One of the people I was talking to earlier about the housing
situation in the village was the chairperson of the parish council. She was
telling me the terrible story of a married young man she knew who tried to get
a housing association property ‘so that he could start a family.’ The housing
association allocated their properties on a points system based on perceived
need, and gave the house instead to an unmarried mother of three children.
This, according to said chairperson, was very wrong.
‘They gave it to an unmarried
mother,’ she exclaimed indignantly, ‘instead of the man who was doing things properly.’
Now, whether a married man who wants to start a family is in
greater need than an unmarried mother who already has one is a matter of
opinion. You might well agree with her, even though I don’t. But that isn’t the
point. The point is that the concept of ‘proper’ is subjective; it isn’t set in
stone and determined by the conventional mores of a conservative culture. I
made the point that there are different views on the perception of need, but my
offering clearly fell on stony ground. So here’s my problem.
I’m trying to fit in here, I really am. I love this place
beyond measure and it would be nice to connect with the human landscape as well
as the physical one. But I’ve been around a bit, you know? I’ve lived in a lot
of different kinds of places, from inner city areas to small towns to suburbs
to villages to remote places miles from anywhere. I’ve seen a lot of different
versions of ‘normal,’ and so I know its breadth and complexity. But if I want
to fit in, I have to develop a level of tolerance. I wonder whether they will
be tolerant back.
6 comments:
To that person i would have to refrain from speaking my full mind, but i would ask her, "what about the children? They can't help that their mother isn't married, but they still need a place to live!"
I've little doubt that the woman would have shifted responsibility to the mother, arguing 'why should she get preferential treatment for having behaved sinfully?' I've heard that argument often enough. Moralists are often more driven to punishing the sins of the 'guilty' parent than protecting the interests of the innocent children.
And sometimes it gets worse; sometimes they punish the children directly. My mother suffered a lot of verbal abuse as a child because she was illegitimate, as though it was her fault. I've seen a lot of this kind of thing in a lot of people. It's one of the reasons why I've always had difficulty connecting with the generality of humankind.
Yep.
Funny thing about my mom: When my brother and his wife were expecting their baby his wife went to the local health department to see if she could sign up for WIC, which is Women, Infants and Children, a program that gives out vouchers for food, infant formula, etc. to people who are determined to need the assistance. Well, my sister-in-law didn't qualify because she and my brother make too much money. My mom was annoyed about it and said something like the lady you encountered, like they're married, doing the right thing, blah blah blah. WELL, then i find out i'm also pregnant and am technically a single mother because i'm not married so i get WIC, food stamps to buy groceries with, free health insurance, etc. and my mom repeatedly suggests that Alex and i wait until after the baby is born to get married so that i can get all the benefits. So silly. Shows how quickly people will change their minds when they or someone they love are the ones in need.
Yes, and what you've said about your mother... i've seen the same thing, and also for things like the child's parents not being seen as good people or because a child is multi- or biracial. My great grandmother was treated so badly when she was a child because she was half white and half Native American that she wouldn't talk about her ancestry only to confirm and say that to ask about such things was rude.
It just baffles me the way some people can treat a child and not feel or know that what they are doing is hurtful. When i was a very small girl my dad had a younger cousin who was very mean to me... i'm thinking that when i was 4 she was probably 12 or so. When i was 12 i remember being around smaller kids at school and looking back on how she treated me and coming to the conclusion that she had something bad wrong with her. So, its even more baffling to me when adults mistreat a child.
I guess i should say when i was around the age of 12... i don't remember exactly how old i was when i first started to think of myself and how i felt about others and how i treated others and compared it to that cousin and how she treated me. It took me a long time to trust people who were older than me because of damage she'd caused. Oh my gosh... Debbie Downer, hehe. Sorry.
I remember watching a discussion programme on the TV many years ago. One man in the audience argued openly that mixed race children weren't entitled to proper treatment. He said: 'They're not white, they're not black, they're just rubbish.' Amazing, but true.
I think you and I would get on. As long as I can call you Peanut, or 'Nut' for short.
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