4 ms·

Humm, I have a feeling part of the story is missing here, even though i can relate as i was myself a minimum wage worker in the hospitality industry in Britain

Humm, I have a feeling part of the story is missing here, even though i can relate as i was myself a minimum wage worker in the hospitality industry in Britain for a while (back in 1999, my annual wage was something like 8500 pounds). Long odd hours, not so pleasant interfacing with customers, 7 people sharing a flat in London, so broke at the end of the month that walking from Mayfair to Canada Water was reality because no money for public transport.... Yet, as a foreigner, I (We, as a matter of fact, since all my friends and colleagues were either german, italian, spanish, chinese...) had no real social safety net to rely on. We couldn't go back to our family (500 miles away) with our tail between our legs in case we really fucked up. Something isn't clear in this writer's account of the reason of her living in poverty, whether it is a story of mental illness, child abuse... things i witnessed years later when i bought a flat in Barking (poor white area of greater London) and this i feel would need to be clarified for me to be able to accept the conclusion that "poverty is largely accidental", especially coming from someone quite so articulate.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thuuuomas 3y ago
“This account of misery likely conceals the reasons that the author, in my estimation, would deserve their suffering.”
- Mainan_Tagonist 3y ago
  deserve? No one deserves suffering... your comment is in bad faith, no point discussing this any further with you...
goatsi 3y ago
It's pretty clear if you read the article, and even more explicit in the news paper articles in her photos. She was a single mother with zero family support. She couldn't just work odd or long hours (and was forced to leave her existing better paid job) because there was nobody to care for her young child.
- robocat 3y ago
  > with zero family support The article didn't say that - are you relying on another source of information? She mentions her family, but implies she wants to remain independent: Sometimes I just want to run back home and live with my parents, at the age of 32, and beg them to take care of me. I’ll be very quiet. I can cook, and I promise not to say f*ck in front of the children, Mum. I won’t fold the corners down on your books, Dad. Without more info, hard to say how her family did or didn't help.
  - goatsi 3y ago
    "My brother was in the RAF last time we spoke, a couple of Christmases ago, when he described Iain Duncan Smith as the best thing to happen to this country and told me I had chosen to have a baby outside of marriage so deserved everything I got. It’s fair to describe us as ‘estranged’ these days." This is where I'm getting the family info from.
    - dudul 3y ago
      That's one member of the family not being supportive. Doesn't equate to zero support from the whole family. The paragraph quoted above seems to imply that going back to her parents was an option.
      - goatsi 3y ago
        Checking the article again it might have been one, but not one she was capable of taking at the time. "Back – or forward – to 2012, and as my world shrank into a tiny flat, as friends fell away and I started to isolate myself from my family in shame and self-loathing and depression"
        yardstick 3y ago
        Take a read through https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-interview https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-... When she got pregnant she tried to hide it from her family (parents in particular) because she felt shame and feared the kid would be taken away. Her parents fostered lots of kids and so she saw lots of kids going into the system and didn’t want that for hers. I disagree that would have happened, but understand how from her life experiences she may have thought that. Similarly, once her parents did find out, they bought her lots of food to help her during the pregnancy as during that time she was very underweight. She also shares parenting her sons father. Again, all this is based on info from the Guardian article. I lived in the UK during the period of her rise to fame and honestly I don’t remember her in the news. But that bit about it costing £3300/month to run her home (rent + services + food etc) seems rather high. You could easily get a 2 bed in London for under £2000/month plus expenses, so seems rather odd to be living in such an expensive area outside of London yet still cry poverty and woe-is-me. It feels like a lot of it is due to her mental health - not just the ADHD, but general insecurities, and also alcoholism (drinks as both a symptom and cause).
galdosdi 3y ago
> Yet, as a foreigner, I (We, as a matter of fact, since all my friends and colleagues were either german, italian, spanish, chinese...) had no real social safety net to rely on. We couldn't go back to our family (500 miles away) with our tail between our legs in case we really fucked up. You didn't have kids though. That changes everything. I do agree from experience as well, a single healthy young person in good spirits can make it work. Knowing you're responsible for a little baby that can die or be hurt for life changes the stakes. I assume there wasn't an extended family that was near enough, kind enough, or able enough to take them in for a few years. That kind of support is indispensable when you have kids and don't have a lot of resources. Generally material poverty is experience very differently when there is also social relationship wealth. But nowadays in US/UK, there is a lot of social relationship poverty. When combined with material wealth it is not great, but combine social poverty with material poverty, and you have a big problem.
- yardstick 3y ago
  > I assume there wasn't an extended family that was near enough, kind enough, or able enough to take them in for a few years. Her parents were foster parents to 100s of children. They helped her during her pregnancy etc. She just has issues asking for and accepting help. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-interview https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-...
  - galdosdi 3y ago
    WOW. That's incredible. Well, that explains it. Ignoring the foster part, it's not the same to have a parent for whom you're one of 100 chldren! I certainly would feel more like I was imposing too.
milesvp 3y ago
The passage where she runs and cowers in a corner from a random knock on the door hints at something gone really wrong mentally. Could be something developed as a result of poverty, but it’s certainly behavior that will perpetuate poverty. I suspect, this author is driven in some peculiar way. I’ve seen it with other strongly artistic types, the drive isn’t to make money, and that allows them to do great things. Sadly, if they don’t align with value of the populace in a way that makes money, they will simply toil in poverty. Worse, is they are often easy marks to be take advantage of. I’ve even seen it in tech, people who should be making way more than they are, but continue to be underpaid because there’s a kind of playground for them to explore.
calcifer 3y ago
> this i feel would need to be clarified for me to be able to accept the conclusion So you are inclined to dismiss her stated experience because she didn't choose to share every little detail of her life to your satisfaction?
- dudul 3y ago
  Parent doesn't want to dismiss the writer's experience, just the conclusion. Seems reasonable to me to want as many details as possible to accept a conclusion. An experience is a different thing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thuuuomas 3y ago

“This account of misery likely conceals the reasons that the author, in my estimation, would deserve their suffering.”

Mainan_Tagonist 3y ago
deserve? No one deserves suffering... your comment is in bad faith, no point discussing this any further with you...

goatsi 3y ago

It's pretty clear if you read the article, and even more explicit in the news paper articles in her photos. She was a single mother with zero family support. She couldn't just work odd or long hours (and was forced to leave her existing better paid job) because there was nobody to care for her young child.

robocat 3y ago
> with zero family support The article didn't say that - are you relying on another source of information? She mentions her family, but implies she wants to remain independent: Sometimes I just want to run back home and live with my parents, at the age of 32, and beg them to take care of me. I’ll be very quiet. I can cook, and I promise not to say f*ck in front of the children, Mum. I won’t fold the corners down on your books, Dad. Without more info, hard to say how her family did or didn't help.
- goatsi 3y ago
  "My brother was in the RAF last time we spoke, a couple of Christmases ago, when he described Iain Duncan Smith as the best thing to happen to this country and told me I had chosen to have a baby outside of marriage so deserved everything I got. It’s fair to describe us as ‘estranged’ these days." This is where I'm getting the family info from.
  - dudul 3y ago
    That's one member of the family not being supportive. Doesn't equate to zero support from the whole family. The paragraph quoted above seems to imply that going back to her parents was an option.
    - goatsi 3y ago
      Checking the article again it might have been one, but not one she was capable of taking at the time. "Back – or forward – to 2012, and as my world shrank into a tiny flat, as friends fell away and I started to isolate myself from my family in shame and self-loathing and depression"
      - yardstick 3y ago
        Take a read through https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-interview https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-... When she got pregnant she tried to hide it from her family (parents in particular) because she felt shame and feared the kid would be taken away. Her parents fostered lots of kids and so she saw lots of kids going into the system and didn’t want that for hers. I disagree that would have happened, but understand how from her life experiences she may have thought that. Similarly, once her parents did find out, they bought her lots of food to help her during the pregnancy as during that time she was very underweight. She also shares parenting her sons father. Again, all this is based on info from the Guardian article. I lived in the UK during the period of her rise to fame and honestly I don’t remember her in the news. But that bit about it costing £3300/month to run her home (rent + services + food etc) seems rather high. You could easily get a 2 bed in London for under £2000/month plus expenses, so seems rather odd to be living in such an expensive area outside of London yet still cry poverty and woe-is-me. It feels like a lot of it is due to her mental health - not just the ADHD, but general insecurities, and also alcoholism (drinks as both a symptom and cause).

galdosdi 3y ago

> Yet, as a foreigner, I (We, as a matter of fact, since all my friends and colleagues were either german, italian, spanish, chinese...) had no real social safety net to rely on. We couldn't go back to our family (500 miles away) with our tail between our legs in case we really fucked up. You didn't have kids though. That changes everything. I do agree from experience as well, a single healthy young person in good spirits can make it work. Knowing you're responsible for a little baby that can die or be hurt for life changes the stakes. I assume there wasn't an extended family that was near enough, kind enough, or able enough to take them in for a few years. That kind of support is indispensable when you have kids and don't have a lot of resources. Generally material poverty is experience very differently when there is also social relationship wealth. But nowadays in US/UK, there is a lot of social relationship poverty. When combined with material wealth it is not great, but combine social poverty with material poverty, and you have a big problem.

yardstick 3y ago
> I assume there wasn't an extended family that was near enough, kind enough, or able enough to take them in for a few years. Her parents were foster parents to 100s of children. They helped her during her pregnancy etc. She just has issues asking for and accepting help. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-interview https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-...
- galdosdi 3y ago
  WOW. That's incredible. Well, that explains it. Ignoring the foster part, it's not the same to have a parent for whom you're one of 100 chldren! I certainly would feel more like I was imposing too.

milesvp 3y ago

The passage where she runs and cowers in a corner from a random knock on the door hints at something gone really wrong mentally. Could be something developed as a result of poverty, but it’s certainly behavior that will perpetuate poverty. I suspect, this author is driven in some peculiar way. I’ve seen it with other strongly artistic types, the drive isn’t to make money, and that allows them to do great things. Sadly, if they don’t align with value of the populace in a way that makes money, they will simply toil in poverty. Worse, is they are often easy marks to be take advantage of. I’ve even seen it in tech, people who should be making way more than they are, but continue to be underpaid because there’s a kind of playground for them to explore.

calcifer 3y ago

> this i feel would need to be clarified for me to be able to accept the conclusion So you are inclined to dismiss her stated experience because she didn't choose to share every little detail of her life to your satisfaction?

dudul 3y ago
Parent doesn't want to dismiss the writer's experience, just the conclusion. Seems reasonable to me to want as many details as possible to accept a conclusion. An experience is a different thing.