Renee's review

Are you really advocating that poor people shouldn't have children? That children are a privilege reserved for those wealthy enough to afford health care and apartments in the suburbs? That's ridiculous and I tried to vote that I didn't like your review, but it turns out that just by hitting the "vote" button I was voting for you.

Thanks for your comment. No, I don't believe that individuals who cannot even support themselves should breed until they've attained sufficient financial stability to cover all costs for proposed children THEMSELVES. It's about personal responsibility, Nyana. Having children and expecting others to pay for them is irresponsible and parasitic.

I hear you about how having a car as an added expense versus relying on public transportation. However, I can only speak from my limited experience, but in the cities where I've lived where there is good public transportation (New York City, DC) the housing costs are much higher. Opposed to other cities where I've lived that had low housing cost, but poor public transportation (Houston, in particular...like I said, limited experience). Maybe she steered clear of big cities with public transportation because they were too costly and thus she could not conduct her experiment without making other sacrifices (like her desire to live alone). (I'm not trying to stick up for her or anything. I disliked her book for other reasons.)

I would prefer to have read the real facts/beliefs from someone who actually lives the life rather than the report of a short-term member of the working class but the working class does not produce a lot of writers, at least not many that get published. The 2nd hand writings of the middle class college grads from real working class informants or from their own short-term sojourns in life of a low-wage earner are usually the closest we get to the dirty end of work. If you don't like the liberal/socialist view as you define this to be, please feel free to take the trip yourself. I look forward to your report.
As someone who has had children before becoming sufficiently prepared financially I can agree with much of what you say about the practice.
As for your condemning workers for using a car I must disagree as many workers do not have access to public transit because they live outside the cities with transit in order to get a job ie food processing which is rarely done in an urban setting (ask Tyson Foods, Cargill etc) or to find a home they can afford to rent/buy. In this area the escalating cost of rent,increased condoization of rental accommodation & the rapid increase in home values (approx 40% in less than 24 months) is forcing low-wage earners to move to small towns in the area - none of which provide transit back to the jobs in the larger centres. Within the city in which I live the city transit system does not serve the industrial area which leaves those workers with a long walk in a climate that frequently experiences minus20 & colder temperatures (-10 to -40 plus 20 mph windchill this winter) conditions like these often result in frostbite, hypothermia & occassionally death. Oh well that's one way to thin the weak from the breeding pool, eh?.

Breeding is not necessarily followed by reproduction. How about leaving them the pleasures of sex and just sterilizing the poor?

Loved the review. I work at a place where we attempt to make the unemployable employed. The author doesn't know her rear end from a hole in the ground (pardon the expression) about any of these people, how they live, why they live the way they do.

The biggest problem with her experiment is that it is just an experiment – she can return to her comfy upper middle class life, while demanding that the government do something about the minimum wage and poverty.

Agreed, but where are the lower-class, labour-class writers? Who would publish their less than polished prose? As for the gov't. doing something (ie,to alleviate) about poverty: Why not? Gov't policies have done much to create poverty and gov't has little or no problem in assisting the wealthy & corporations. Corporate welfare appears to be more acceptable than welfare for the poor?

Whew! Where to start?

First off, Lisa, as a woman who has been on both sides of the coin (or is it 6?) I have been unemployed, homeless, a single mother, and I have also been on the other side of the desk when people are asking me for help. I think N&D is a *very* accurate portrayal of being poor in this country.

As for her owning a car, you do realize that *most* cities/towns in this country do not have adequate and/or reliable public transit, right?

"until they've attained sufficient financial stability"?

Major assumption - that they ever will. When being poor is a temporary state, as with grad school, this might be a reasonable thing to say. However, the point is that for many people, being poor is a lifetime prospect. And you've just said they don't deserve to breed.

And Ehernreich clearly states why she avoids major cities - the populations filling the low-wage jobs are almost entirely racial minorities, where she would be conspicuous.

I would _love_ for the poor everywhere (and everyone else) to have good public transportation to use, but that requires public funds that conservatives never want to give. Many poor today need a car.

Given the high costs of fuel & vehicles & insurance the poor shall get poorer & some of the middle class will spend a larger % of their income on transportation other than mass transit hoping to avoid looking poor. Others have seen the sense of reducing costs & commute times with mass transit of moving from the suburbs to the center & to areas with employment possibilities. These high costs may make the outer suburbs less desirable to home buyers. Realtors are featuring community characteristics such as the commute time & access to employment areas as much as other aspects of homes for sale.