Quick Question for the Loungers about being poor...

[JesterCS]

If you have no job, no income, and still live at home. Would you consider that poor? I do, because I live it everyday, but apparently I was "being mean" to someone saying that, Even though it was not meant as a hit against them.

So again, is that considered poor? I think so.

[rug]

1. You can still be poor with a roof over your head.

If you think twice before buying a cup of coffee you're poor even if you buy it.

[In_The_Wind]

13. We stopped buying coffee out if we have the option of taking a go_cup from home.

I totally agree with that rug.

I fix something to snack on and take a drink with me.
I have for years, since the ponzie.

[JesterCS]

2. yeah see

a friend of mine basically chewed me out because I said I was giving them a recliner for free because I know their poor and cant afford furniture.

[Lil Missy]

3. I agree.

[mvd]

4. I relate. I used to be middle to upper middle class but..

Am lucky to be considered lower middle class now. Since I have some support I guess I am not poor, but it is not an insult.

[HarveyDarkey]

5. Depends on a lot of things, primarily age (assuming by home you meant your parent's place)

Are you 19 & just out of high school? Not so much.
Are you 50? Yeah, I'd say so.

[JesterCS]

8. Re:

I'm 31 and live with parents. He's 26 and lives with his.

[eShirl]

6. Do you mean you both "have no job, no income, and still live at home" ?

Maybe they are taking it as a slam along the lines of "my family is better off than yours, so here's some charity."

[JesterCS]

7. basically it all started

When I said I might be able to give them a recliner or two, another friend offered to pay for one of them, because she needed it, so I told them they could have the other free. Apparently that wasn't good enough and they felt entitled to both chairs.

[eShirl]

9. sorry, it's late and I can't keep whicj one did/said what straight

[JesterCS]

11. Sorry sometimes

I just write and dont think.


Friend 1. Wanted both recliners. I said Id think about it.
Friend 2. Said she wanted to buy one. So I said ok. Because I could use the money
Friend 1. Got pissed that he wasn't getting both recliners
Friend 1. Argued about it with me and I said sorry, but that's how it is.

Friend 1. I then told him I was giving it to him FREE because I know he's poor and needs it.
Friend 1. Calls and chews me out for saying he's poor.

[eShirl]

12. Friend 1 sounds stressed out.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

10. You were projecting your own value system onto somebody else.

It's one thing for you to consider yourself poor, another to call someone else poor. It's no different from saying..."I am stupid" vs "You are stupid"

[ConcernedCanuk]

16. I think there is quite a difference between calling someone poor,

.
.
.

or calling them stupid.

I was poor, and it DID take me a while to admit it.

If one has to live with someone else, parents or otherwise because of financial issues, that's poor.

Living with people because you WANT to live with them is a different thing.

But again, I believe most people are not "bums", living off of others just to save their own $$.

If ya got no $$, and ya want to survive, then you are dependent on others.

In my 62 years, I've learned that most people do NOT like being dependent on others, that includes the "class" we call "welfare bums". I've been there on and off for over 20 years, dealt with the Welfare workers who make ten times what they dole out - and scrimp on every benefit they could give you.

So I been poor, no shame in that, but I do know that some have a hard time coming to terms with that, me being one of them.

If ya got no income, no place of your own, no $$, ...

You are poor.

CC

[Sekhmets Daughter]

18. Perhaps I did not make my point clearly enough....

The issue is not whether someone IS poor, but whether anyone has the right to call them poor.

The explanation can be found in your own statement: I was poor, and it DID take me a while to admit it. How favorably would you have accepted the designation 'poor' before coming to admit it to yourself?

It is fine for you to say about yourself... However, telling someone who has not yet come to accept that they are, in fact, poor is as insulting to them as calling them stupid, worthless, or any other pejorative you care to name. IMO

[zeeland]

14. I was very poor growing-up

but didn't know I was poor until later in life when
I was financial safe. Now I'm not poor but live like I am
because I'm happy this way.

Maybe your friend doesn't feel poor.

[caraher]

15. It can be an emotionally loaded word

so there's no one-size-fits-all answer based on circumstances.

It sounds like what you meant by it was something like "you don't have lots of money to spend on furniture" which is more value-neutral. But it can be taken as a sign of moral failure by some, even if that's not what you meant.

I guess for me "being poor" implies a certain level of material deprivation. Merely having limited disposable income wouldn't imply someone is among "the poor" as I typically think of the term. So I can easily see how someone might take the use of that word as a suggestion by someone else that they aren't capable of providing for their basic needs, which in turn some take to be a measure of worth.

[OriginalGeek]

17. It's generally considered bad form to point out that someone is poor.

You have to be pretty close friends to get away with it.

The fact that he was pissed about it may indicate that you 2 are not as close as you may have thought.


My very best friends in the world know I'm a broke-ass mofo (Although I am certainly better off than a lot of folks these days). We can joke about it all day and no harm done. But that wouldn't fly with acquaintances and/or business associates.

[LancetChick]

19. I agree.

I would never call anyone poor. It implies a certain class of people, something you just "are" rather than a stepping stone or temporary state on the way to what you are meant to be. My conservative family members think of "the poor" as a permanent subculture, and welfare recipients as permanent leeches. A lot of people feel this way, and so the word "poor" translates as "non-achieving", and that's not a good thing to call someone who would jump at the chance to make a living wage.