[Erika]

The media purposefully make poor people look like lazy slobs. The media have helped justify the destruction of social policies like welfare by portraying welfare moms as big women who sit around in dirty apartments watching soap operas, eating bon-bons, and having more babies. (Many of them are big, but because you can get more fat and starch for your food stamps than fresh vegetables. Women on welfare actually have fewer children than the US national average, too.) I’ve worked as an advocate for homeless families, and the households that are led by formerly homeless women are almost invariably spotless. Many of the women I have worked with had to live in unsanitary shelters and so they are relieved when they get their own apartment and they can control their environment and make it clean. I agree with other comments that point out that single mothers who work all of the time do not have a lot of time to clean up after kids. As for the crumpled clothes, there is the matter of washing clothes in a laundromat, which might not allow time for folding. Using laundromats is a huge time burden compared to the luxury of owning a washer and dryer in one’s home. Maybe people with bare mattresses only have one set of sheets and it is being washed at the laundromat? Also, on the other end of the spectrum, urban poor people are often descendents of share croppers who moved to cities during the industrial revolution. There are different standards for ‘clean’ on farms and many people only know the standards of their culture of origin. People don’t automatically learn new social/cultural habits because they move to cities. Finally, I would point out that, by far, the sloppiest, most food-encrusted rooms I have ever seen are occupied by middle class white males, especially college students.

User Detail :  

Name : Erika, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Bisexual, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 25, City : Portland, State : ME, Country : United States, Occupation : Social Worker, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,