Making wise financial choices = PRIVILEGE!!!!!!

[Mary Ann]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026925050

"I Made A Huge Sacrifice To Buy My Dream Home"

Not The Onion!

http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/a7367/i-made-a-huge-sacrifice-to-buy-my-home/

My husband and I purchased our dream home entirely on our own. Money wasn't gifted for our down payment nor did we expect that. There is a certain sense of pride that comes with saving up, living off canned food for an entire year, buying consignment instead of new, and then making your dreams a reality without any handouts. By our early thirties, we were able to sell our first starter home, to build the fully-loaded luxury home of our dreams.

With that said, certain sacrifices had to be made for this dream to come true for us. The first being that we can only afford to have two children. We are able to afford one family vacation a year (using a timeshare that we purchased in full as newlyweds). We kept to a budget for other large expenses that came with our latest move like a ride-on lawnmower, gardening supplies, a fenced in yard for our dogs, and a generator. Our happy children have everything they need (not everything they want) and I am able to stay home with them while they are young because of the carefully premeditated financial choices we have made. None of this just happens. We prioritize, stick to our plans, and are teaching our young children about self-control by living as their example.

However, our story comes with a deeply rooted secret. We weren't planning on this change of heart when we purchased our home but we would like to have one more child. My uterus literally aches despite the fact that logic suggests we can't afford it right now. After talking it over, and trying to adjust the budget, we have come to the conclusion that the decision to buy our dream home last year has eliminated the possibility of having any more children. Unless circumstances suddenly change, in order to have one more child, we would need to downsize. This would mean another move and tearing our two kids away from the house they now call a home. And it would mean that I would need to return to work full-time, taking away from the quality time our two children enjoy having with me and putting them (and the hypothetical third child) in daycare which my teaching salary would probably just barely afford. Our annual vacation would disappear because we would need to sell the timeshare to make up the difference.

Understandably, something has to give and unfortunately, in this case, it's our mutual dream of having another child. My husband is able to accept this, I am not, and to be honest, this has caused some heartache. I have begun to resent the dream house and our decision to buy it. It's a strange mourning process I can't really discuss openly with others, mainly because people our age often don't plan as meticulously as we do. I certainly don't expect others to understand and I am beginning to move past it, but then a beautiful newborn is set in my arms and I have to start the process all over again. Sometimes, I can see us living in a smaller, older home somewhere, selling this one, and adjusting to accommodate life with a third child in a home that is definitely anything but a dream, but then I overhear our boys having a blast playing in our big, beautiful, safe backyard, or listen to their laughter billowing out of the colorful playroom space we have created and designed just for them, and I know this was always meant to be our forever home. This is the American dream and we are in it, living it, every day, just the four of us.

Got privilege?

I brought this over because here is a family that set goals, made choices and sacrifices, scrimped and saved, and achieved their original goal. What's wrong with that, you ask? PRIVILEGE!!!!! Apparently, in the wretched Amerikkka of the 21st century making choices to achieve goals is something only the privileged can do.

I have been in an off-and-on conversation on Facebook with the 30-year-old, Bernie-loving son of a friend of mine. He has been mourning the death of "the American Dream," which he defines as "empower(ing) people to be the best version of who they already are." (Sounds like something a member of the participation trophy generation would say..) I claim that the American Dream, as it has traditionally been defined, is alive and well, and available to anyone who makes good choices.

Unfortunately, these little twits want to major in something useless, like art history, then stand their with their hands out, waiting for the right politician to fill it with the fruits of someone else's labor while decrying Amerikkka as such a terrible country!

It's worth visiting the island, just to see the responses. Anyone who points out that goal-setting and choice-making isn't just something that the PRIVILEGED do gets shouted down.

[SVPete]

Brains, knowing how to use them, and choosing to use them is "white privilege"? Really?

 

[thundley4]

Damn it, they could be living in a mansion if she had just had two abortions instead of having two kids. Stupid breeder bitch!


 

[Carl]

If she had gotten pregnant and then had it torn to pieces they would be making her a hero.

[BannedFromDU]

     Yeah, I saw that and almost brought it over. Looks like the woman's worst crime is putting her business out there for everyone to see, which is all too common nowadays. Looks like she was detailing a decision process that many thoughtful people follow, and of course the DUmmies pile on.

     Why? Pretty simple: notice how the woman had a plan that involved her own resources and her own sacrifice. Both of those entities - resources and sacrifice - are difficult for DUmmies to come by, because they involve effort, planning, and discipline. Anyone in possession of those personality traits is "privileged" in the mind of a DUmmy. That means, of course, that to a liberal the natural configuration of human traits and tendencies biases toward rancor, confusion, randomness, and self-defeating behavior. It would never occur to them that they can acquire the traits they associate with "privilege" if they would just get a grip.

[Mary Ann]

This is mind-boggling to me. My son and dil are in their early 30's and built a very nice (though not luxury) home in a nice subdivision in a good suburb. My new granddaughter will be raised by a stay-at-home parent (her dad) and will go to good schools, play in a big backyard, and enjoy all the advantages that I had as a child in the 50's and 60's.

And all because her parents were smart enough to get marketable degrees. (It's so unfair to the children of art history majors.)

[BannedFromDU]

And all because her parents were smart enough to get marketable degrees. (It's so unfair to the children of art history majors.)

     Therein lies the true crime of liberal educators and liberalism: do what feels good to YOU. Don't get an education in anything someone ELSE might want; instead, pursue the field that means the most to YOU, an 18-year-old howling moonbat. Because, you know, young howling moonbats always make the best and most responsible decisions. 

     That kind of shitty thinking is why places like Oberlin exist.

[Mary Ann]

     Therein lies the true crime of liberal educators and liberalism: do what feels good to YOU. Don't get an education in anything someone ELSE might want; instead, pursue the field that means the most to YOU, an 18-year-old howling moonbat. Because, you know, young howling moonbats always make the best and most responsible decisions. 

     That kind of shitty thinking is why places like Oberlin exist.

This.

The afore mentioned 30-year old Bernie worshipper who started the FB discussion I am sort of having, went ballistic when I put philosophy majors in the same category of "useless" as art history majors. Well, his gf is a philosophy major and she would be giving me a keyboard evisceration--as soon as she got home from her job at the Holiday Inn. Where she is head philosopher. I'm sure.

Anyway, said evisceration never happened. Maybe she is rethinking the wisdom of her major. Or, who knows? Maybe she thinks I kind of have a point. Or, maybe I just come across as too stubborn to bother with.

Regardless, she probably thinks she will go to grad school and slide into some nice cushy tenure-track position. I can guarantee that won't happen. Maybe she can get into grad school--although, she is getting her degree from a fairly insignificant state school. And if she does, maybe she can become adjunct faculty somewhere, making a couple of thousand per semester, and wondering why Amerikkka is sooooooo unfaaaaaaair to its brilliant young people.

You know, there was a time a hundred years ago, when people who had a passion for making buggy whips found it difficult to attain employment. They didn't demand two years of unemployment, or that the government prop up an unsustainable industry; they got over it and moved on.

Why can't today's young people understand that your first priority should be self-sufficiency, and indulging your intellectual passions should be secondary?

[BannedFromDU]

as soon as she got home from her job at the Holiday Inn. Where she is head philosopher. I'm sure.

 

Anyway, said evisceration never happened. Maybe she is rethinking the wisdom of her major. Or, who knows? Maybe she thinks I kind of have a point. Or, maybe I just come across as too stubborn to bother with.

Maybe she was getting another tattoo, or something else to bolster her claim to Most Special Snowflake in Town.

Regardless, she probably thinks she will go to grad school and slide into some nice cushy tenure-track position. I can guarantee that won't happen. Maybe she can get into grad school--although, she is getting her degree from a fairly insignificant state school. And if she does, maybe she can become adjunct faculty somewhere, making a couple of thousand per semester, and wondering why Amerikkka is sooooooo unfaaaaaaair to its brilliant young people.

This is yet another artifact of being told at an early age that you are special and everything you think and do is correct in its own special way: it makes you stupid, wrong, and entitled.

You know, there was a time a hundred years ago, when people who had a passion for making buggy whips found it difficult to attain employment. They didn't demand two years of unemployment, or that the government prop up an unsustainable industry; they got over it and moved on.

I can nearly promise you there is a very earnest trust fund hipster in Willamsburg, Brooklyn, who makes bespoke buggy whips for sale to other hipsters. When Mommy and Daddy's money supports you, you can do anything you want.

Why can't today's young people understand that your first priority should be self-sufficiency, and indulging your intellectual passions should be secondary?

Because even now, as I type this, children are being told in elementary schools all over the US that how they FEEL about their arithmetic is at least as important as getting the right answer, and that the right answer is culturally biased and sexist. Children in middle schools are being taught that there is stigma in being a white person, and boys are being subtly informed that they are worthless buffoons.

And in the midst of all this, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese kids in the US are being directed by actual parents to study actual things in pursuit of actual value. I saw it as plain as day in my own daughter's graduation ceremony: there are those who got indoctrinated, and those who got educated in spite of it all.

[SarasotaRepub]

I'd love to hear what Donald Trump would say on that thread...

[Mary Ann]

Because even now, as I type this, children are being told in elementary schools all over the US that how they FEEL about their arithmetic is at least as important as getting the right answer, and that the right answer is culturally biased and sexist. Children in middle schools are being taught that there is stigma in being a white person, and boys are being subtly informed that they are worthless buffoons.

And in the midst of all this, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese kids in the US are being directed by actual parents to study actual things in pursuit of actual value. I saw it as plain as day in my own daughter's graduation ceremony: there are those who got indoctrinated, and those who got educated in spite of it all.

And those American kids who do succeed (in the traditional sense) are being made to feel guilty about their success.

The lowest elements in our society want to drag everyone down to their own level.

[freedumb2003b]

I am truly ambivalent on this one.

Her back-story of a small amount of semi-sacrifice and the resultant material items resulting therefrom seems very self-congratulatory.   Then her complaint of wanting an additional child being denied doesn't make sense since she seems to be good at belt-tightening.  Give up the riding mower and have the kids use a push one. Downgrade the Lexus to a Toyota (or just don't get a new car).  These are the decisions people all over America (and the world) make without a pretty doggone high point to start.

If her intent was to say "life is full of choices and you should think ahead before sinking a lot of money into something" then it can be taken as a cautionary tale.  They made a lot of GOOD choices

But I don't see it.  I think the REAL issue is hubby doesn't want a 3rd kid.

[Mary Ann]

I am truly ambivalent on this one.

Her back-story of a small amount of semi-sacrifice and the resultant material items resulting therefrom seems very self-congratulatory.   Then her complaint of wanting an additional child being denied doesn't make sense since she seems to be good at belt-tightening.  Give up the riding mower and have the kids use a push one. Downgrade the Lexus to a Toyota (or just don't get a new car).  These are the decisions people all over America (and the world) make without a pretty doggone high point to start.

If her intent was to say "life is full of choices and you should think ahead before sinking a lot of money into something" then it can be taken as a cautionary tale.  They made a lot of GOOD choices

But I don't see it.  I think the REAL issue is hubby doesn't want a 3rd kid.

You make good points. The DU thread really struck me because of this young guy I have been conversing with. He complained that we baby boomers climbed the ladder, then pulled the ladder up behind us, leaving the millennials with no hope. This country is supposed to be so evil and greedy that ordinary people have no chance of success. Not true. The same type of people succeeding now are the same type who succeeded 50 years ago--the ones who were sensible enough to make good choices.

This article could just as easily have been about someone wanting to go out to a fancy restaurant on the weekend and eating mac & cheese for the rest of the week.

Choices. We all make them, then live with the consequences. Unless we are leftists; they piss and moan because some people have choices that other people don't.

[Ptarmigan]

Privilege?????????????? Huh??????????????? 

[RayRaytheSBS]

So because these people made good choices, made some sacrifices ( that dirty word to democrats) early on in their life, they now have a fairly good lifestyle, they are 'privileged'? All this is is people who don't have the gumption to chase their dreams being upset at someone who did and was successful at it.

All this is is bludgeoning down someone who was successful, plain and simple. Instead of being happy for her, instead of asking 'how can I achieve this level of success as well'? They cut her down.

This, THIS is what is REALLY wrong with America. People need to look at their lives, see where THRY screwed up, and WORK HARD at fixing it. Life isn't supposed to be easy. Life is SUPPOSED to be challenging! So when you get to the end of it, you can look back and say 'I DID that, all by myself'.

These people need to shut up, LOOK at their lives, and PULL their heads out of their fourth point of contact and actually SEE what all their 'feelings' have done to this once-great nation.

[obumazombie]

How can anyone make good sound financial decisions with owebuma making a mess of our economy ?
The answer seems so obvious that the average lib would trip over it, and still not discover the solution.
Quit voting for libs like owebuma !