4 ms·

"Toxic stress" in childhood isn't a pre-ordained result of, nor should it even have to correlate with, being poor.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
Poverty and limited financial resources aren't really the same thing. I get what you are saying, but it is something I have thought about a whole, whole lot. It's a distinction we don't make clear enough. We talk as if poverty is just about a low income. It's really not. Let's posit two scenarios: 1. There are people with low incomes whose lives work reasonably well. 2. There are people whose lives don't work and one of the results of their lives not working is a low income. I think poverty is really that second item, not that first. I think we conflate low income and poverty too much. There were lives that worked well and lives that lacked critical elements long before modern money made it convenient to assign a dollar value to our idea of what constituted poverty. In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities to a single number that doesn't necessary effectively capture what is going on.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities to a single number that doesn't necessary effectively capture what is going on. I agree completely. Obviously the evidence is compelling in cases where, for instance, the parents so destitute that they cannot afford proper nutrition for an infant during critical periods of neural development. This article conflates things like that with kids who are stranded for a few hours at the bus depot because their mother couldn't leave work early to pick them up after taking the wrong bus home. That's ridiculous.
robg 9y ago
Where did I say that?
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  You're presumably answering the question posed by the post's title saying "yes", i.e., that it is causative, which would imply correlation. Why was that not a fair inference to draw?

Poverty and limited financial resources aren't really the same thing. I get what you are saying, but it is something I have thought about a whole, whole lot. It's a distinction we don't make clear enough. We talk as if poverty is just about a low income. It's really not. Let's posit two scenarios: 1. There are people with low incomes whose lives work reasonably well. 2. There are people whose lives don't work and one of the results of their lives not working is a low income. I think poverty is really that second item, not that first. I think we conflate low income and poverty too much. There were lives that worked well and lives that lacked critical elements long before modern money made it convenient to assign a dollar value to our idea of what constituted poverty. In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities to a single number that doesn't necessary effectively capture what is going on.

lr4444lr 9y ago
In so assigning a dollar value, we risk boiling down a whole lot of qualities to a single number that doesn't necessary effectively capture what is going on. I agree completely. Obviously the evidence is compelling in cases where, for instance, the parents so destitute that they cannot afford proper nutrition for an infant during critical periods of neural development. This article conflates things like that with kids who are stranded for a few hours at the bus depot because their mother couldn't leave work early to pick them up after taking the wrong bus home. That's ridiculous.

robg 9y ago

Where did I say that?

lr4444lr 9y ago
You're presumably answering the question posed by the post's title saying "yes", i.e., that it is causative, which would imply correlation. Why was that not a fair inference to draw?