Example: Just because Bob graduated high school and college and made a financial success of himself means that you can, too. You just aren't trying hard enough. You must not really want that. Loser.
I see that all the time. It's not the case. I made a point that everyone had different resources. I get this idea from Rubye Payne's book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty.
Here are some things that are discussed in that book:
There is so much more to "sucking it up" than most people think. Everyone has different resources, a different problem. Everyone has a different story.Resources include:
o Financial- The ability to leave poverty is more dependent upon other resources than it is upon financial resources.
o Emotional- The most important of all resources because they allow the individual not to return to old habit patterns.
o Mental- Simply being able to process information and use it in daily living
o Spiritual- the belief that help can be obtained from a higher power, that there is a purpose for living
o Physical- having a body that works, that is capable and mobile.
o Support systems- Who do you go for help? Not just about meeting financial or emotional needs, they are about knowledge bases as well.
o Relationships/role models- It is largely from role models that the person learns how to live life emotionally.
o Knowledge of hidden rules- The unspoken understanding that cue the members of the group that this individual does or does not fit.
· One of the hidden rules of poverty is that extra money is shared. Middle class emphasizes being self-sufficient. In poverty, the clear understanding is that one will never get ahead, so when extra money is available; it is either shared or immediately spent.
· Generational poverty- having been in poverty for at least two generations.
· Situational poverty- lack of resources due to a particular event.
· Often the attitude in generational poverty is that society owes one a living. In situational poverty the attitude is often one of pride and a refusal to accept charity
· Individuals leave poverty for one of four reasons:
o A goal or vision of something they want
o A situation that is so painful that anything would be better
o Someone who sponsors them
o A specific talent or ability that provides an opportunity for them
· Many people stay in poverty because they don’t know there is a choice, or if they do know there is a choice, they don’t have anyone to teach them the hidden rules of the middle class.
· Schools are virtually the only places where students can learn the choice and rules of the middle class.
· The maturity continuum- To become a fully functioning adult, one moves developmentally from being dependent to being independent to being interdependent.
· Children in poverty often miss the dependent part of the continuum and are forced to be independent at a young age, causing them to later fluctuate between dependence and independence as an adult because they were not allowed to be dependent at the proper time. This is known as CODEPENDENCY.
Stop treating people like manufactured dolls and start looking at people as individuals.