Taxes and the Unemployed Child

Taxes and the Unemployed Child

This is the first year I can’t claim any of my kids as dependents. Boy, what a difference--$4,000 less you can take off your income right off the bat, no Earned Income Credit. Our return is cut by about three-fourths of what we we’ve gotten every past year. The rub is that my youngest isn’t independent by any stretch of the imagination. He has a paper route, has for five years, yet prospective employers don’t see the customer relations he has had to build, the billing he has to do, the dependability he has to show to get those papers out on time in all types of weather as useful job experiences. I’ve felt the prejudice myself. I used to run a daycare, which requires any number of useful skills, but few employers recognize that fact.

A paper route is great for younger kids needing spending money, not for older ones trying to support a car, plans for the future. My son has put in any number of job applications, most online these days. We both hate them. They don’t allow the job applicant to explain anything that might not fit snuggly into their one-size-fits-all questions. He has had a few interviews—not anywhere in proportion to the number of applications—no job offers.

A child at this life-change milestone still needs the same physical support younger children need—food, clothes, medical—and a great deal more emotional support when, one rejection after another, they begin to feel that something’s wrong with them. Few parents would kick out such a child to survive the best he can. Thankfully, medical insurance continues through the parent, but most eye care or dental benefits through the parent’s job disappear once your child leaves school.

School

If your child goes to college, he or she is still considered a dependent. My son went for a year but doesn’t know what career he wants. Even if he wanted to continue, he’d need a job for expenses. Unfortunately, having a degree no longer guarantees a job let alone a better one. I strongly recommend to my kids that they be very sure they know what they want and exhaust every other recourse before putting themselves in debt for a degree. Odds of their salaries making the burden of heavy debt worthwhile are slim these days.

The Witches

The Witches

Stacy Schiff is a popular historical writer with a story-like narrative style that prevents a factual account from becoming dry. Set in Salem and the surrounding towns, The Witches is obviously about the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. I found the style overly erudite. Schiff often uses five words for effect where one would do, which sometimes worked and sometimes came across as repetitive in a classroom, learning historical facts by rote, sort of way.

It was interesting to have facts separated from myth and Hollywood’s suspension of truth in pursuit of entertainment. None of the accused found guilty were burned at the stake. Most were hung. Some died as a result of horrible prison conditions, and one man was pressed to death—rocks piled on top of boards placed over his body in an attempt to make him confess.

Very few who confessed were executed, which resulted in a slew of people doing so, some even before they were accused, to protect themselves. The youngest person accused was a five-year-old girl. Though done in other places at other times, none of the accused at this time were subjected to trial by water—it was believed that a witch could not be drowned, so if you drowned, you were proven not guilty. Small consolation.

Interesting side note: Bartholomew Gedney, one of those who sentenced innocent people to death or ruination—the accused often had their property or possessions confiscated, sometimes before being sentenced, which left their family, even children, destitute—was the brother of my direct antecedent who had moved to New York before the witch hunt began.

The Mindset of the Day

I found it fascinating that the people of that area were obsessed with lawsuits against one another for the slightest of offenses, and that those offenses were remembered from generation to generation. Accusations of witchcraft often rang out against troublemakers from those aggrieved by them. The Puritans had few acceptable emotional outlets, women and girls—the most prevalent accusers—even less so, and were inundated with the fearsome consequences of being sinful creatures from birth.

The devil and his minions were forces one had constantly to be on guard against, which included attacks from the devil’s servants—Indians (these were real fears as everyone had a family member or knew someone else’s who had been killed or kidnapped in attacks), bodily manifestations of the devil, and people controlled by him, mainly witches.

The courts wrestled with the question of whether an innocent person could be possessed by the devil and made to do evil things without his or her consent, a question most court officials thought unlikely, though it haunted others.

The Lesson for Today

Seeing witches was an outlet for deep, often unvoiced or unrecognized fears and, once accepted, grew and took on a life of its own that few felt safe to combat. Object to the accusations of witchcraft or the court’s judgments and you were instantly suspected of being a witch yourself—perhaps in our time similar to objecting to making Mexicans or Muslims the scapegoats for our society’s problems and thereby risk being judged to be unpatriotic or a naïve supporter of terrorists, maybe even a terrorist yourself.

It is interesting to note that few historical records of that time were saved for posterity. Those involved who kept voluminous records on every other aspect of their day, deliberately left the time of the witch trials blank or vague. No such expediency will save us from shame if we give in to fear mongering today.    

The Trump Factor

The Trump Factor

I suspect Trump is smart enough to realize that if he tones down his persona, gentles his rhetoric, or otherwise acts more presidential, he will alienate his base constituency. They support him precisely because he doesn’t act in the politically correct manner they have come to believe means fake and not to be trusted.

A Business Person in the White House

Why anyone believes a CEO is the best bet to run the country escapes me. A corporation’s bottom line is to put the company and its owners first—rarely its employees, and never its customers, though they spend billions in advertising to convince us otherwise. How does that mindset translate to bettering life for the American people?

Trump occasionally mentions Americans but primarily talks about making America strong, rich, great—whatever. I can’t help the feeling that when he says America he means the government or at least some amorphous entity that he and he alone will define and work for—America and, by extension, the President will be respected and honored, even feared for its military might. Whether these accolades would have any trickle-down value for the average, individual American would be hard to measure.

Trump dreams of being the first politician to broker a final peace between Israel and Palestine. A lofty goal, but I wonder if the impetus to accomplish this is concern for the embattled men, women, and children living in the region or the stroking of his ego.

The Modern Economy and College

Fact is, the job market will never go back to the days when a high-school graduate could land a job that allowed (him for the most part, it was so long ago) to buy a house and support a family. Free college tuition is a misleading promise. That doesn’t cover the numerous other fees, the exorbitant cost of books, room and board or travel costs for commuters, etc. And it leaves a large segment of the population behind. Their IQ, creativity, and ambition are no less than the good students’. They simply learn in untraditional ways, and education is an area where America does not reward individual thinking and ability.

Our current educational system was built to enhance an industrialized, learn-by-rote society, which is disappearing, and we lag behind in preparing for the out-of-the-box, technological future. Politicians admit this, cry out for change, but have nothing better to offer than to make the current system more affordable. It won’t solve unemployment and income discrepancies.

Trump’s Government

I’d be happy to be wrong, but I fear a government under Trump would be one of insulated cronyism and intimidation of those not in his favor. Money does talk and government is nothing if not wheeling and dealing around obstacles to get the job done. Nevertheless, doesn’t leading, especially in a world where global economies are intertwined and dependent on one another, also require at least a degree of finesse? Trump is a blunt instrument.

Romance and Rape--Judith McNaught

Romance Novelist Judith McNaught

In The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, writer of the Outlander Series, gives a readers’ list of suggested authors and includes Judith McNaught for her historical romances. Amazingly, I found six of her novels among my mother’s books, three contemporary romances, and three set in early 19^th century England, which I preferred overall.

Tender Triumph, published in 1983 and contemporary, may show the author coming to terms with feminism—belief in the same career and sexual freedoms for women as men, yet at the same time, the heroine yearns to commit herself to a man who wants an old-fashioned wife devoted to him alone. The ending sex scene was anticlimactic compared to the buildup of sexual tension throughout the book. Nevertheless, a fun read.

Double Standards, a contemporary novel from 1984, again deals with men and women’s roles—men have the CEO jobs, women are secretaries, so dated, and McNaught’s heroines are all virgins, except for the first book, who wind up with one man. She follows the tried and true bones of the romance: boy meets girl—conflicts arise—boy loses or drives away the girl—they find true love. The stories are well written, however, with the tension that makes you want to turn the page.

Whitney, My Love,1985, is a historical romance. This is the one I least liked. It drags at over 700 pages. It started with great promise as the heroine is smart, self-possessed, and perceptive about her own and others’ motives. Unfortunately, that all disintegrates when she meets the hero (oddly mentioned in 1990’s Almost Heaven as the one Duke still unmarried, so I wonder about these dates). Some dumb and stereotypical plot contrivances ensue to build conflict between the two. Really hated it when McNaught writes the Duke thinking that he “all but raped” the heroine. It was rape and worse, the heroine comes to believe she at least in part brought it on herself. A second time, he treats her viciously emotionally, but she knew he loved her. Bullshit. Of course for that time period, men did own their wives and could treat them anyway they pleased but wish McNaught took a harder stance against it.

Once and Always, a historical romance from 1987, is one of my two favorites except for another rape scene glossed over as an understandable mistake by the hero about the character of the heroine. Otherwise, the plot, conflicts, and motives of the characters better fit together. America briefly came into this story and made an interesting contrast to the socially elite rules and traditions of England.

Almost Heaven, a historical from 1990, is my other favorite. The plot had more organic buildups and resolutions of conflict until the ending, which felt contrived and silly. McNaught’s heroes tend to have early traumas that cause them to be volatile, quick to judge, and cold at times. They mostly have dark hair and tall, muscular bodies, and remind me of Christian Gray in Fifty Shades of Gray, minus the bondage and whips, though interestingly, Christian never forces a woman, yet that book is far more controversial than these books with heroines who forgive and accept their rapists.

Paradise, the one book on the bestseller list, is contemporary, published in 1991. Two young people share one night together, get pregnant then married, divorce because of the manipulation of the girl’s overbearing father, and struggle to find their way back to each other.

McNaught’s heroines usually have blond or titan hair, blue or green eyes, and short, curvy bodies. Their intelligence, feistiness, and lack of obsession with material wealth also attract the hero, who doesn’t at first believe in their naïve innocence, does something hurtful, and of course falls head over heels. Most of the books included middle-aged or elderly, unattractive, crusty women with hearts of gold who are instrumental in bringing the hero and heroine back together, a cold, heartless older man who puts obstacles between them and/or a nicer benefactor who puts up obstacles but ultimately helps them.

Except for the plot contrivances, I very much like this writer. The books hold your attention and the worlds she builds are interesting. Despite the similarities in characters, the plots could never be mistaken one for the other.