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preschools can help ensure that all children get a strong start in life, especially those from low-income or disadvantaged households.

The Nordic countries perform best at preschool, and European countries dominate the rankings.

especially so in very unequal societies where you get generational and cyclical repetition of poverty and low achievement.”

As economies increasingly compete on the quality of their human capital, policymakers need to ensure that all children get the best possible preparation for primary school.

Finland, Sweden and Norway top the Index, thanks to sustained, long-term investments and prioritisation of early childhood development, which is now deeply embedded in society

Europe’s state-led systems perform well, as the provision of universal preschool has steadily become a societal norm. This trend continues to develop. Ireland introduced a universal free year of preschool in 2010, for example, despite chronic budgetary difficulties

also a major force in helping overcome issues relating to child poverty and educational disadvantage

not to suggest that quality preschool programmes are lacking in these countries. But such schemes are not available or affordable to all strands of society, while minimum quality standards vary widely

Many high-income countries rank poorly, despite wealth being a major factor in a country’s ability to deliver preschool services

For emerging countries seeking to improve their innovative potential, they need to ensure that as many children as possible have a strong start in life. This is a crucial first step as they seek to transform their economies from low to high value-add activities.

Public sector spending cuts pose a major threat to preschools, especially among recent adopters

especially true within countries where preschool provision is not yet a societal norm,

increased government investment in early childhood development, if directed well, can result in annual returns ranging from 8% to 17%, which largely accrue to wider society. Such returns come from the reduced need for later remedial education and spending, as well as lower crime and less welfare reliance in later life, among other things.

Among wealthier countries that are making considerable steps towards quality universal provision, many have yet to enforce even a minimum level of preschool as a legal right for children.

effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant

The movement validated intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities: both new aesthetic categories

r, and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape

made spontaneity a desirable characteristic

argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities, as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usag

Romanticism embraced the exotic, the unfamiliar, and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape

elevated folk art and ancient custom to a noble status

the events of and ideologies that led to the French Revolution planted the seeds from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment sprouted

in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism

Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of 'heroic' individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society

In order to truly express these feelings, the content of the art must come from the imagination of the artist, with as little interference as possible from "artificial" rules dictating what a work should consist of

The importance the Romantics placed on untrammelled feeling is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that "the artist's feeling is his law"

vouched for the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art

the influence of models from other works would impede the creator's own imagination, so originality was absolutely essential

The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own original work through this process of "creation from nothingness", is key to Romanticism, and to be derivative was the worst sin

romantic originality.

a strong belief and interest in the importance of nature. However this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone

In contrast to the usually very social art of the Enlightenment, Romantics were distrustful of the human world, and tended to believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy

in literature, "much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves"

by the middle of the 18th century "romantic" in English and romantique in French were both in common use as adjectives of praise for natural phenomena such as views and sunsets, in a sense close to modern English usage but without the implied sexual element

only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Académie française took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature

Romanticism is not easily defined, and the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought

Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848"

In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different; musical Romanticism, for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–48.[23] However in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlie

early period of the Romantic Era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the Napoleonic Wars until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism

t was part of the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment, is generally accepted

ts relationship to the French Revolution which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions

ost Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but a considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views

In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the very idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like the melting away of the very notion of objective truth",[27] and hence not only to nationalism, but also fascism and totalitarianism

The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice — church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste — is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative

An earlier definition comes from Charles Baudelaire: "Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling."

The end of the Romantic era is marked in some areas by a new style of Realism, which affected literature, especially the novel and drama, painting, and even music, through Verismo opera

movement was led by France, with Balzac and Flaubert in literature and Courbet in painting; Stendhal and Goya were important precursors of Realism in their respective media

In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "sensibility" with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and "pure" nature

Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were the chief qualities of a poet

1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament

Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism

Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, and Germanic myths

The later German Romanticism of, for example, E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann (The Sandman), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff's Das Marmorbild (The Marble Statue), 1819, was darker in its motifs and has gothic elements

The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance to folk literature, non-classical mythology and children's literature, above all in Germany

The first collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm was published in 1812

Unlike the much later work of Hans Christian Andersen, who was publishing his invented tales in Danish from 1835, these German works were at least mainly based on collected folk tales, and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their early editions, though later rewriting some parts

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.

Being poor is staying with a man who beats your kids because you can’t afford to keep them out of foster care without his salary.

Being poor means making decisions like “is stealing food a sin” outside of an ethics class.

Being poor is realizing that heating and eating will probably be mutually exclusive this month.

Being poor is discovering that that letter from Duke University, naming you as one of three advanced students in your class invited to test out of HS early into their scholarship program, is just so much firestarter because the $300 it costs to take the test may as well be $3 million.

Despair is finally realizing, at nearly 36 and with a barely-afforded AA in English from a community college, just where you could have been by now had you had $300, and what that missed opportunity has truly cost you.

Being poor is understanding that the lowest, poorest, starvingest time of the month for anyone on public assistance is exactly when Katrina hit.

Being poor is taking a cash advance from the credit card–to pay the credit card minimum bill.

Being poor is trying to decide which one of you gets to eat today – the one of you that is pregnant or the one of you that can work.

Being poor is a sick, dreadful feeling of your stomach dropping out when the phone rings, because you know it’s a bill collector and you know you’ll pick it up anyway on a one in a million chance someone does want to hire you.

Being poor is laying down because it hurts to breathe and you are pregnant, but you can’t afford to go to the hospital.

Being poor is crying when $50 bill you didn’t expect gets taken from your paycheck.

Being poor means never forgeting that the bills aren’t paid.

Growing up poor is spending the rest of your life trying to escape (and never realizing that you have)

Being poor means looking at life in such a different way that most people can’t imagine it.

Being poor means being grateful that you’re living paycheck to paycheck.

Growing up poor means you feel guilty when you escape, because your siblings didn’t.

Being poor means saving the plastic containers and jars from yogurt or spaghetti sauce so you can take milk with you to school in your lunch after they lower the income limit for free lunches and your mom makes $3 more than the limit.

Being poor is choosing between the lesser of two evils and not realizing it.

Being poor is a motivator to never be as poor as your parents.

Being poor makes you appreciate everything you’ve earned.

Being poor gives you the ability to look at supporting your still poor mother as an honor not a burden.

Being poor is worrying that someday you will wake up, find yourself lying beneath a blanket in the back of that station wagon and realizing that your escape and rise was just a dream.

Being poor is a month with 28 spaghetti dinners, 2 invitations over to eat, and a day without.

Being poor is carrying your fiancee to the hospital to miscarry, then using their phone to call around for someone to take you back home, since there aren’t beds for Medicare patients.

Being poor is wondering what sort of fool drops a penny on the ground and doesn’t pick it up.

Being poor is wondering what to say when your friends ask you to join them for coffee in the campus coffee shop, and you can’t because you thought you had a couple bucks cash but you must have left it in your coat at home, and so you have to use all the change you dug up from under the seat for gas to get home after classes.

Being poor is pretending to any major, religion or career interest to get free pizza on campus.

Being poor means dreading getting a Christmas present from the Fireman’s Charity, because you’ll end up on TV and everybody at school will find out.

Being poor is wearing the same dress to school every day for four months, then getting “new” clothes from the church for Christmas and changing your clothes three times in one day because you can.

Being poor means not being able to take a better job because the shift ends are after the busses stop running, and you don’t feel safe walking the two miles home after dark.

Why is is so hard to remember poverty once you get past it, if you get past it? Why is it so hard to empathize with poverty if you have never had it? What the hell is wrong with us?

Being poor means learning firsthand the meaning of words like “eviction,” “garnishee,” “repossess,” and “transient motel.”

Being poor means paying a premium on food and goods at local stores that jack up prices for being in a poor neighborhood, or simply because they can.

Being poor means buying bread at the “day old store” even though it’s a lot older than one day.

Being poor means paying high prices for exprired meat at the bodega, because there isn’t a supermarket chain willing to open a store in your neighborhood.

Being poor means your 10 cent an hour raise is almost negated by the 25 cent increase in bus fare.

Being poor means watching your disabled child get worse and worse because you can’t afford the therapies.

Being poor means having your life gone over with a fine tooth comb to see if you’re bad enough to help.

Being poor is feeling ashamed when your ‘peers’ slam WalMart, and talk about buying organic, and the horrors of driving gass-guzzling cars, all while wondering why you repeatedly find ways to not join them at $15/plate social dinners.

Being poor is avoiding spending time with people you care about, because you don’t want to have to answer “how are you doing?”.

Being poor is having your best friend’s mother compliment her for hanging out with you–shows good moral fiber, don’t you know.

Being poor is having your mum scrimp and save to get you the latest “in” thing, just as it goes out of style. (But you wear it anyway, so she doesn’t feel bad, and then all the kids at school make fun of you.)

Being poor is being the family that everybody knows it’s okay to pick on.

Being poor is having your house egged and a firecracker tossed through your front door because some kid thought it was funny.

Being poor is losing your special lunch card and seeing the snotty kid across the street find it, chop it up with scissors, and return the pieces to you.

Being poor means going to a church school on a Pell grant and trying to get your associate degree in one year, because you know your sibs are close on your tail, and your family has barely enough money to send you.

Being poor takes time. Time to wait in line for the reduced-price clinic while gathering all your paperwork, and hoping you have it in order so you won’t be sent home to get one little slip of paperwork. Time to wait in line at the food bank, where people fight to get to the one box of expired Entemann’s first. Time that you spend walking back home or waiting beside your POS car because it broke down for the umpteenth time. Time that you spend at your minimum wage fast food job after hours because you really don’t want to go home, and the manager might just feed you.

Being poor means that if you pull yourself up and stop being ‘poor,’ you will still be struggling and behind, because a large chunk of your money will go toward cleaning up all the stopgaps, mistakes, and overcharges you accumulated when you were poor.

Being poor is everything gets washed by hand in the bathtub with the smallest amount of dollar-store detergent.

Being poor means choosing between a cup of coffee, a newspaper, or a load at the laundrymat. You can’t have all three, or even two of them. ever.

Being poor is everything must be mended, pinned, taped, glued or stapled for a little more use.

Being poor means two or three jobs, and never enough time, sleep, or money. never.

John, thanks for this. This is so spot-on it hurts. And I don’t have to do any of these things any more, but you really don’t ever forget what it’s like to do them.

Being poor is really, really pushing your two-year old during potty training, because diapers are really, really expensive.

Being poor means that you laugh hysterically when you watch the financial planning segments on the Today Show, because the thought of starting a college fund for your child is so far beyond the pale that if you don’t laugh, you’ll start to cry and you’ll never stop.

Being poor means that three years after you’re not poor anymore, you still know exactly what everything costs; you still feel like a dinner at Chili’s or even Wendy’s is a huge splurge; and you still feel like you can’t afford to buy a six dollar belt at Target. And you still buy ramen.

Being poor is obviously your fault, even though the biggest, fattest reason you had to file bankruptcy in the first place was because your husband frivolously got cancer while laid off. How silly of him! And then he couldn’t find a new job until he was done with treatment because oddly, employers are shy of hiring bald, vomiting people with IV ports taped into their arms.

Being poor is being horrified when you see a very young person from your area with an arm, neck, or hand tattoo, not because corporate America generally bans such things… but because fast-food and retail America does, too.

Being poor is being bumped by somebody carrying a Prada tote bag on your way to pick up your paycheck… and instantly realizing, without having to calculate, that in terms of actual cash value, the tote bag is worth far more than the paycheck.

Being poor means selling blood plasma and signing up for every medical experiment they’ll let you into, and breezing past the disclaimer form because, really, are you going to give up $100 just because you may be risking injury or death from whatever they’re giving you?

- Being poor is spending money you know you don’t have on a candybar because you need something to cheer yourself up enough to get out of bed.

Being poor is sleeping everyone to one bed so you’re a little bit warmer.

Being poor is having friends who’s parents won’t let them sleep over because you live in that part of town.

Being poor is not caring that starchy carbs are bad for you, rice and pasta are cheap, and it’s either that, or nothing at all.

Being poor is the lunchlady feeling bad for you so she sneaks you leftovers from after all the classes have eaten, for you to take home for dinner.

Being poor is learning to like skim milk because it’s a nickel cheaper than whole.

Being poor means your husband is working – when he can get work – at Labor Ready, and you’re at the food bank. Being poor means your husband is sharing his main meal of the day with someone who hasn’t eaten for three days.

Being poor is rejoicing the fact you miscarried

Being poor is becoming a stripper just to make the rent, and hating yourself for it.

Being poor is washing up in public bathrooms and sampling fragrances at the department store so you don’t smell bad.

Being poor is sleeping in stairwells.

Being poor means mom and dad do not sit and eat dinner with you. They eat after the kids are done with what’s left. Dad’s dinner is wiping clean the bits from the frying pan with a piece of bread.(He still does that out of habit just like grandpa.)

Being poor is not having sex because you can’t afford birth control and you’re smart enough to not get pregnant

Being poor is rejoicing in the fact that after five years, the color of your expired vehicle tags has cycled back around, and there’s less of a chance of getting pulled over for your 2001 tags.

Being poor is counting your food money for the week and knowing you will have to walk the two miles to the grocery with three children under the age of six.

Being poor is hearing your daughter tell you twenty years later that she finally realized that ‘Mommy already ate, sweetie’ was a lie.

Being poor is not being able to afford to pursue the ex who owes you child support.

Being poor is having a judge give him custody because HE isn’t poor.

Being broke is making a meal and sitting the kids down at the table, and sipping a glass of watered down powedered milk while they eat.

Poor never seems to leave us completely. No matter what we do or have done, we will always be haunted by the tears and shame of poverty. The worst part: even if our kids escape, THEY REMEMBER forever. A legacy we’d rather not give.

Being poor is having someone tell you that if you own _____ (A car, a TV, a bed) then you really aren’t poor, & realizing they’re either stupid, or worse off than you

Being poor means a 4 hours of commuting for a 6 hour shift.

Being poor means putting a beloved pet to sleep because you can’t afford the vet bill.

Being formerly poor means that your never-poor spouse resents the hell out of the fact that you still give your mom and siblings money – money that could have gone to “our” family. It means your spouse never quite thinks of your family as her family too because the resentment is there.

Being poor is throwing up six times a day because you are pregnant and don’t have health care. Being poor means that you can’t even scrape together enough change to ride the bus to the neonatal clinic, and it’s the middle of summer and too far to walk. Being poor means pondering an abortion because you know everybody around you is equally strapped for cash, you only get one meal a day, and you don’t see that changing in the immediate future. Being poor means after much tears and thought, when you finally decide to have the abortion, you have to borrow the money to get it done. Being poor means that if you’d kept the baby, some rich people would accuse you of abusing the welfare system. Being poor means that by getting the abortion, some rich people accuse you of murder. Being poor means weeks of crying and hating yourself.

being poor is mom and dad being humiliated saturday and sunday to pay your failed attempt at the american dream, because first you’re not american, second you are not rich, third you are not america educated, and all those dollar-master slavering world wonderpeople can tell you, making fun, is: born in the wrong country pal, hahaha.

being poor is working hard and never had worked enough.

Being poor makes you appreciate the value of free napkins, plastic food utensils, matches, condiment packages, plastic bags, or any other giveaway item of use in the home.

Being poor means never having leftovers.

FYI: Nick Mamatas has a few additions to the list (from an international perspective) here.

pictruandtru: you, more than anyone else here, need to read John’s article over and over again, until you get it. It was you he wrote it for. Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.

Being poor (or having been poor) means you know that if there is a devistating economic crisis, you will know how to survive when those who never were poor are paralized with fear. Being poor is knowing you are strong and resourceful.

As a born-and-bred welfare kid raised by TV and cheap supermarket off-brands, I see my mother in many of these statements. She worked so hard to raise herself out of crushing poverty, with little or no useful help from the government or well-meaning “liberals” with social-science degrees that I can only shake my head and wonder how it was I got out of the poverty trap at all. I think I was just lucky. I also happen to be white and male, and I’m reasonably sure in today’s world this is a certain advantage.

Being poor means that someone who has never been poor will never really understand what it’s like.

Being poor means you no longer have to fill out the forms at the ‘payday loan store’ because they have your information memorized.

I joined the military so they would fix my teeth. I brushed everyday. And flossed. But never had dental insurance. Only got cleanings maybe once in my childhood.

The point is when something goes wrong, for whatever reason, being poor means your options are limited, and what options you have are often likely to cause you pain.

When you’re middle-class or well-off, you can absorb a certain amount of the crap life throws at you. When you’re poor, you really can’t.

Being poor means understanding that Internet flamewars are a tragic waste of time better used bettering yourself. Use that time and effort to build yourself up rather than tear a stranger down- you’ll feel better afterward.

Being poor means being stuck around people who want you to continue to be poor.

Being poor means not being able to take advantage of all the really great sales that come along — because they only seem to happen when you don’t have the money in hand.

Being poor is having the grocery store checker give you dirty looks and make comments to the next customer about “my tax dollars being wasted” when you use food stamps to buy a day-old cake on sale and a package of birthday candles for your child. Being poor is being overwhelmingly grateful that the next person in line says to the checker, “I can’t think of a better use for my tax dollars than to pay for a poor child to have a birthday, you heartless prick.”

I still use tea-bags twice. I won’t eat ramen, because I ate far too much for too long. I consider myself well-off because I have a lot of books and I never skip a meal. I know exactly how much things cost, and shop at two supermarkets because one has cheaper prices on produce and meat, and the other has cheaper canned goods. And I know the usual price of everything I buy on a regular basis, so I know whether the “sale” price is really a good deal. And when it is, I stock up, just in case.

I worked for a bank for a while after finishing my bachelor’s degree, and here’s what I learned: Being poor means the bank doesn’t want you as a customer. Being poor means you will pay the highest fees for every service. Being poor means you will pay the highest interest on any loan. On the other hand– Being rich means all service charges will be waived on your accounts, because you’re a preferred customer. Being rich means never waiting in line, because the bank manager greets you when you come in and takes you to a customer service representative who handles your transactions.

Being poor is knowing how to sew.

Being poor is having a lower Social Security number than your classmates in high school, because you had to get one young to get welfare.

Being poor is finding prostitution a valid way to pay the electrical bill, and then lying to your spouse about where the money came from.

Being poor is exploding at the old lady who has taken all the 20c bread at the day-old store to feed to the fraggin’ SQUIRRELS.

Being less poor is living close enough to work and the store and the library to walk and NOT have to buy gas.

Being less poor is 10c for a packet of seeds that produces zucchini in your yard all summer.

I tell you this not to display my saintliness, but to put into perspective a conversation I have not infrequently with other members of my profession: ME: …no, I’m really tense about this case. If we lose, Mrs. Smith and her nephew have nowhere to go. She’s on a fixed income. What if I screw up and it costs them their apartment? OTHER LAWYER: Wow. Well, it could be worse. I mean, what if it were a big commercial-litigation case, and you screwed THAT up, and lost twenty million dollars for the client? At least the pro bono cases are over, what, five hundred dollars or something? (Pop Quiz: do you think the Other Lawyers who make such remarks have ever been poor?)

Being poor means you don’t count (unless you are pretty).

Being poor is never looking down on a man begging for change, mainly because you have seriously considered doing it.

Being poor is having the luck and luxury of growing up rich and having no resources whatsoever when you are tossed out of your parents house with no money for “the gay thing” because it’s an embarrasment to daddy and his ilk.

Being poor is making the rent and bills by six dollars and not having any left over for grocery shopping that week because that six dollars is for gas to get to work.

Being rich to poor means your parents make too damn much for you to get student loans so you have no way of getting any help, whatsoever.

Being rich to poor means that you can’t fathom how your family of two that you no longer live with lives in a 5500 square foot house.

Being rich to poor is your dad telling you it’s strange you don’t have a car, when you are paying for college on your own and he has just bought your younger, non-gay sibling, a BMW.

Being rich to poor is when your father visits your new apartment – the one you’re making it all on your own in – and tells you to move because you’re living “in a ghetto” as he drives home in his Mercedes.

Being poor means burning in shame because this is the most you could afford and you spent hours cleaning before he arrived.

Being rich to poor is being too ashamed to leave my name on this.

And being poor means you will probably be punished because you *did* leave

Being poor means teaching yourself to not notice feeling hungry.

Being poor means people making fun of your weight and calling you “anorexic” when you’ve been unable to have more than one meal a day.

Being poor is knowing you’re always under a microscope: Human Services, Housing Assistance, Social Security…but also, your friends, your family, and strangers who seem to think you’re lazy, unmotivated, or stupid for being in the situation you’re in.

Being poor is scraping enough money to go home to your family for Christmas and not having any gifts for them.

Being poor is using your stamps to buy pints of milk in glass bottles, then sitting outside of the supermarket, drinking the milk, rinsing out the bottle, and trading it in for a dollar cash so you can afford the co-pay on your prescriptions.

Being poor is never being able to afford to see a doctor for monthly cramps so bad they make you miss work; spending month after month for years hoping they just go away; and then finally getting seen and told you’re going to be infertile for the rest of your life, and that you could have avoided this had you come in sooner.

Being poor is sitting on a dusty brick sidewalk with a cheap recorder and a Goodwill hat, enduring snotty yuppie tourists, high school boys who make innuendos or say “get a day job”, police officers saying “You’re not doing anything illegal, but…”, and threats of physical violence from drunks, all in the hopes that someone will deign to put a dollar in.

Being poor is realizing that you will do just about anything necessary to feed your kids, including giving a blow job to a guy for $10.

Fifteen years ago, when I started in at a school, the packed that home room teachers got contained for each kid on opening day: 1 schedule, 1 emergency info form, 1 student handbook, 1 athletic dept. handbook 1 insurance form (AD&D plus emergency med. for school-related activities) and for a class of 20, three or four free/reduced lunch forms. You were supposed to give these to the students who asked for them, and get more if they weren’t enough. No one understood why I threw a hissy fit and made sure that there was one form per kid, just like all the other paperwork. Sometimes things do get slightly better. We now have cafeteria swipe cards, and the free kids and paying kids both just swipe their cards. The difference is that the paying kids have to top off their card balances with cash periodically.

Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about a utility bill that is the cost of your rent.

Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about half your years wages that he made in a week’s time.

Poor is living next to a crack house, being on a first name basis with the local prostitute, having murder weapons tossed in your back yard, and running from gangs.

Living in a house that’s literally falling apart. I used to get snow in my bedroom and water during thunderstorms.

By Katrina standards, however, my family was rich. We would’ve been able to evacuate. We had credit cards and family that would’ve helped us.

America, the land of opportunity, so long as you aren’t poor.

Being poor is hoping your bike doesnt break during your one hour cycle to work.

Being poor is walking for 3 hours to get to work because your bike broke.

Being poor is coming up with a different excuse every day why your not going to lunch (& dont eat any).

Being poor is thinking about the man who propositioned you while you were walking home some time back, and wondering just what he wanted to do to you or have you do to him, and how much he might be willing to pay for that.

Being poor is eating government commodity white rice with salt and pepper from packets that you kept from the last time you had fast food, and telling yourself that you actually prefer it that way.

Being poor is thinking of job benefits not in terms of health care, vacation, or retirement plans, but in terms of leftover or past-expiration-date food.

Being poor is being furious at the job interviewer who tells you that they won’t give you the nine-to-five office job because they don’t think that you can “adjust” from scrubbing out toilets on the graveyard shift.

Being poor is being furious at the manager of your rooming house for throwing away your bicycle because it was in such bad shape that he thought it had been abandoned there; surely no one would actually ride that thing.

Being poor is when people tell you that they think that you’re wasting your time and effort trying to get a better job, and they think that they’re doing you a favor.

Having been poor is weeping with joy and gratitude when you can afford an apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom of your own.

Having been poor is being amazed when you make it to the next paycheck with ten dollars in your bank account from the last one.

Having been poor is reading about thousands of people who used to have the comfortable middle-class existence that you have now, and have suddenly fallen through the cracks just as you once did, and really understanding for the first time what Satchel Paige said: “Don’t look back–something might be gaining on you.”

Being poor is not having eyeglasses until age 13 when you have needed them since age 4 and your grasp of the basics, like mathmatics, is without foundation, thereby closing the glorious door of science forever

Being poor is at age 14, using your entire first real paycheck to buy clothing for your younger siblings

Being poor is from age 14 on walking home three miles in the dark everyday after working after school because your family can’t survive without your paycheck

Being poor is making absolutely sure that you serve yourself last at all meals so that the younger kids can get their full share and so that you can be sure that your Mother gets to eat something as well

Being poor is watching your Mother die a slow agonizing death from cancer at home because your state doesn’t provide nursing home or hospice care for the indigent patient.

Being poor is not being able to escape watching your Mother die for even a minute because you don’t have a TV or a car or the price of a matinee movie ticket. Or money to hire someone to watch the young kids you are now responsible for.

Being poor is having, at age 18, to bath and clean your mother like an infant because the cancer has robbed her of her arms

Being poor is something you are inside forever.

Being poor, is having to share a bed with your three sisters in a house thats covered by tin and hoping it doesnt rain.

Being poor is being scared to take out the trash for fear of rats in the alley.

Being poor is hoping there’s not another drought so you have food to eat from the farm.

Being poor is rushing home so you can do your homework before nightime comes so you dont have to do it by candlelight instead.

Being poor is taking 5 years to finish high school because you have to work to pay for your private schooling.

Being poor is waking up your four year old at 3:30 in the morning to catch the bus in time to drop her at a seedy daycare, then make it to work on time.

Being poor is using your child’s piggy bank of dimes and nickels to pay for the ridiculous gas prices when you finally afford that car.

Being poor is walking up to your mom when you’re four, holding a toy and prefacing your request to buy it with “When you have money…”

Being poor is when your dinner consists of juice boxes because that’s all there is.

Being poor is being beat around by a baby-sitter you keep going to b/c they’re free

Being poor means learning by 7 that one meal a day is decent and real hunger doesn’t hit until at least the second day

Being poor is people asking you why you bothered to pick up that nickel on the ground

Being poor is never being liked by your friends’ parents because they think you must be a bad influence because you’re poor

Being poor is being bounced back and forth between different households who don’t really want you because your parents can’t afford to keep you.

Being poor means that holidays are no different than any other day: your mom is still working and there’s still no food in the house.

this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.

this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.

What’s the problem with me saying that there’s a difference between not having funds, and living like white trash? Because you’re ignoring reality in a desperate need to find somebody to step on–oh yes, we may have been poor, but we weren’t white trash, you see. And it’s a very handy way to see oneself as permanently beyond the reach of all those horrors of poverty: People stay poor because they are bad; I am good; therefore I will never be poor again. Your “brush your teeth” comment is a good example of this kind of magical thinking. The notion that people might have dental problems despite being diligent about dental hygiene is not one you can entertain, because that would deflate the whole “poor people deserve it” argument. (And, of course, it all rests on the fallacy that all poor people are adults.) Instead of focusing on self pity and hopelessness, I think it’s a lot better focus on what can be done to fix what’s broken. As somebody who didn’t grow up poor, Brian, let me give you a big suggestion as to one of those things that can be done, and it’s not telling poor people to shut up and work harder. It’s extending the same safety net, social support and benefit of the doubt we give wealthy people that we give to poor people. Believe you me, it’s quite an eye-opener to find out that things you took for granted when you were a kid–you know, like the cops showing up when someone calls 911, or having a functioning lab in your science class–were not available to everyone.

Being poor means not having a working stove, good pots and pans or decent food to eat and having to skip a meal or two a day.

Being poor means no asthma treatment and gasping for air in Emergency Rooms praying to stay alive where you know youll be getting thousands of dollars in bills you wont be able to pay.

Being poor means being looked at with a mixture of disgust and pity by so called “loved ones” who shop for recreation who have endless money to waste.

Being poor can lead you to depend on God, because there is no one else that is going to help you. I am a Christian today because of the poverty I faced.

Being poor makes you realize what a sick and shallow society we live in.

people seem take out of this list what they put into it. You seem to want make this list examples of how people can’t, don’t or won’t help themselves. Interestingly, this is one of the reasons I put this one in the list: Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.

being poor means wondering if the lights will come back on

Being poor is one meal a day, if that.

Being poor is worrying about appendicitis every time you ovulate.

Being poor means always the library, never the book store.

being poor is feeling all the eyes judging you, measuring you, and coming to the conclusion that you don’t belong; when all you want is to be away in the comfortable place you don’t have.

being poor is being exploited by rich people while you smile, not to be fired.

being poor is paying a debt to the rich for being born in their world.

The problem is people who aren’t poor or who have never been poor often don’t grasp why it’s difficult to escape poverty — you can do everything right in terms of trying to improve your life situation (and there are many people who are poor do), and yet just one thing going wrong can mess the whole thing up.

As a society, we tend to shrug off such findings. We’re not surprised that learning is unpleasant. We think of it as bad-tasting medicine, tough to swallow but good for children in the long run. Some people even think that the very unpleasantness of school is good for children, so they will learn to tolerate unpleasantness, because life after school is unpleasant. Perhaps this sad view of life derives from schooling. Of course, life has its ups and downs, in adulthood and in childhood. But there are plenty of opportunities to learn to tolerate unpleasantness without adding unpleasant schooling to the mix. Research has shown that people of all ages learn best when they are self-motivated, pursuing questions that are their own real questions, and goals that are their own real-life goals. In such conditions, learning is usually joyful.

"Every family suddenly had a huge amount of discretionary income to invest in education and also in consumption," Fong explains. The resources that had been spread among several children in past generations were now focused on one child.

In 1979, when the policy was first unveiled, the new rules were a major adjustment for those accustomed to large families. But children growing up under the policy were unaware of this. And in the early years, the parents of most new single children came from large families - so instead of siblings the children were able to forge close relationships with cousins.

If my parents had had other children, they would have paid less attention to me, in which case I might have spent more time and energy doing things that interest me. Chinese parents of my parents' generation like to plan life for their children," she explains.

as a single child, I have the responsibility to look after my parents. I couldn't leave my city. I need to be with them. This is something I cannot change."

"As an only child, I have my parents' love all to myself," she says firmly. "I don't want to share my parents with others."

what about Little Emperor Syndrome

a number of studies - including many conducted by Chinese researchers - have failed to turn up any nasty personality traits among those who grew up in China's one-child families. There's no real evidence that China's singletons are any different than other children, they argue.

University of Melbourne economist Nisvan Erkal. "What we found was that people born after the policy, and who are single children because of the policy are significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk averse and less competitive," he says. "From the surveys, we find they are also more pessimistic and less conscientious."

An increasing tendency for people to move home for the sake of a job also makes it more likely single children will grow up without close ties to their grandparents, or even childhood friends, notes the sociologist, Vanessa Fong.

Ge and her husband qualify for a second child. However, she knocks down that idea with a quick wave of her hand. A second child would be too expensive, she explains, if she wants to be able to afford a good lifestyle.

"It is not that we don't want to raise more children, it is that we cannot create that many opportunities for them. If I cannot create that much opportunity for my children, I think that my children will feel lost in competition against other children," she says.