One value that I think mg has been articulating (Mary, if I'm wrong, please jump in and correct me) and I have been missing in reading her posts, is frugality, meaning the careful use of material resources. If one values frugality, one takes pride and finds satisfaction in being frugal. If one doesn't value frugality, one resents having to be frugal, and resents being expected to be frugal. I wonder if what mg has been trying to say is this; Teach young people the skills that are needed to be frugal. That is an excellent idea. From her posts, I also think mg values frugality, and practices that value in her life in a very real way. But our dominant culture does not place high value on frugality. If mg's solutions to poverty around teaching home economics, etc., are to be successful, the kids being taught need also to be taught to value frugality. That is much more difficult, since it is not a widely held value in our post-modern American culture.'

My paternal grandparents placed great value in being frugal. Both of them grew-up on poor, eastern Kentucky dirt farms. When young, they were frugal by necessity, but also by religious upbringing. They held to the same standards of frugality throughout their lives, even once it was no longer necessary for them to be as frugal. For them, it had the force of moral imperative.

I am not frugal. And I know very few people who truly are. I don't make alot of money--social workers, teachers and the like never do. If I were truly frugal, and truly moderate-if I consistently put my needs ahead of my wants, I would have no debt right now, would be certain I have put away enough money for retirement, and would consistently have enough money in savings to fix the roof when it needed it, go to the beach for a long weekend occasionally or for a whole week every few years without using a credit card, or pay cash for a new refrigerator when the one I have finally dies (which will be soon, I'm afraid.) And I am not saying I live extravagantly, am a spend-thrift or am in debt up to my ears. But worries about money and finances are constant and chronic. Car or home repairs get left undone because I don't want to go into debt to do them, but am not willing to be frugal enough to have the money put away to do them. Mostly I feel like I don't make enough money to be able to put that money away. More truthfully, I don't live frugally enough to have the money put away.

In two generations what was once a pretty widely held value in our culture has nearly gone extinct. Frugality as a value has been replaced with consumerism as a value.

When those of us who do have some material resources are not frugal with them, we use more than our fair share of the available resources. Directly and indirectly, we are contributing to poverty in our country.

The dominant society expects those who live in poverty to adapt our values regarding, for example, education. And I think most people who live in poverty in this country do value education. I don't think any of us run into many adults who quit school who will say, in hindsight, that they don't wish they had that high school diploma or GED. They well may say, however, that it was not, and still is not, an attainable goal.

We can also expect those who live in poverty (speaking in generalities) to hold the dominant cultural value of consumerism. If I blame a poor person for not being frugal, it is the skillet calling the kettle black. Is a poor person just as responsible for not being frugal as a person who is not poor? Yes. But, I will again say that blame and responsibility are not synonyms. It is unjust to blame the person living in poverty for not being frugal if I do not also blame myself and others who are not poor for not being frugal. And I will say that many poor people with whom I work, while not nearly as frugal as were, say, my grandparents, are much more frugal than am I or anyone else I know who is not poor.

Back to the definition of frugal-the careful use of material resources. For those who live in abject poverty, they have few material resources with which to be frugal. No matter how frugal they may be with the very minimal resources they have, the resources are not sufficient for basic needs to be met.

Janie