Americans should learn some lessons from the "under-developed" world about living poor

Social structures as they exist in the US compared with my native India and enormously different. When my family arrived in the US, one of the things I learned was regarding family structures.

In India the extended family is the dominant system. For much of my childhood I lived in an extended family. My grandparents had an ancestral home in New Delhi, and along with them, three additional families lived in that house.

In contrast, families in the US typically disperse when the children are of age. It is expected that after school children move out and start their own family in their own home.

I am not educated enough to know why the Indian structure evolved in this way, but I can guess that it had to do with the relative wealth of the nation. Perhaps it was not economically feasible for each person in India to have their own home. While in America, the abundance of national wealth meant that everyone could afford to have their own home.

The good news is that the extended family structure is not a bad thing. It is essentially communal living with your kin. Yes, family tensions are always there, but the benefits are something we should acknowledge as we consider how we will survive in the world that will be fully realized in two to three years.

I arrived in the US when I was 10. Until then I was raised primarily by my grandmother and several aunts and uncles. Until I arrived here I had never heard of the word babysitter. I never knew about a thing called a nursing home. Everything that the family needed was provided by the community. I was never left in a strangers care. My grandmother passed away in her own bed at home. These are examples of what I consider to be social benefits of how things are done in the "old world".

We would be well advised to adopt some of these principles. We are a society that consumes more than any other. That party is over. We have to find ways to be efficient and our living arrangement are a primary driver of efficiency.

in my lifetime. My mother, brother, and I lived with my grandparents for a time, and my grandmother continued to look after me until I was grown--and then I looked after her until I moved away. I think that economics does have something to do with the weakening of family structure here, but that's not all of it. Even back in the 1800s, you had folks who ran off from the family when they turned 21. In some families, there is a lot of fighting and such; in others, the sense of adventure lured children away.

For the record, my mother lives in the same town as my brother, his children, and his grandchildren. Maybe they are not in the same household, but they operate as a family.

My family did not keep the tradition but I have seen ethnic minorities inclined much more towards the commune, for a variety of reasons.

Try living that way for several years, as an adult with the attendant obligations, and then come back and tell us how much better it is.

S/he can't take the heat.

You have got to be the biggest idiot I have come cross on this board. Congrats. That a big accomplishment.

The extended "family" on DU, not the extended family by blood that I don't have. The OP is making the "blood is thicker than water" case. I am not.

Most, I daresay *all* people live that way until the transition to national market economies.

Economic structure determines family structure in general, not vice-versa. People don't "choose" family structure.

for that--it would be an honor to be a Native American or a minority, but I came from W.A.S.P. roots. However, they were from farms and small towns in the Midwest. I think you tend to see extended family more there than in the big city.

We evolved in kin tribes and to work as kin tribes made up of many extended members of the family of maybe 150 people. However we now live a life where alot of us are living in cities with no neighbors we know or count on and at best we have a spouse we may or may not get along with and children.

I can remember lost of disagreements but I cannot remember depression arising from loneliness.

Nor does loneliness cause depression. One can be very lonely without being the least bit depressed, or suicidally depressed despite living within an extended family. A person who is depressed may avoid human interaction, but it does not follow that more human interaction would prevent or cure the depression.

There are plenty of depressed people in the societies of which you speak. The only difference is that these societies either stigmatize depression, or they tend not to recognize it as a health problem. The depressed person may be considered to be "naturally moody", or "lazy", or to have been put under a spell.

Here is an article about treating depression in India:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/health/11psych.html

Is that this type of extended family system is predicated on rigid gender roles and limiting the opportunities of women. Girls and women are pressed into child and elder care. Old people get to die in their own beds because daughters or nieces are forced to care for them. You say you were raised by your grandmother and aunts and uncles but really, how often were the uncles involved?

well that's your prerogative.

Thanks.

No single mother or father headed families? No "nuclear" families where the mother and father are committed to sharing childrearing duties equally? No childfree-by-choice couples? No polyamorous arrangements where childrearing is successfully arranged?

Again, I'm not saying that gender-neutral isn't possible in an extended family situation, but the reality is that it's very rare.

As examples of how rare such practices are in extended families?

Really it seems like you're relying on most people's unfamiliarity with extended families to argue against them, than any merit or flaw of the situation on its own.

Really, explain that to me.

I don't think the OP was saying that we should adopt the "Caste System" here in the US. No need for Brahmans, Kshatriyas, or the merchant or peasant classes (I can't remember the Sanskrit names for those two classes... but I'll google them up for you if you'd like).

Granted, historically, perhaps even currently ethnographically there is a greater onus on females in most family structures around the world. The OP though, as I recall, was titled "Maybe Americans Can Learn Something From Extended Family Structures"... (ok, that's a gross simplification... I'm getting old and the memory is the first thing to go... but that seemed to be the gist)

So, I think a better question that yours is: "Can the extended family structure be made to work here in the US, as income inequalities grow due to corporate interests in reducing wage packets for employees, without necessarily re-introducing the sexist inequalities that went with the old incarnations of said extended family structures?"

In my opinion, they can... provided that your extended family isn't full of a bunch of sexist asshole males. Otherwise... run away. Run far away...

The OP was upholding his/her experience as a child in India, with Grandma and aunts and (supposedly) uncles sharing in his/her care. S/he never made an argument on gender-equitable grounds. That was introduced when I (and others) brought it up, and the OP made it very clear that our observations were unwelcome.

The OP didn't cope well with your response (hmm... maybe something unconscious to be concluded there...) but I still stand by my, perhaps de-constructionist, interpretation.

Obviously the old Caste System of India would not be something to take wholesale and try to apply here in the US in the 21st Century. A la carte, even, I suspect it would leave something to be desired.
Extended family living, though, doesn't have to oppress females/womenfolk.
Historically speaking, I think it would be fair to say that pretty much every family system until about.. ohh, let's say 1974 when my Mom divorced my Dad for being an abusive drunk, was power-skewed against women. That doesn't mean that everyhistorical familial system should now be discarded... unless, that is, you've come up with a new system that by its very nature makes such abuse somehow impossible.

So here's my point... if the US is gonna slide into "Third World" style poverty, and in my opinion it's both the only way that corporate America can make their books work... and the single best way to ensure that corporate America loses its customer base (though, they being they, I suspect the former would trump the latter concern)... then alternate living system arrangements will have to develop. That said, extended family systems are certainly a fertile ground for stealing ideas/structures... a la carte.

You can't point to exceptions to the otherwise overwhelmingly sexist and isolationist "nuclear family" and claim that they somehow say something about extended families. Do you think there are no such exceptions among extended families? Of course there are. Just liek there are exceptions in the nuclear family that you're trying to pretend are "the norm"

Sexism and family isolation are the problems. Nuclear, extended, clan, and other forms are non-consequential. If you want to stand against sexism and isolation, then I'm right there with you. But don't try to past them into a family system you are obviously unfamiliar with and pretend they are only a problem there. It's ignorant and disingenuous.

Tell me what extended family culture has a better record of advancing women's rights.

Leading to the second wave of feminism. The "boys" of the counterculture were not very accepting of equality, from what I understand.

Todays hippys are much different then the elders.
Remember,they were starting a counterculture from scratch.Todays hippy is the result of many hard lessons learned.
And not just in matters of gender equality.
Us male hippys have learned well those lessons.

Women's rights do not stem from family systems. In fact women's rights have more often than not come about in spite of whatever the dominant familial system is - because as I've stated twice now, nuclear or extended, the system has almost always been "man in charge of woman, woman in charge of children, brother in charge of sister." Gaining women's rights has always been a struggle to break this system. The size of the family in question and how many relatives are involved don't matter.

Just the same you may want to educate yourself about family systems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The extended family was more common in America in these periods - a largely agrarian and largely poor society, and all. The roots of feminism lie in this period, in the woman organizers, protesters, suffragists, and such. I can't say for certain what the correlation between the two is - I doubt theres any collaborative data to say whether they were a product of that culture or whether they were responding to it - but there you go.

Now please tell me how they prime era of the nuclear family - the 1950's - was such a heyday for the advancement of women.

But it did lead to Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.

And so it is that the extended family tradition of the past gave us Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. What of it? Extraordinary women will reveal themselves and do what they need to do to make their mark on the world.

My point is that the whole family paradigm is bullshit. Whether it's extended or nuclear. It just fucking sucks! It ALWAYS oppresses women. Always, and forever.

"My point is that the whole family paradigm is bullshit. Whether it's extended or nuclear. It just fucking sucks! It ALWAYS oppresses women. Always, and forever."

If that's your point, then why did you just spend so much time arguing against me when I was saying exactly that? Why were you trying to tell me that the Nuclear family is "better" than the extended one, if you think they're equally sexist? If you acknowledge that the extended families of earlier years gave rise to the origins of the feminist movement, why did you demand to know what extended families have produced for women's rights?

Ah well. So long as you get the point, I suppose.

When they are pretty much equally shitty?

I'm no expert, and they won't let me anywhere near a set so I can play one on tv... but I think you just want no part of family.

Don't get me wrong... I think that's plenty healthy, if you can afford it.

I think the OP is about those who need to tighten family bounds to cope with increasingly tight financial status. If your family is fucked up, on the other hand... I heartily recommend running the hell away, even if it means living on the streets.

The notion of "learning from"... doesn't necessarily mean copying, let alone imposing. And, I think in the new theories built after the "learning from", I think some outlets for those who can't cope with the family system would be ideal.
Of course, barring government subsidization.... such a thing would be... a hit and miss exercise in dumb luck.
On the other hand... sometimes you meet some rather interesting people when you're living on the streets. Or maybe I was just lucky.

I hope you overcome your fear and hatred of families...also please never have one. :scared:

It doesn't exist anymore. I hope you overcome your belief that people who aren't a part of a family aren't really people. Because, really, it's your problem. Not mine.

You might want to think about not taking everything so personally and projecting. I am not advocating for anything on this thread beyond people educating themselves before they spout off on a million irrelevant and ethnocentric tangents, and maybe for one second accept that there are alternative living models aside from what is normal in the US. Tall order, I suppose.

Why don't you re-read the OP? And realize that he was making a judgement, too.

It's certainly less common, but they do exist.

in the extended family set-up, gendered power is variable.

Thats mainly because the women are all highly intelligent and fully liberated women.There is no way in hell anyone of them will put up with chauvanistic behavior.No way no how.

I also know of several other communes that are pretty much the same.

I don't know any hard fast rules bbut I do have a few observations about the more successful ones
1.Education is important.Expanding and broadening the mind should always be encouraged.whether formally or informally.For either gender.
2.Leadership should be chosen on the basis of who is best suited for the task at hand.For example,our kitchen is mainly run by two guys.Thats because they both have experience in the food and beverage industry.Experience which makes them ideally suited to running a kitchen in a large home.
3.Financing a commune can present interesting challenges.Unfortunately there are too many variables to go into right now,The one thing I will say is that it is probably better to not require members to pool all their money into one fund.All members should be expected to pay into the basic operating budget for the home but other than that everyone should keep control of their own finances.

It's not like gender inequality comes from women being stupid and failing to liberate themselves.

even if that was the case in the past.

Re Is that this type of extended family system is predicated on rigid gender roles and limiting the opportunities of women. Girls and women are pressed into child and elder care. Old people get to die in their own beds because daughters or nieces are forced to care for them. You say you were raised by your grandmother and aunts and uncles but really, how often were the uncles involved?

And even when the caretaker role falls primarily to the women, in an extended family situation there isn't the same kind of burden on ONE overworked individual who has to assume the entire responsibility and never gets a break.

But as I said, there's no reason why the caretaker role has to automatically fall to the women anyway.

And in the vast majority of cultures in the world, it falls on females.

Oh, right...drastically underpaid and overworked women. :shrug:

I would much rather take care of my own parents than slave for $7/hr taking care of the discarded elderly of someone else's family (YOURS?)

Sane and more humane societies not broken over the wheels of consumerism and debt ensure that people who choose to care for their elders receive the aid they need to do so.

allusions, Runcible Spoon, you sound uncommonly wise.

My heart bleeds for the poor suckers who gave birth to and raised that Miss Thing upthread.

rather than work for ourselves & take the full product of our own work.

in what sense is paid labor fo someone else inevitably superior to unpaid labor for ourself & our family unit? & in what sense is it inevitably "involuntary"?

of my grandmother. And all my male cousins and my brother take care of their children just as much as their mothers do.

There is nothing in the system itself that requires rigid gender roles.

that so?

is pretty fierce. But, I expect they will. Maybe the one advantage of being slow learners. lol

nearest and dearest in your declining years. You DESERVE it, for writing this stuff on here!

the people we care about. :hug:

More often than not, the obligations fall to females.

I am an introvert. I hated having roommates. I am not sure I can ever live with anybody. I think you are right about the situation.

It's meant to be something to think about, and another option as opposed to the "societal pressure" we Americans feel to strike out on our own and form a nuclear family arrangement.
If you find that the nuclear family arrangement is not working for you, an extended family arrangement might be worth considering... I think the OP was meaning to suggest.
On the other hand, if you are too much of an introvert to feel comfortable in an extended family arrangement, well... it's still a free country (except for the fact that next to nothing is free... and I suspect the corporations are salivating, waiting for an opportunity to charge the population for the very air they breathe.) so you can feel free to strike out on your own.

Having travelled more than a little in Mexico, I find that the nuclear family arrangement is very peculiar to the "First World". Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the CEOs are making far too much theoretical profits for their companies by cutting pay and/or laying off workers for the middle class to have any chance of not shrinking. Fine for HR cost analyses... but it means, I think, that we're headed toward a more third-world style of economics here in the US. Really rich rich folks, and the rest of us. "Third World" economic coping mechanisms should, I think, be considered for those who no longer feel "First Worldly" employed and compensated for said employment.

Just as something to think about...

On the other hand, if you've got the money and you don't have the time/family-person power... ship off your old to a retirement home... there're certainly no shortage of entrepreneurs willing to take your money... and there's no shortage of people convinceable to accept $7/hr to wipe granny's bum...

:)

Raama went to the forest.

That's half the Sanskrit I remember from college.

And yes, I know Sanskrit isn't really spoken anymore (much), but over 10 years of driving a taxi and bullshitting with Indian drivers, Nigerian drivers, Afghan drivers, Iranian drivers... and all the various and sundry others... well, let's just say I was never able to find a Teach Yourself Punjabi book...

And all joking aside... I've been thinking much the same thing myself. I lived in Mexico for a time, and the thought that a 21 year old Mexican ought to be able to get a place of his own to live is absurd (95% of the time). I think that, as the US sinks into a "Third World" style economy, for fear of (cue boogey man music) "Socialism" or "Unionism"... well, if that's what the voters want... then it makes sense to learn from those that have been coping with such like economic systems.

Maybe we need to coin the term "Neo-Extended Family Structure", so that no one makes the mistake of thinking that we're suggesting some sort of return to "women's work" and "men's work" and that sort of tripe...

I have wondered if e-communities like DU are going to make a leap into the physical world and generate a resurgence in the development of communal living, obviously not with family but with people who share a common interest.

They should be making a lot more. Because it's an important job and not just anyone can do it. We shouldn't be sloughing it off onto relatives involuntarily or low-wage workers. Same with child care. If we really think raising children or caring for our elders are the "most important jobs in the world" we should be acting like it. Teachers, nurses, child care providers, and elder care providers should be making BIG bucks.

Not to say that I don't agree... but I've come to understand that I'm wrong to agree.

If the nursing homes can get people to do it for $2 an hour, they're legally, nay, morally bound to hire them. It's just capitalism... nothing personal (how there's nothing personal about one's relatives... well... I'm sure there's a PR firm that can explain it... I'm sure as hell not gonna make up an explanation for free though, it'd be Un-American...).

"Teachers, nurses, child care providers, and elder care providers should be making BIG bucks."... sounds like someone's got a case of the "should"s... This is capitalism, where the person who hires them makes BIG bucks... and the bucks become even bigger if they can short change the people actually doing the work...

It's not easy being a cynic... despite reports to the contrary. And the liquor bills are staggering...

The extended family system in India stayed in place because of a surplus of people and a lack of land. Here in the US, we're land rich, so every family aspires to a plot of suburbia even if they have to settle for an inner city tenement. Our resources are different and so is the culture that arose because of them.

You'll find few extended families here in the US even though they were the norm in our countries of origin because they really don't work all that well for adults.

Having been a nurse for 25 years and in and out of the healthcare business for 40, I saw what happened to a lot of old people who were cared for at home by families that were ill equipped to do so, and I'm talking about people who looked all right until you lowered the blanket and rolled them over to find bed sores down to the bone and worse, like filth completely soaked through the mattress they were on.

Hindsight, especially that going back to childhood, can be deceiving. All food tastes ambrosial when you're five years old and very hungry, but Mom might not have been that good a cook. Being surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins might have looked like a lot of fun at the time, but our memory of the aunts and uncles and parents hiding in the kitchen and knocking back straight gin to deal with the racket is a little fuzzier.

While I think the world of having both parents turned into full time plus overtime worker bees while the children largely fend for themselves deserves to end along with depressed wages that drove it, I would greatly prefer being able to find our own way balancing work and family than having it dictated by corporate necessity and bad political policy.

However, turning back to the extended family crammed into one small living space is only a stopgap measure for most of us because it just doesn't work.

because I didn't have the same reaction to the lecture delivered in the OP.

should learn, you spend several sentences lecturing us on why the Indian social structure is better, complain when someone accurately points out that system is based on gender inequality, then accuse someone else of lecturing you when they disagree with your opinion. Perhaps you should have just said upfront that you only wanted people who agreed with your opinion to respond to your post.

There's gender inequality across ALL FAMILY SYSTEMS, for pete's sake. lol

But it has been women examining and criticizing - and in many cases refusing to participate in - those systems that has led to increased emancipation and opportunities for women all over the world. As shitty and oppressive as the Western nuclear family structure is, it proved to be the most conducive to women breaking free of (ultimately) reforming it to a certain extent.

The OP is praising the family structure in India. Which has an alarmingly high rate of gender selective abortion and bride burning.

in our movement who live in extended families? You are completely unaware of the support an extended family can provide to a woman?

Ethnocentrism on skates. :wow:

Are you denying that bride burning happens in India? Are you denying that women are still being traded like chattel at the behest of their extended families? Are you suggesting that because some women have a positive and supportive experience in an extended family or communal situation (and undoubtedly they do) that there aren't many, many others who are trapped?

As I said, ethnocentrism on skates.

Nothing to do with "ethnocentrism", but all about thinking that people shouldn't be forced into certain roles because of their "family" or "culture".

Wives of American nuclear families never submit to their in laws and it isn't so common as to become a whole genre in our national art. There aren't cases of dead beat dads coming out of the ears of every DA in every major American city. Women don't mostly shoulder the care of children, the disabled and the elderly and here, in isolation. The list is endless and the point it, you are attributing to extended families that which happens across family systems.

Once again, I'm arguing for breaking people OUT of the family paradigm, while you and the OP are arguing for keeping people in it. :shrug:

as opposed to a nuclear family.

and how it works is very, very limited, indeed. And notice that your assumption is that the nuclear model is the preferable, more workable one -- a conclusion you come to in a completely arbitrary way.

My grandmother was in a nursing home for exactly two days and she started deteriorating. So the family gave up on that Americanism and brought her home and re-arranged schedules to take care of her. They had her in a dirty bed, she was developing bedsores and she was already losing weight. There is no comparison between the care she got at that place and the care we gave her for the next ten years.

My point is that the extended family system wouldn't have broken down as rapidly as it did if it had worked as well as people who never experienced it as adults think it did.

Extended families in the United States "break down" for because the culture is largely as hostile to them as you are, not because they don't work, themselves. In fact, about half of my cousins live with more than two generations and several of them have opted back into the extended situation as adults. I, for example, lived for some years with my mother and my brother's family on our ranch. It was fine and in fact, much more efficient for all of us. It worked fine.

that the elderly get better care in nursing homes. And I don't shop for bridges, either.

Oakland is where San Francisco residents go to live in retirement/nursing homes.

I agree, the care they give is not spectacular. I've seen the elderly wandering the halls... lost (literally, they'd call to have someone taken to a doctor's appointment, and then I'd have to wait 5-10 minutes while they tried to find them... sometimes I'd just lose patience and leave and tell them to call back once they found the elderly person in question)... nurses were more concerned about their nails than the care they were giving to the patients...
Those places made me feel like I was wandering into an elderly factory farm... but there were no eggs or veal coming out (soylent green isn't people yet !!).

two days to figure it out. Maybe rich people can afford something better or whatever. My grandmother was completely helpless and she couldn't speak. She was with us that way for about ten years and, yeah, it was hard for us to take care of her. But, it was much better to know she was always with one of us and that there was always a trusted person looking after her. I myself went into her hospital room to find something really, really wrong once too fucking often to ever feel okay about leaving her unattended ANYWHERE, even in El Camino Hospital, EVER again.

Of course, I have the dubious luxury of all my family members older than myself having died in the last 5 years... so it's really not a personal issue (aside from the family in Iran... who I'm not allowed to go visit, because the government is still pissed about some religious freaks stealing back the oil that US Oil Companies thought they'd stolen once and for all back in '53).

All of that aside... anyone who puts their family in nursing homes despite having some family member who could otherwise handle the care... well... I cringe at the thought.
The homes I saw seemed to treat the elderly more like random petting zoo specimens than people... the only real goal seeming to be keeping them from hurting themselves... too much anyway.
And those who lived in the homes... especially the ones that were more medical than just elderly... half of them seemed absolutely un-afraid of death... almost welcoming of death.
Then again... it was Oakland CA... and anyone who continues to live there and continues to step out of the door on a regular basis ought to be resigned to that possibility... but the old folks in the homes seemed especially resigned to the idea of death...

Just saying.

Sorry!

You seemed to be making a clarification... unnecessary from where I was sitting.

But the whiskey and the memories of all those homes... well... anyway... cheers, and kumbaya.

I was going to mention the same thing re: India being overcrowded. The combination of population density and high rates of poverty force people to live close to each other and be more dependent on family support systems. I think India's rigid class structure is also a factor.

I am much happier living independently and I know I don't have what it takes to look after an elderly parent full time. I like being in a nuclear family. My Grandmother gave me great advice when I was young, which essentially amounted to telling me to get out and explore the world, not to get bound down by extended family commitments.

including large chunks of Europe and fully industrialized and highly Westernized countries in "under-developed" (not a big fan of that term btw), like Argentina.

Some cultures do maintain rigid gender and economic hierarchies by sustaining highly regimented living arrangements, but it's not a necessary condition. When I was living in Buenos Aires, only the very rich young people had apartments of their own, and a large chunk of those 20somethings chose to live with their parents anyway. There were some working class young people who lived with 4 or 5 roommates, 2 or 3 to a room, but this was mostly due to the fact that they were immigrants from rural areas and had no family in the cities.

Regardless of class or income or age, every Argentinian I knew preferred to live at home until they married and/or could afford to outright buy a place of their own. And the select few who didn't live with their parents well into their 20's and sometimes into their 30's saw nothing wrong with those who did.

We just accept that it is "normal" to flee the nest on our 18th birthdays, but it creates an array of social and economic burdens for young people. And you're right, we cannot afford to live this way for much longer; it wasn't vast wealth that allowed everyone to move out and take out dicey loans, it was CREDIT. :evilfrown:

ALL of them. It's not that there aren't issues with the nuclear family paradigm and our socially fractured individualist society, but let's not act like having to live with your parents until you are 40 and (if female) being expected to be a nanny or nursemaid to your relatives is a great thing.

Like it's any "better" for women to become chained to lower-wage jobs and endless debt/mortgage than it is to have to care for aging relatives, besides the fact that I wasn't even arguing that. Oh well, for some (less-traveled) people capitalism cures (masks) all social ills.

that trouble us most.

.

Which cultures and countries are you talking about? :shrug: Try not to stereotype things you don't fully understand; there is a large difference between living with your family until your late 20's and saving up enough to wisely purchase a modest home and being trapped with your aging parents until they die. There are certainly quite a few cultures who put the burden on to the women, but if you re-read my post I am referring to a different thing. Allowing children to stay at home longer doesn't necessarily mean the women are chained to them, although it might strengthen the family bond so that the kids feel more responsibility to care for their parents when they cannot live on their own.

I was putting up Argentina as a model of compromise; there are no more rigid gender structures keeping women chained to homes there than there are in the US.

In any case, what would you like done with the elderly? Is there something innately wrong with them living with their children? Is it better to shuttle them off to dismal "retirement" facilities? In Argentina, daughters AND sons have a stake in caring for their aging parents and there are government resources for healthcare and cost of living aid. This may or may not include inviting them into your own home when they cannot live on their own anymore.

A few weeks ago it was "Trade and offshoring will help bring countries like India and China out of poverty!" Now it's "We should try to emulate the way they live in poor countries!"

The proponents of "globalism" on this board will just not admit that it's a failure.

I'd very much prefer not to be, but since that doesn't appear likely to change in the near future, I'm open to learning to make the best of it and to maximize the skills and resources I have.

EDIT: And even if we weren't talking about this on a national level, the "and like it!" part shouldn't be gone along with, even at the individual level. The drive to improve one's or one's kids' lots is one of the most important aspects of humanity.

Sheesh.

As are many other Americans, with millions more poised on the brink of joining us. The main contributor to our situation was bullshit "free trade" and "globalist" policies that enriched the plutocrats. And when self-described progressives romanticize poverty and oppressive cultures it's every bit as annoying as when conservatives spout Horatio Algier bootstraps myths and wax nostalgic over TV Land depictions of the 1950s. Yeah, we'll probably all have to learn to live with several generations under one roof and unmarried adult kids having to babysit and change Grandpa's diapers because the family can't afford to get proper nursing care for him and the government can no longer provide it but I'm not going to join the OP in celebrating it.

buy corner shoops and the whole family man the till, until they go to university or take a job elsewhere. It's about FAMILY, not necessity.

In Australia, Italian families would help each other to build their respective houses, taking it in turns, until both families (or all of them) had their houses. Though often friends, it was the principle of the extended family for mutual assistance. Some nationalities are just more family-minded.

In the Aussie outback, when they went away for a while, people on remote properties would leave a message on the table for wayfarers to help themselves to whatever food there was in the larder or fridge. Maybe still do. The ethos is very democratic, and although crime and anomie are increasing all the time (as they are everywhere in the West, according to countries' capitalist fanaticism for the law of the jungle) generally, you will see mankind at its best there.

In the UK and the US, a top-down, domineering/servile culture has developed, and the ordinary Joe and Jane are effectively marginalised, not even considered as part of the citizenry, if the politicians' and media's talking heads are any guide. After the Golden Years of the welfare state under so-called "Old" Labour, the country's social and physical infrastructure has been plundered for the ever-greater enrichmnent of NuLabs' "nouveaux riches", and, indeed, the monied classes as a whole, if the Tories or Lib Dems had the chance. Cheap and cynical personal ambition have led to widespread, social alienation and anomie. Yet, at its worst, i.e. prior to this economic debacle, they used to proudly proclaim that the country had never been wealthier. Never mind the legions of the homeless that were part of Thatcher's legacy, and mightily prospered by Blair and Brown.

If the US is (nominally at least) a democracy, and the rising tide of poverty is the result of mis-guided government policies, implemented by politicians, that were presumably elected by the people...
Well, you see that means that We the People have chosen our poverty. And what's worse... We the People seem to still be willing to play along with the Pavlovian knee-jerk anti-socialism tic... and even an anti-unionism tic... thereby crippling any attempts to reverse the crappy policies you lament.

So, don't you get it? We're the joke!
Some of us feel like we might as well laugh at our own joke, as it's all that we're gonna get out of the deal.

Of course, you're both right to rage against the stupidity of it... but I choose to just laugh, and learn to cope... and hope that, by seconding coping strategies straight from the "Third World" maybe some of the fucktards who keep voting to knee-cap themselves will re-think their knee-jerk stupidities... and if they don't, I'll be ready with some good old fashioned "Third World" living tips...

Of course... I applaud your rage. I just think a little side-order of irony couldn't hurt...

to become so out of some warped sense of empathy or some other bullshit reason.

Where do these ideas come from? No one is advocating that people become poor. Where do you find anything that suggests that?

And selective abortions if the unborn baby happens to have a vagina (sexism as its most vile worst, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.)

You're utterly right; "learn to be poor and LIKE it" posts, never mind the devolving concept, is disrespectful. We should be striving for better lives with time to be human as well. Not being poor.

:wtf:

:hi:

:applause: Well fucking said.

But, I'm feeling SEXY!!

is that the tendency in the US isn't even just to disperse - but it's to ridicule those who don't. Even those of us who think of ourselves as evolved beyond classism will still resort to insults based on living with extended family. (The classic view of freepers is that they still live with their parents.) I find it insulting both because of the classism, and because of the complete lack of cultural sensitivity.

The stereotypical freeper living with his folks is not ridiculed because he lives at home. He's mocked because he spends hours on the Internets spouting neocon propaganda and acting like he's John Galt.

Honestly, I look forward to the day when people don't have so many aunts and uncles.

Grandparents, yes.

20 South Korea 498
22 Puerto Rico 446
24 Netherlands 395
25 Lebanon 386
26 Martinique 359
30 Belgium 341
31 Japan 339
32 India 336


Short answer: no.

Longer answer: India was one of the richest countries in the world when the Brits took it over. They sent its wealth to England, it's what funded the Industrial Revolution.

The British textile industry started as the Indian textile industry.

there are over 1 Billion people sharing some limited resources.

India's cheap labor pool has been continuously exploited. The British weren't the first or the last to do so.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but when I call AT&T customer service... well, let's just say that after 10 years driving a cab, I recognize an Indian accent.

So... if AT&T customer service jobs are going to India, what's still here in the States?... manufacturing in China, customer service in India... a fare once told me that only credit card customer service jobs are still here in the States, mostly because the laws are so Byzantine that trusting them to poorly English trained workers abroad would be too risky...

Hmm... with all that work and economic development going on in India... maybe they'll be able to start developing a nuclear family standard... while we move into skid row rooms in order to hold out in denial that our corporations really haven't sold us out and capitalism actually does give a flying fuck about the people that do the work...

their position by playing local rulers & ethnic groups against each other & fighting other european powers, coming to a controlling position through the east india company by 1758.

The company ruled the territory until 1858, & the brits ruled it directly until 1947.

200 years of direct British rule. There was no "India" as such before British rule.

India was a rich territory of vast resources when the Brits came; living standards for the masses declined under British rule, & capital from India was what gave the Brits their economic dominance.

"Home to the Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history."

It isn't overpopulation that made India poor.

During much of the British rule, the Forbes family (kin of John Forbes Kerry, descendant of Lords Forbes, British East India Co. & opium traders) was one of the biggest landowner in India.

For example, this 400 acres of possible "green space" in Mumbai started out as Forbes-owned textile mills.

http://www.mesn.org/articles/index.php?print/id:380


"The Forbes Group, founded in 1767 by John Forbes from Aberdeenshire, Scotland is one of India's largest and internationally known group of companies with a turnover of over USD 300 million having a strength of over 6000 employees.

The Group is a professionally run conglomerate with interests in textiles, engineering, shipping, business automation, heathcare, hygiene, consumer durables, travel, BPO services, Infotainment.

The Forbes Group has a heritage of over 200 years and is totally committed to the tradition of excellence. The Forbes management has a glorious history of been passed on from Forbes family to the Campbells, to the Tata Group and finally at present held by the well known Shapoorji Pallonji Group of Companies, which is among the premier business houses in India since 1865.

(B) Subsidiary Companies :
1 Aquamall Water Solutions Limited
2 Eureka Forbes Limited
3 Euro Forbes International Pte. Limited
4 Forbes Abans Cleaning Solutions Private Limited
5 Forbes Aquamall Limited
6 Forbes Doris & Naess Maritime Limited
7 Forbes Finance Limited
8 Forbes Sterling Star Limited
9 Latham India Limited
10 Next Gen Publishing Limited
11 Volkart Fleming Shipping & Services Limited
12 Forbes Services Ltd.
13 Forbes Technosys Ltd.
14 Forbes Tinsley Co. Ltd.
15 Warrior (Investment) Ltd.
16 Forbes Campbell Holdings Ltd.

) Associate Companies :
1 Forbes Aquatech Limited (Associate of a Subsidiary)
2 The Svadeshi Mills Company Limited
3 Warrior Logistic & Shipping Services Limited
4 P T Gokak Indonesia
5 Sea-Speed Shipping Agencies Ltd. (Associate of a Subsidiary)
6 Trident Shipping Agencies Ltd. (Associate of a Subsidiary)
7 High Point Properties Ltd. (Associate of a Subsidiary)
8 Sea-Falcon Shipping Services Ltd. (Associate of a Subsidiary)
(
E) Joint Ventures :
1 Barwil Forbes Shipping Services Limited
2 Forbes Infotainment Limited
3 Nypro Forbes Moulds Private Limited
4 Nypro Forbes Products Private Limited
5 Forbes Edumetry Ltd.
6 Edu Metary Inc.
"

Tata family, now one of the ruling Indian dynasties, started out as Forbes' compradors. Campbells intermarried. Pallonjis intermarried with Tatas. Forbes-Tata group is the oldest company in India.


The same people rule the world as ever did, & take most of the wealth for their own purposes.

You have to start from that premise.

Our national mythology -- and it is a mythology -- is different from other cultures largely because of that.

I can expand on that for pages if anyone is interested, but right now I have to go make breakfast and a pot of coffee for my husband -- it's just us here: the children are grown and living under their own roofs, and as of a week ago, the last of our parents passed away.

Hekate

Whether that be having aging (or not) parents living with us, or kids staying with us for longer, those are already happening.

However, we also will continue to interact with others, making communities of another sort, with friends and neighbors rather than just genetics. Of course, I live in a rural area, where we have neighbors be know and (mostly) like, knowing who is good at what, who has what tools and skills, etc.

I see one of the social changes that will change is not trying to be so incredibly independent of everyone else. As well as not having to have the latest fashions, etc.

live off the dump leftovers. There's an "old world" efficient living arrangement...for the upper class.

I think extended families can be a good thing if they're not propped up by slavery of the masses.

Msongs

I don't think the Caste System survives to this day to the point that the untouchables are still, literally, untouchable. Do you really believe that??
As for living off the dump leftovers... we've got plenty of people here in the States that do that already... and live under freeway overpasses (if they're lucky enough to find space there)... or in a number of other places we often don't bother to look (which makes the best place to live if homeless... since the cops are less likely to take your shit that way).
"Old World" efficient living arrangement for the upper class?... how is that not equally applicatory to the "New World"? Hell, what does it even mean?...
"propped up by slavery of the masses." WTF are you talking about? Have you been reading Workers World websites or something?
And, with the current trends moving the way they are... are the slaves in India, or here in the US... and how will that ratio shift in the next 20 years?..

It's seems as though there's some kind of ethnocentrism kicking in or culture blindness or something.

I come from an extended family and the benefits you point out are very real. There are other benefits, too. Children seem to do everything a little earlier because they have so many adults and older children to practice with -- from forming relationships to linguistic skills. My grandmother taught me how to read and write when I was three. My uncle Sal taught me how to skate and how to ride a bike. My uncle Tono taught me how to play chess and factor polynomials and tell jokes. My uncle Clem taught me how to count by playing poker and Blackjack with me after his mail route. lol

I was the oldest of about 20 cousins so if anyone was pressed into "involuntary labor" taking care of children in that family, it was me. But I can't remember ever having to give up something I wanted to do in order to take care of kids. I learned how to manage lots of them at the same time but there was always an adult I could go to for help. I never felt lonely even though there was no sibling in my small family until I was nearly eight years old. Some of my happiest memories of childhood are about playing with my cousins. That isn't "involuntary unpaid labor". That's knowing you have a place in a family that loves you, not a bad thing for a girl to have. It's learning how to share and negotiate time and attention and effort, something all children have to do eventually.

My mother was a divorced single mom and she would have had a horrible time if she had to be the sole support for me in our own private home. As it was, she was free to have a career and not just a job. She went at it with the confidence of a young woman who knows there is a small army of family behind her, wishing her well. And over the years, she and her siblings went into various investments together and they did well.

There is always tension. People do have spats and resentments that are decades long and even occasional wars where people take sides. But, that's just part of family life.

There is nothing inherently oppressive in this system for women. In the American nuclear model, most women do the same work without the help anyway.

and although such multi-generational familial supportive networks don't need to be oppressive to women, most are because they are dependent on the women doing the home care.

I had nearly all of the large maternal family living within 5 miles of me when I was growing up but there were only infrequent contacts because of the large families, unreliable transportation, and general lack of funds.

What I did have was an extensive supportive community in my own neighborhood. The adults looked out for the old folks and all shared child care duties in the informal way that a family would. Most of the families lived in the same area for decades. Most went to the same church. The kids went to the same schools. We played together in the yards and playground. It sounds nice, but this was a very low income community with few intact families and the majority of families were living on AFDC or on seasonal production work. Yet because of the long attachment to the place there was a very strong community, as dysfunctional as it was in some ways.

burythehatchet posted good observations about local support networks but unfortunately it was wrapped in a nationalistic tone that set off a few DUers.

And as I said up thread, the nuclear family is not a gender neutral paradise. Especially for working class women. They are generally expected to do all the same work without any of the support. Gender roles and inequality are present across family systems.

I'm reading a comparison that is pretty balanced?

The anecdote of a single experience of a single culture that follows isn't the issue. It's the beginning volley that some here have taken as a slam on American culture. As I wrote before, I think the OP made excellent points on community support if one looks beyond the simple extended family model. Those points get lost in the defense of our national and cultural identity (independent, mobile, polyglot in cultural background.)

If I started an OP with this phrase "(Nationality" would do well to learn the lessons of (my ancestral identity)" I'm betting there'd be the same sort of discussion focused more on defense of nationality and culture rather than paying attention to the content.

was rhetorical, not an admonishment.

Taking criticism is very difficult especially from inferior races. I understand that. I completely understand and agree with your analysis.

You've just accidentally re-enforced my theory that I'm a bad American.

The fact that it never occurred to me to "defend the nationality" is, to me, final proof of a theory that I've always held.

I'm a bad American.

Ahh, it's liberating to finally acknowledge it. Just like, when the smoking bans came, and I kept smoking, I knew I was a bad Californian... now I know I'm a bad American.

Because, a good American will instinctively defend "Americanism" over considering words, typed haphazardly over a piece of paper, or displayed ad-hoc over a digital screen manufactured in China... no... Good Americans know better than that...

and I grew up in a nuclear family. My son learned to read at 2.

I taught myself to play chess and taught my son. He's an only child and learned all of the things on your list from friends, neighbors, teachers..

Only a sociopath or an abuse victim could grow up not learning how to share and negotiate.

I think you are vastly overvaluing the importance of having extended family close by.

to the experience you didn't have in an extended family, can you? Not really. You have no idea how those outcomes might change, do you?

And my point about learning social skills was that children in extended families may learn them earlier, not that other children will not learn them at all.

I have a very large extended family. Many of my cousins did grow up living close to or with each other. My parents both grew up in large, tight-knit families. I have a pretty good idea of what the extended family experience is like, and I don't feel I was deprived in any way.

In many third world areas (at least the ones I have been in), poor people can/could still find a piece of land and could actually build a meager home on it WITHOUT government intervention (for the most part)...they could also till a small part of it to raise some food for themselves..If you have a roof over your head and some food in your belly, you are a long way to basic survival..


Try that in the USA..especially if you happen to be in or near a large city.

They're bribing or coercing goverments all around the world to force small farmers out and big combines in because the big agra companies can afford their products. The practice is displacing milions of people who are now no longer food independent.

And I don't "consume" rapidly. I've had the same everything for years. I still think I'm pretty well off, eg, having electricity, running water, a home, and even a computer. I see that as being rich.

On the contrary, people are moving out now at a later age. They are also becoming less mature than the last generation.

imagining being plunked down in an extended family and how difficult / different / taxing it would be.

And for adults who've never had that experience, that may be true.

People who grow up in extended families have a different sense of self, a different set of personal boundaries, relational styles and so on. The dynamics are different. It isn't simply like moving in with your parents and their siblings.

Come to think of it, all of us cousins but two married people who also came from extended families of one sort or another. Those two marriages didn't do well although I don't know why. But, I do know that my cousins didn't go out looking for partners from extended families but rather were attracted to partners whose boundaries, relational styles and maybe even values were similar to theirs.

The cheaper the energy, the less you need other people directly. With economic growth the be-all-end-all of existence, the more specialized the workforce(and life in general), the better. It's better for the economy to hire a babysitter then to have a family member watch a kid for free.

It all comes down to the price of energy. If energy is cheap, everyone drives their own car. If energy is expensive, everyone ends up on mass transportation. If energy is cheap, everyone owns their own home. If energy is expensive, you'll have two or three generations living under the same roof. If energy is cheap, you'll have the American health system. If energy is expensive, it's universal health care. You can find all sorts of examples.

Obviously there are variables in each case, depending on countless specifics, but looking back over the last few thousand years of history, I'd say that's the general theme of it.

if using a family (free) resources allows you to open a small business with the money you save.

And so on. It comes down just as much to the cultural definition of success. One of my uncles made a bundle in real estate here. He didn't buy a house for his mother in law. He built another floor on his house for her instead. :shrug:

My family is spread out all over and its financially innefficient. Of course, it would have been more difficult to pursue our careers and dreams.

It was a really cool way to live.

All that stuff about ferners and them brown third world curry eating job stealing Indian 7-11 jockey's, HAH that was all a joke. I hate those people.

Now, lets have a really good DU style discussion.

Carry on.

Some people like it. Some people want it but can't. Others don't like it. And what about those that don't "fit in". The "misfits". Nerds, geeks, et al.

What are the options?

1. Should I ask the people who reacted in a hostile way some challenging questions that might either silence them or provoke them to violate the rules and get banned?

2. Should you put some DU members on Ignore Replies?

3. Should I be asking some questions about the Original Post to spark an interesting discussion in a sub-thread?

4. Are there some other options worth considering?

In my old neighborhood in Santa Monica, Persian immigrants were buying small apartment buildings not to rent but to move family members in of an extended family. I think we grew away from that notion because people often have to move away for jobs and other reasons, so we evolved into have a nuclear family system instead.

We will all learn to squat in Tee-Pees and build camp fires.. (if we are lucky enough to find firewood)

As we continue to pump out Billions in Foreign Aid to the rest of the world, American workers will continue to slide down the survival scale.. until we are equal to tribal workers in Cambodia.

You can bet that our elected officials will do everything in their power to make sure that we complete our 'rush to the bottom' of the socio-economic ladder of reality.

Indeed, corporations who get tax breaks and other incentives who turn around and say they owe nothing to America -- should they continue getting special treatment? (Seems rather unfair, given current circumstances.)

You're really looking in the wrong place if you want to blame foreign aid for our troubles. $16 billion couldn't even begin to solve our problems.. Plus given the fact that the race to the bottom you speak of has helped screw people in other countries as well, I think it is our obligation to try and help the people in other countries.

How many people in Grandmas family could three grand support?

to kill my grandmother off in a nursing home v. how long could we care for her at home?

Contrary to all the cr@p about women in extended families on this thread, my family made the calculation that they could care for their matriarch much better at home and they set about doing that. Because she was invaluable. There was no price that could be set on good enough care for her.

They tried it for exactly 48 hours and it didn't work for them.

It's a lot of work and some expense and a lot of push back from the culture. But, I'm so happy they made the decision they made. It impacted them (us) all for ten years in many ways. But when my Mami died, she was in the circle of family where she belonged.

Because our health care system doesn't offer strong supports for keeping a senior in a home with family but does pay for residential care, nursing homes become the best choice for far too many families.

If our health care system had more recognition that families could keep many fragile elders at home with a just a little bit of help there would be less need for the homes. That said, sometimes the homes with 24 hour staffing are a better place for seniors who are severely demented or otherwise medically fragile.

Most of them allow visitors and are happy to give you a tour and describe the kind of care they provide. The majority of them do a excellent job and will inform you of just how involved it is to care for the elderly and severely disabled. It's NOT something that the average person has the training or time to do properly. As Warpy so very eloquently described above, even the best-intentioned relatives often can't provide good care. Are there people being warehoused in homes and not visited by their families? Absolutely. But that's a separate issue from whether or not families are the ones who should caring for them. I guarantee there are elderly people in residential homes that are faring far better (assuming they have someone in the family who is regularly seeing them and advocating for their care) than some who are being taken care of by a relative out of a sense of obligation.

Thanks.

Visit a local hospice, nursing home, and residential care facility in your area.

My opinion is informed by my own experience with my mother, who at age 62 developed a condition with blood clots on the brain. She became incontinent, unable to bathe, dress, and transfer herself, and largely incapable of discerning reality. I was in the Navy at the time and my sister was in grad school. Like I told you downthread, we were fresh out of doting (and medically trained) aunts and uncles and cousins to help us out. I suppose I could have gotten a hardship discharge from the military to try my hand at giving my mother the 24 hour care she required but I figured the folks at the nursing home were better equipped to do that.

After all, the burden of proof was on you all along. Tell us how people cared for by relatives fare better.

How about we call it a day and declare that some families are capable of providing long term care to members in need of it and some are not? That's ostensibly why we're progressives. Because we're supposed to work together to provide a social safety net to everyone. :hi:

that nursing homes take better care of the elderly than families do. I made no such claim about families over nursing homes although I did say that the care my own grandmother got from us was much better than the care available to her otherwise. So, when I asked you to back up your claim, that was a real question because that is outside of my experience.

Taking care of her ourselves meant we'd never show up to the hospital and find her hand swollen to the size of a grapefruit because the IV was in wrong or find her sweating from days of constipation that she couldn't speak to protest or find sores breaking out on her bottom from not being moved and so on. Ironically, it was all the stuff Warpy mentioned but we found it in the very best hospital in Silicon Valley. It got to the point that one of us would be with her around the clock whenever she had to be hospitalized and then, eventually, we refused to allow her to be hospitalized when it was just to cover some doctor's @ss and not for her actual benefit.

And frankly, I don't know how to work with someone that is so judgmental of cultural practices that they don't know. It's one thing to say, I don't understand that and I don't think I like it. It's quite another to assert all these weird negative claims about people who live differently than you do.

And, btw, I am also a single woman who is currently unemployed and not living in my extended family.

Who is being judgemental of "cultural practices" besides you? I NEVER claimed that nursing homes provided better care than families. YOU did. I'm glad your family is in a such a position to closely monitor your grandmother's care. Mine isn't.

What is your problem?

Seriously. So uncalled for.

But, thanks anyway.

In my families case just the opposite was done.

To make a VERY long story short my mom and uncle were put up for adoption when they were very young. After they both grew up my mom found her birth mother and made contact. Over the years relationships were remade not just with her mother but with all of her siblings. Fastfoward 20 years to 2001.

My mom retired and after several trips to Illinois she decided to move there and help take care of her mother. She bought a small trailer (ironically exactly like one her an I lived in when I was a child) and found a job at the local hospital answering the phones. As her mothers health got worse the siblings (7 out of a total of 14) got together and come up with a schedule to take care of her.

Now, this is in a small, and I mean SMALL town of 1600 so most of the town knew what was going on so they had help from the town as well. Anyways, The ONLY time my grandmother was in a nursing home was after she broke her hip and needed specialized care for a while as her hip healed. Anyways, she came home from the nursing home and spent her last days in HER home, in HER bed with her family around her 24/7. My wife and I made 2 trips within a weeks time to be with her, the first one as she was starting to fail so she could recognize us and we could say goodbye to her while she was awake enough to know we were there. The by the following week we were there as she died, family around her holding her as she took her last breath.

Fast foward 3 years to my grandparents that I grew up with. The ones that adopted my mom and uncle. They WERE in an assisted living facility, not because nobody wanted to be troubled with them but because they were suffering from advanced Alzhimers and needed specialized care. This facility is less than a mile from where they lived so my Mom, Aunt and 1 uncle rotated time with them until they both died. I was there for all that I could as I live over an hour away and between my wife and my schedules we could not get down as much as we wanted. The ONLY person that died alone was my father, but that was his choice as he was ready to go and waited until everybody was gone except the home health aid but that is another story that is VERY hard for me to think about as we were very close and he died the day before my birthday this year, so this is still very emotional for me right now.

Basically, what I am trying to say not everybody warehouses their old folks and even if we do not have everybody living close many of us do make arrangements and work things out to take care of our families as we see fit.

It was what she wanted, and it was a fantastic place.

Some of these comments are so one-sided.

unneccessary brain surgery because her doctors couldn't figure out that her drip was tanking her vitals. My own grandmother had a stroke and was having trouble breathing and the EMTs wouldn't give her oxygen because she was still breathing. It was enough to really drive you mad.

The elderly are vulnerable and in this society, they need advocates. I'm all for what works for people. In our case, what worked was keeping my Mami at home in our care. We had too many near misses to trust her anywhere else. Maybe that was our bad luck but I doubt it. Nursing homes are run as profit enterprises and that's often in conflict with the needs of the residents.

We didn't have communal living when I was growing up, but much of my family all lived in the same town. I grew up living close to both my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and cousins. My hometown was devastated by the auto industry shutting down most of its assembly plants, and most of my family has since disbursed all over the country. I'm sad that my kids aren't growing up with a nearby extended family the way I did.

of that policy.

Hekate also brings up a great point - the US was founded by people who left their extended families in the first place, looking for a different life.

As I, myself, have discovered: no one moves 1,000 or more miles away from their family because they're getting all the support they need, you know?

On top of all that, commercial/capital forces have almost always been at play. "Go west, young man," was one of the first great marketing campaigns in modern history, and it was put together by and for those who wanted people to consolidate our foothold in the new world and exploit its resources.

No one here would argue that extended families under one roof are always a bad idea; many here understand, through first hand experience, that all families, extended or otherwise, are not created equally. A bad family is something you flee from.

'nuff said

:shrug:

But, honestly, I am so GLAD I don't live with my relatives!

that unless that's how you grew up, it would be really difficult. If you dealt with that early on, that would be normal. If you come to it late, not so much.

Dad, too.

Both much preferred to have distance between them and their extended families.

My best friend grew up in India, then went to school in Europe, now lives here. She visits her very large family in India on a regular basis, but never wants to go back. I asked her daughter recently if she would ever want to live with the family in India and she said: "No way!"

They are happy living here, just the 4 of them in a nice suburban home.

It's in no way small or cramped and they love living near their parents. My aunt is ill and in her late seventies. I don't know how much age figured in to it. My cousins are professionals and could have stayed here in San Francisco but seem to be happier where they are now. They like that their kids are growing up with their grandparents, aunts and uncles. But then, they grew up in that setting so it's not as though it's weird or foreign but more like a homecoming. :)

but zoning laws prohibit you from establishing a similar living arrangement with people who are unrelated to you.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I'll take my freedom over living with my family any day of the week.

physically, psychologically, or in both ways, by members of our immediate or extended family? The prospect of living with, or even caring for our abusers is fraught with risk, for us, and for them as well.

I've known extended families with both positive (nana spending her last days w/bladder cancer in the family home, not a hospice) and the negative (extremely controlling parents in same family). Over all, I'd have to say that reliance on (and servitude within) an extended family works very well in many cases, but not by any means does it fit everyone's needs.

This isn't a "one size fits all" proposition.

Frankly, I think we'd be better off resolving poverty and economic inequality by continuing to advance the progressive political agenda, rather than encouraging those most injured by serious malpractice on the part of our financial and political leaders to fall back on conservative lifestyles which are neither appealing nor feasible to all (or even most) U.S. residents.

Hippys been doing it for decades now.

I have about 100 cousins, over 20 aunts and uncles. I keep in touch with them through e-mail and facebook. I text my mom and sister daily. I'm usually hundreds of miles away from all of these people and I'm happy that way. I go to the reunion every summer, weddings, graduations and funerals.

I love my family, but I don't want to live with them or be dependent on them or have them be forced to depend on me for care. Social safety nets were developed in part so that people would have more freedom to move to where available jobs and good schools are. I still don't think our goal should be to move towards reducing those freedoms.

:)

If we're in a deflationary spiral or a hyperinflationary situation, your freedoms will be reduced by the "self-correcting market" and you'll be happy that your aunt was there to shoot the guy who attacked you during your daring run out to the shed to get the canned mandarin oranges you all hope will protect against scurvy.

to land the thing.

lol

And the central planning committee has designed a point-and-click parachute to get each and every one of us outta here if we so desire.

Geronimo......

lol

:hug:

:hug:

If your family abused you, then don't go back.

The OP was a suggestion, as I read it, of a possible solution should the poverty get you in this country. It was an historical/geographical examination from which a solution could be distilled.
If the details, as they apply to you, are no solution... then they are no solution.

Pick and choose and create your own solution. A wider palette from which to pick and choose ideas (maybe you were not previously familiar with the extended family idea as a modern option... or maybe you just never thought to consider it) is never a bad thing. If you don't like a color from a palette... or an idea for a social dilemma solution... then pick another.

Heh, and yeah, obviously a progressive political agenda that solved the underlying economic issues and created enough wealth so that poverty wasn't a problem would be wonderful... but GWB managed to take office twice... so there's no telling what sort of 'tard one might have to contend with in the (hopefully distant) future... not to mention the current effects of... GWB's lingering stink.
Hell, if you don't like your family and don't have to move in with them... and couldn't give a shit if they need someone to move in with... then by all means.. this thread should be ignored.

That's because my parents were experts at living frugally.

So it never felt like I was in a poor family.

Instead, it felt like I was part of a family where all of our needs were somehow met by our parents.

And, on that rare occasion, we sometimes got what we wanted too.

But you can't live frugally unless you know the difference between a need and a want.

My parents did.

And now my daughter is learning that critical difference so that she can pass it on to her young ones.

If she lives long enough to have 'em.

if we become members of a community that shares its assets with its members.

Whether that community is a biological family or a religious organization or local community group.

The structural aspects of the community are not that important.

What will be important is...

that everyone shares what they have with each other.

It's the willingness to share that makes a community a community.

Not blood.

Or ideological alignment.

Sharing defines a community, more than any other ingredient.

IBTL

Yes, I agree... but with a caveat.

We seem to like to differentiate between the old rich and the new rich, when we speak of the rich. The old has old money, and the new has new money.

But we regress from just as easily differentiating the poor. Those who have never had and still don't, and those who had but no longer do.

Ever notice that many of us are a lot more interested in in one impoverished group than the other? Care to guess which one that is?

The poor will always be with us, as someone once said. Perhaps he or she was observing that we get a lot more outraged when those who had no longer have, than we do when those who never had still don't.

:spank:

lol

Arrrghghghghgghhh

Lock this fucker already!

:rofl:

that sharing resources works. The poster just up thread pointed out that it's not the blood kin part but the sharing that is important. That pretty much makes this thread a Communist threat. :)

the moniker of "communalist" on my mug shot, instead of "communist".

There is a significant distinction between the two, as I tried to outlime in another thread.

:)

As my favorite writer says: "Communalism? No one cared about the 'German community' more than Hitler."

ethnocentric communalist, I would've said ethnocentric communalist.

I tend to say what I mean.

As it is, I omitted ethnocentric for a reason.

That's because my communalism isn't premised on ethnicity.

You don't have to live with and pass wealthy through your family to have a system of people who take care of each other. On edit: And with my parents too, if they need to live with us.

as girls go to their husband's houses...

Sorry, but am not interested in that system for my daughters!

I am of Southerner in USA. That was the way of my family. When I was growning up, I had no baby sitter...no nursing home for my elder relatives, we all pitched in to take care of each other. Currently, Mom is living with me since she has dementia so I am her caretaker. My sisters and brother have helped out greatly.

Proud of you! Thank you for your post!

How long has it been and how is it going for you?

Extended family...lived all together to make ends meet. Uncles, aunts, grandparents.

As soon as we had money, we moved. Nobody chooses to live like that because it sucks. It's simply born out of necessity. If we had to, we would go back to it. But if we can avoid it, we will.

And you can still always ask family member to babysit...my aunt babysat us while my mom worked because my aunt was a stay at home mom. But living in one house...major suckage.

i.e., built for a nuclear family and not an extended family, and you could add on to them so that everyone would have their own space, that would be something different, no?

Finding suitable property, with the ability to expand, isn't easy. Especially in the city. Yeah, it wouldn't suck to live in an extended home if the house was huge, or even a small neighborhood, but it isn't realistic at this point. Not that it couldn't be if we restructured other aspects of our countries, but as it is now.....

Meh.,

We have to go where the jobs are which forces us to disperse.

My father and mother are from Missouri but ended up in Georgia because my father had to join the military for his career.

My brother ended up moving to NYC because he is in advertising.

My own engineering career has forced me to relocate many times.

Most Americans have no choice but to continually keep relocating to find a decent job since the mid 1980's anyways because all the good stable manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas and companies keep moving the high tech jobs around to where they perceive the labor and real estate costs to be the cheapest at any given time.

The result is that communities are in chaos and living with your kinfolk is not an option unless you want to work at WalMart or the McDonald's drive through for minimum wage.

The solution would be to truly force telecommuting on the American business world so that people could work out of their homes and not have to continually relocate around the country to keep a decent job. We would need to greatly expand broadband access and find some combination of regulation and tax incentives to make this possible but I think it is necessary.

Hopefully I will soon be in a position of telecommuting but this is truly the exception in the U.S.A, not the rule.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

the extended family existed in the US, up until the 1950s pretty intact

It started to change as people moved away to to college

Then the 1960s saw more pressure and the structure started to fail

Finally it completely failed as not only families moved away, but every adult member of the household was put under intense pressure to go out and get a job.

This is highly simplified, but this is what happened

The structure may come back, for social pressures are starting to be there forcing us to go back

As is, my sis and I live in the same city, and we function like an extended family