About providing food for your family when you don't have a lot of money, and the thoughtless advice that people sometimes give if they don't know much about a difficult problem you have, especially if they give the advice using the adverb "just" (with the "it's so simple" connotation).
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/08/31/you-can-just/
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It would be easy to look at all the very nutritious foods in the market, like legumes, cabbages and other low-cost vegetables and think it might not be so difficult to eat on a low budget, but there are a lot of things that can make it difficult! One is the amount of time it takes to prepare unprocessed food and make it attractive. Another is the allure of the potato chip and other manufactured foods that are widely available and made attractive through advertising, and I think children are particularly susceptible to advertising.
I don't have a quibble with that, especially if it's combined with variety. I think a lot of whining parents experience with sudden, major menu changes is the kids reacting normally to change. A parent might have similar issues trying to turn their kids into vegetarians or moving to a Kosher diet. And if you combine it with complaining that the food's not expensive enough (as one friend's now-ex-husband would) well then what DO you expect? *rolls eyes*
"just" also doesn't take into account the fact all kinds of invisible factors of which the "juster" may not be privy.
Like, in my own case, with my health issues combined with ADHD (I can't take meds, unless i want to experience heart palpitations, windedness, and increase my chance of a serious heart condition in the future), I can't over schedule things the way that many people do - I need to allow myself a lot of time to get things done. I was only able to work while going to school (because of how time consuming it is to make accommodations to my ADHD) when on meds.
Most of the people who've told me "you can just..." have more free time than i do. They have no clue what it's like to be me.
I try to watch the "you can just..." with others, especially with people I don't know very well... And even then.
Edited at 2011-09-06 08:06 pm (UTC)
Pretty much any kind of "how to live on less money" article I see is full of super-clueless stuff that isn't going to apply to those people who already don't spend lots of $$$ on fancy restaurants, Starbucks, cable TV, etc. ...