this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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me_irl
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don't forget kids' healthcare, clothes, toys, school supplies, dance/piano/tennis/whatever lessons, field trips, classmates' birthday parties every damn weekend... and if they have special needs, all the costs associated with that
i don't get how people do it either
Spoiler, they don't. I grew up in the kind of poverty that has us digging food out of the garbage if we wanted dinner. My parents didn't take me to the doctor when I dislocated my knee, or when a schoolmate knocked me out with a text book. The school provided a couple of uniforms, and weekend clothes were all secondhand. Toys were few and far between, we mostly just played ball in the street with the other kids in my neighborhood. School supplies were borrowed from other kids or the teacher. We didn't do extracurriculars except church, no field trips, no birthday parties. Special needs were called "being lazy" and I just got my ass beat a lot, so, I didn't discover the brain tumor until I was an adult.
you suffered because the billionaires who own the politicians want tax dollars going to them instead of people who actually need it
More or less, yeah. The church also took advantage of us, telling my mentally ill stepfather that being poor was a good thing actually, and it was good for his kids to go without so we could learn to rely on god like the sparrows of the field, or some shit. My parents never missed a tithe, but they sure made us skip meals so god didn't get angry at us.
religion is such fucking bullshit. it brings literally nothing positive that can't be had without religion
A benevolent Christian God would surely be much happier with his priest accumulating wealth over feeding some starving children, right?
Debt
fun fact: usury (charging interest on a loan) used to be considered evil and sinful, but now it's just taken as a given, because that's what we've been raised from birth to believe
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=ger
Fun fact: because usury was sinful for Chrisians, but it wasn't forbidden for Jews, many Jews were pushed into the money business with usury by not allowing them to do much other jobs and then had to pay high rents and taxes. It's where the stereotype of greedy money controlling Jew comes from.
And still is in Islam right?