Subject: Re: Editorializing on poverty and parents From: msmithbe@iway1.iw.net Date: Mon, 25 Dec 1995 20:54:21 -0800

To: Rex Ballard 
X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17
Status: RO
X-Status: A

>Suppose you knew that you could lose your >children if you 
didn't have an income sufficient to support yourself AND 
>your children.

Obviously, the result would be that I would work harder to  
develop work-related skills prior to having them.

>In all divorces, including those where the mother 
voluntarily gives the >father custody, the total number of 
male NCPs  is less than 5%.

In all divorces, or in those in which custody is disputed?  
Most of the men I know don't even want the responsibility of 
raising children alone.

>I've put my Ex and her Husband  through college -- they 
still expect the >full amount (nearly 50% of my after-tax  
pay).

But that was your choice, to put them through college, 
wasn't it?  Or was it court ordered?
>
>This is priceless.  Two people who decided they didn't want 
to deal with >(snip)

Uh, excuse me?  We both help take care of all of our 
children's needs.  I bought books for my step-daughter when 
she entered college.  We help out with expenses for my 
step-son.  I get hand-me-downs from both of them for my 
kids.  My children are living in rooms in which the walls 
have cheap paneling covering the holes in the plaster.  If I 
had some child support, I could fix that.  I wear underwear 
with holes in it and I often can't buy my school supplies 
until several weeks into the semester because all my money 
goes to buy my children's school supplies and winter outer 
wear.  Last year I entered a contest to get a coat because I 
didn't have one and couldn't afford one.

>Your Ex's lawyer should get a copy of this >(snip)so that 
you can shack-up in the Dakota >mountains with your 
full-time lover.  Great Scam!

The only "Dakota Mountains" are the black hills in extreme 
western South Dakota.  But that's besides the point.
!!!!You wouldn't, or couldn't appreciate how hard we work.  
While you're in your office wishing they'd turn down the 
heat my husband and I are chopping wood for the wood stove, 
just in case.  While you're microwaving your Swanson's my 
husband is hunting for our food, or I'm fishing for it.  
Each morning, I walk outside--often in sub-zero chill--and 
do half of a paper route to help pay for my gasoline.  My 
husband odd jobs in addition to his full-time one to make 
ends meet, because although we get by month to month there 
is rarely little money left for extras, like when Renae 
breaks her glasses or Derek wears out his snow boots.  I 
also have a part-time job in a Biology laboratory to pay for 
daycare while I'm in school.  In the past two years I've 
counted blood cells on a slide until my head hurt, and typed 
until my arms were numb and ached, and I designed and 
built--using power tools--a structure to withstand 1000 lbs. 
of water.  
I've sweated in a hot summer kitchen--we don't have central 
air conditioning, even though my doctor warns that I MUST 
have it, because of my COPD--canning food from a garden.  
I've dug myself out of snow, my arms aching and tired from 
the cold, because I could't afford a tow truck.  I have a 
special needs child who can't be home without close 
supervision, and requires special glasses and eye patches, 
as well as after-school care; none of this is federally 
subsidized.  A job that I was to have at a local highschool 
as a Title 1 assistant fell through, due to federal 
cutbacks.
There's no days off from what we do.  We are responsible for 
three children, right here in this household, 24 hours a 
day.  While you're sitting at home on your day off I'm 
supervising, or tutoring, or chasing a 4-year old who's 
running with scizzors, or worrying over someone's 104 degree 
fever.  Or I'm walking around the house, trying to find out 
where the cold air is coming in, or checking the fuel tank 
on the furnace and crossing my fingers that it'll hold out, 
or emptying wood ashes from the wood stove when it doesn't.
I'm laying in the snow in January with the cold prairie wind 
blowing up my ass trying to thaw out a pipe that has frozen 
because plumbers cost $40 just to say, "Hi".  In the summer, 
I'm banging on our one window air conditioner (It gets up to 
100 degrees here in the growing season) trying to get it to 
last just one more season because they cost $350 or more and 
we haven't got that kind of money.  In the winter, I'm 
praying that the furnace doesn't break because we have a 
wood stove, to use it at night means I have to sleep in 
front of it, on the floor, in case something goes wrong.  
When a vehicle breaks, it's my husband who lies under it in 
the ice and snow to try to figure out what's wrong; he's no 
mechanic but we don't have any money.  We can't afford to go 
to the dentist, or for checkups; if it wasn't for student 
health I wouldn't even be able to see a doctor for my 
medication; the last visit I had to pay for was $113 for a 
pulminologist.  I can't even get my husband to visit a 
doctor when he's sick because he feels guilty about spending 
the money and since he works 35 hours per week his employer 
isn't obligated to offer him health insurance.  Even if he 
did it would be over $200 per month for all of us.  He came 
from a family of 9 where the parents did nothing for 
themselves; they did everything for the kids, and his father 
hauled bricks to take care of his family.  Like his father 
did, he will probably die young from lack of health care.  
When my husband gets home, at 2 am from work, he's exhausted 
at putting up with crabby drunks all day who won't accept 
why he won't sell them more liquor.  Some of them threaten 
to punch him.  Others threaten worse.  But he still 
remembers to pick up a Snapple for me as a special treat, 
because he knows how much I like them.  Neither of us even 
drinks alcohol or takes drugs.  
Then there is my medication.  It's $50 per month for my 
medicine to pay for lung damage from repeated bouts of 
pnuemonia as a child. I'm not even supposed to work outside. 
 But, there is laundry to hang on the line (at least two 
loads a day with 5 people living here).  And then I get the 
call from his ex wife asking for help with something, and we 
come up with the money somehow (usually it involves my 
husband taking a cash advance at work).

Wish I could get away >with that (once in a while).  A few 
million of us "Dead Beat Dads" have>some responsibilities to 
take care of.  

You take care of yours your way, we take care of ours our 
way.  Whether you will admit it or not, you have choices to 
make.  We take care of our responsibilities by doing a lot 
of grunt work to rather than work to pay someone else to do 
it because at least this way we can do it together.  You are 
paying for the convenience of living in New York by working 
at many hours as you do.  You are paying someone else to 
kill and clean and prepare your meat and grow your 
vegetables.  Do you buy your clothing new?  Can you walk to 
a market?  Does your apt have a roof that someone else fixes 
when it leaks?  You have mass transit there, don't you?  
Does someone haul your garbage or do you have to do it 
yourself?  Do you have an electric dryer?  Dependable 
central heat?  Do you sit at a desk or do you actually walk 
around carrying things when you work?
Don't presume to tell me that our life is easier, it's not. 
It's a life that many would refuse to live, because it's not 
one of conveniences.  But, it is the life we chose to live 
because it allows us to be together as much as possible.  
And that's what having a mate and a family is all about. 
Then after a long day I still have to study until my eyes 
hurt.  With my rare time to myself, I'm either at goodwill 
looking for clothes for the kids, or answering my mail.
>
>On the other hand, feminism never bothered to examine the 
issue of masculine>identity, of masculine attractiveness. 

It is, after all, a movement of women for women.  We do 
address self-esteem issues.  Not everything revolves around 
men.  C'mon.

>At what point did he first show signs of irresponsibility? 
 This doesn't >sound like an overnight thing.  His terms 
were simple "I want to party",>have my baby so you'll have 
something to remember me by.  

When I met him, we both had good jobs.  He wore a tie to 
work.  His job ended a year later shortly before our 
marriage.  Since he had been working when I met him, and 
since I assumed that that was what most responsible people 
do, I assumed he would be working again soon.  WRONG!  He 
was also very kind to my son.  I thought he had good 
old-fashioned "midwestern values", like those of my parents. 
 I had always wanted a large family, and he did too.  After 
our child, a daughter, was born, he wanted nothing more to 
do with my son.  He verbally abused him.  This, more than 
anything else, I would not tolerate.  Also, after my 
daughter was born, he started complaining that I didn't want 
to stay up late every night and get drunk; he said I was a 
"F___ing drag".  
Since he seemed incapable of holding a job, I offered him 
the option of staying home with the kids while I worked, 
much as you do now, leaving home at 6 am and arriving home 
again at 6 pm--taking the bus to downtown Dallas five or six 
days a week.  This lasted for precious little time, until he 
began doing drugs and taking our children with him to party. 
  When I asked his friends not to do drugs in our home I was 
being rude.  The house was not clean, the meals were not 
made, and I placed the children in daycare and demanded that 
he get a job.  For the next five years he worked about six 
months out of every year, usually quitting because, "they're 
all a bunch of assholes".

>it will kill him.  Take out a live insurance policy on him, 
while you >still can.

You can't take out an insurance policy on an adult without 
his consent.  I worked in the insurance industry as an 
underwriter's assistant.  This is serious fraud.

>Not only that, your first husband got out of the marriage. 
 He could >console himself that you were a two-time loser.  

Yes, he did remind me of this.  

It probably hurts to no >end your third marriage is a 
winner.

And his second, as I understand it, is not going well.  
>
>Which was in the best interests of your children?(snip)
Neither: I live in my ex-husband's home town, less than a 
block from his parents and sister, where we moved together. 
 He was the one who chose to leave after the divorce, and 
move to Dallas.  I moved into an abandoned home and started 
the process of buying it long before I met my third husband. 
I was taking care of myself before Number 3 came along.  Out 
of respect for my ex I didn't even date or appear in public 
alone until my divorce had been published in the local paper 
(They do that all the time up here).  

>Great, you didn't just take the three people he loved most, 
you took away >his parents, and the whole town too.  

I didn't take his life, he threw it away.  When I divorced 
him, I called his mother and father.  I told them what was 
happening, and that he would need their support and a place 
to stay.  When he remarried I asked them not to compare the 
new wife to me because I didn't want her to feel bad, as I 
can imagine how it feels that way when someone does that.  I 
really expected that they would side with him, and at first, 
they all did. At first they blamed me for everything. 
But, as time went on, they would offer him rides to see his 
kids, and he would refuse.  Or they'd take pictures of the 
kids to him and he wouldn't bother to take them.  They'd 
come to see the kids and see that we were raising them, 
humbly, but they were clean and well-fed, while Jerry was 
living in a trailer in back of his bosses place and claiming 
he didn't have a job, and they bailing him out of jail.  I'm 
sure that you're familiar with the pattern of enablement.  
They got tired of it.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when one of his 
brothers, one that hated me, had to go to Iowa pick up his 
daughter from DSS because her mother was busted for neglect 
and for drugs.  He told Jerry, "you have someone who's 
taking decent care of you kids and you won't even pay your 
support."  But what really got them mad was his refusal to 
call them or see them.  That, to them, was unforgiveable. 

Jerry alienated the town a long time before he met me. 
Before he moved to Dallas and met me, he had shot out 
windows and streetlights and borrowed money without repaying 
it.  When I first moved here no one would even speak to me 
because I was his wife.  After we moved here he went back to 
his old ways and alienated them even more.  I earned the 
town's respect.  Earning their trust was harder than you 
know, because he told everyone I used to be a stripper.

He was living with his brother paying off some bad checks in 
SD when we met.  They both lied to me and told me that he 
was here "because there are no jobs in SD".  They had a 
decent place and I assumed they were roomates, but his 
brother was handling his money because he couldn't do it.  I 
even lived with him for nearly a year before marrying him.  
He really had me fooled.  Then after we were married, 
everything was fine until I got pregnant.  

>You married "a grade up", but you still went for a man who 
is not living >up to his full potential.  If you make him 
wrong for it long enough, >you'll dump him too.

Wrong.  I've grown up now.  My husband has a job he's had 
for several years that he loves.  He also knows that he's 
welcome to leave it and explore his options.  He's a 
grownup.  I'd rather he be happy and love his work than be 
discouraged about having to spend 40 hours a week to pay for 
a home he never sees.  What's more important--having stuff 
you don't have time to use or living simply and never seeing 
your family?  Of course I'd rather that he work for someone 
better, but that's not my decision.  I can't marry someone 
and then start trying to change him, that's not fair.  He's 
honest, and decent, and kind.  I remind myself every day of 
his good points and why I fell in love with him.  It's part 
of my morning ritual.  

>What posessed you to have children with this man!??  Did 
you think you >could play God and turn a slick-talking drunk 
into a responsible 

He wasn't a drunk when I met him.  Or maybe he was on the 
wagon for an extended time.  He didn't start really hitting 
the bottle hard until shortly after I became pregnant.  (Or 
before; my daughter shows some signs of FAS that she didn't 
get from me) Then he was on and off for the next few years. 
 I really thought, because he told me so, that he was unable 
to adjust to life in the city.  I thought that when we moved 
to SD he'd be happier, because I didn't know that this had 
been an ongoing pattern with him.  (I did a background check 
on my third husband before I married him; can you guess 
why?)

>productive member of society?  If you wanted a responsible 
man, why >didn't you marry one of those "Egg-heads" who 
helped you with your >homework and helped you with the term 
papers.  

Because nobody helped me highschool.  I was helping the 
idiots that I eventually dated.  
Even though I've made some pretty crappy choices I never had 
to seek the help of anyone for intellectual reasons.  To 
give you an idea of what I mean, I have a 3.1 gpa in 
college. I'm a fifth-year senior.  That doesn't sound too 
impressive until you take into account that when I started 
college I had a 4 month-old, a 3 year-old, and a 6 year-old, 
a crappy old house 25 miles from school, a $100 car that got 
8 miles per gallon, and a part-time job.  I've gone to 
college taking a full-load of classes and at least 9 credits 
each summer.  I've taken a year-and-a-half each of 
chemistry, biology, and physics.  I have a double major in 
Geology and Secondary Education. I tutor in college-level 
Algebra, Biology and Geology I teach adults how to use DOS, 
Windows, and the Internet.  I've only been married a year, 
so most of that was accomplished more or less alone.  

Any one of them would have 
>killed themselves to make you happy.  And you wouldn't have 
wanted him to.

I know that now.  My 3rd husband is one of those "boring" 
nice guys that I would have never dated before.  Slender and 
not very tall, with glasses.  In fact, I almost didn't date 
him.  He was too nice.  But, he was so smart and interesting 
I loved talking to him.  He's extremely cultured, he's just 
chosen to return to the place he grew up and live a simple 
life, like me.  He reads several newspapers a day and tells 
me what's happening in the world.  He's interesting, and he 
makes me laugh.  He's a cuddler, too.

>He's already killing himself.  Having your husband adopt 
them will give >the ability to put them on his insurance, 
will enable you to get a single >medical plan that covers 
the entire family.  

You can put step-children on your insurance in SD.  

>from him, but you  won't let him off the hook with CSS by 
having your >husband legally adopt the kids.  

I brought up the subject once and he said that if Barry 
adopts his kids he'll kill him.  He's not receptive to the 
idea.

>but "undesirable" because I am a "father figure" and a 
"sissy".  

Since you brought the subject up of where women look for 
men, where do you look for women?  Would you look twice at 
me, (Well-groomed but Rubinesque, brown hair, glasses, not a 
partying girl) or do you look for the glamorous, exciting 
types?  Do you go for the good girls or for the bitches?  I 
found out late in life that I had to be a little bitchy to 
be attractive.  Can't quite figure that out, but it seems no 
man wants a doormat.  It seems men and women alike want what 
they can't have and don't want what is obviously available.

Happy sobriety and Merry Christmas.  It's been 3 years of no 
drinking for me.  Not because I have any particular 
problems, but because it seems to cause many more problems 
than solves.

Hope this reaches you in good health; 

Hi ho and Merry Christmas; 

Misty Smith-Beringer




From msmithbe@iway1.iw.net Wed Dec 27 20:52:32 1995
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