters. Folks complained that I had made Gordon look like a thief, that he wasn't "that kind of kid!" They thought Elly should have gone to Gordon's parents and complained. They didn't know that Gordon's dad was at the pub and not likely to be home before dinnertime. They didn't know that his mom worked two jobs to make sure that the bills and the debts were paid on time. Behind every character was another story altogether - a story I had no time to tell!
This is an unfortunate trend in parenting, this idea of insulating kids from the consequences of their actions. As a kid myself, maybe I would've felt significantly more empathetic toward the desperate feelings behind having limited money and limited ability to get money--but as an independent adult, with all of the experience that comes with that, I don't see how preventing even the youngest of kids [who can comprehend cause-and-effect] from ever feeling a permanent consequence for a bad decision is going to help them. You can't just [threaten to] "tell Mommy/Daddy" and always get your way, and sometimes it takes a permanent loss to really understand the badness of that decision. Plus, the "rental" thing really wasn't that bad of an idea, if a bit expensive for when that was published [$4 seems quite a bit more trivial in 2012 moneys], but that's part of the point of the comic.
This has absolutely nothing to do with a certain adult child who has been terrorizing the vicinity with tantrums about his poor money management... 9_9
I note that I do, in fact, have a strong empathy for the poorer classes--which may be why The Hunger Games has held onto me for longer than maybe I think it deserves credit [as horrible as the writing is]--as at work I've had to repeatedly express my discomfort eating first when helping prepare a luncheon meeting I did not fund, order, or prepare [beyond opening the door for the caterer/delivery person]. Eating first makes me feel like I'm stealing food, while eating last-ish makes me feel like I'm not letting things go to waste [scavenging, if you will]. There's also a bit of a glutton vs. rationed feeling to it, too--if it's the last bagel, that's all I get, vs. if there are forty bagels, there's too much potential to take eight of them before anyone else can.
Everyone should be poor at least once in their lives, I think, to really understand where people are coming from. I think that's what gets me most about class warfare, that the always-rich are so insulated from the problems of the world that can't be ignored by those who don't have the luxury of simply turning a blind eye to them. No, you who have never worked retail before in your life, you can't truly understand the ordeals of someone who's forced to live paycheck-to-paycheck due to the economy you've destroyed by removing money from the system because anything outside of your ivory tower doesn't exist in your eyes.
[this ties into racism and sexism, etc., too--the "privilege as insulation against reality" aspect--but if I have to spell out every single thing, I'll be here all the-rest-of-my-life =p so, another post, maybe]
but perhaps rant times should go on hold for some good lunch times =9
Lynn's Notes:
Here, Michael decides to come clean about the money he's lost and Elly treats the whole situation like the lesson that it is. I got letters. Folks complained that I had made Gordon look like a thief, that he wasn't "that kind of kid!" They thought Elly should have gone to Gordon's parents and complained. They didn't know that Gordon's dad was at the pub and not likely to be home before dinnertime. They didn't know that his mom worked two jobs to make sure that the bills and the debts were paid on time. Behind every character was another story altogether - a story I had no time to tell!
This is an unfortunate trend in parenting, this idea of insulating kids from the consequences of their actions. As a kid myself, maybe I would've felt significantly more empathetic toward the desperate feelings behind having limited money and limited ability to get money--but as an independent adult, with all of the experience that comes with that, I don't see how preventing even the youngest of kids [who can comprehend cause-and-effect] from ever feeling a permanent consequence for a bad decision is going to help them. You can't just [threaten to] "tell Mommy/Daddy" and always get your way, and sometimes it takes a permanent loss to really understand the badness of that decision. Plus, the "rental" thing really wasn't that bad of an idea, if a bit expensive for when that was published [$4 seems quite a bit more trivial in 2012 moneys], but that's part of the point of the comic.
This has absolutely nothing to do with a certain adult child who has been terrorizing the vicinity with tantrums about his poor money management... 9_9
I note that I do, in fact, have a strong empathy for the poorer classes--which may be why The Hunger Games has held onto me for longer than maybe I think it deserves credit [as horrible as the writing is]--as at work I've had to repeatedly express my discomfort eating first when helping prepare a luncheon meeting I did not fund, order, or prepare [beyond opening the door for the caterer/delivery person]. Eating first makes me feel like I'm stealing food, while eating last-ish makes me feel like I'm not letting things go to waste [scavenging, if you will]. There's also a bit of a glutton vs. rationed feeling to it, too--if it's the last bagel, that's all I get, vs. if there are forty bagels, there's too much potential to take eight of them before anyone else can.
Everyone should be poor at least once in their lives, I think, to really understand where people are coming from. I think that's what gets me most about class warfare, that the always-rich are so insulated from the problems of the world that can't be ignored by those who don't have the luxury of simply turning a blind eye to them. No, you who have never worked retail before in your life, you can't truly understand the ordeals of someone who's forced to live paycheck-to-paycheck due to the economy you've destroyed by removing money from the system because anything outside of your ivory tower doesn't exist in your eyes.
[this ties into racism and sexism, etc., too--the "privilege as insulation against reality" aspect--but if I have to spell out every single thing, I'll be here all the-rest-of-my-life =p so, another post, maybe]
but perhaps rant times should go on hold for some good lunch times =9