Paying for "human giving"

I'm tired of the idea that people (i.e., women) should do good things for the sake of doing good. The idea that you can't put a dollar amount on the desire to help is a load of horse manure. Social workers, teachers, nurses, and other fields that have been female-dominated are all said to be staffed by people who care. People whose concern for the well being of others trumps their need for monetary gain. Nurturers, direct service professionals, nursing home aides. These are viewed as people who are giving out of the goodness of their hearts, money be damned! 

The worst part?

It's true. So many of these individuals in these professions are seen as altruistic if they stoically go through their day, exhausted after working with yet another traumatized individual, helping yet another person deal with physical pain, chasing yet another group of kids around. After all, they are doing it for the good of mankind. 

People talk about the good people in these professions do - they help people learn and grow, they make real changes in the world on an individual level - until the person points out that they can't afford to feed their family, that their own kids don't get enough time with them because they're too busy with other people's children, that they are exhausted and ready to quit.

"Oh no! Don't quit! You're doing real good in the world!"

Ok, then how about compensating them for the value of what they do, prove that we respect what they do and that what they do matters?

Nope. We can't do that because then people will just do it for the money!

I call bullshit. If social worker jobs paid better, more people would, indeed, go into, stay in, or go back to being social workers. However, people who couldn't handle these professions? They're not going to jump on the bandwagon saying, "OH!!!!  Look!!!  They're making $50k per year, I wanna join them!" These are not glamorous jobs. They are painful, exhausting, and dangerous. Oh, they are also rewarding for people who want to be there, but the reality is that teachers get puked on, social workers get lashed out at, nurses watch people die, direct service professionals get shot.

No, I'd never survive as a teacher. I would have no idea what to do as a social worker when sitting with a five year old child who's been severely traumatized. I'd probably pass out if I had to stick my hands in someone's guts to hold them from falling out.

The only thing that paying people for doing these jobs will fix is the idea that doing good is worthless.

Preschool Teachers are Insane

I think preschool teachers are absolutely fucking insane. The work they do for the money they make? I wouldn't survive a week in a daycare. I can't think of a dollar amount that you could pay me that would be enough to attempt to do all the work that preschool teachers do, and they do it without taping the children's mouth shut, tying them to the chairs, or essentially violating any other child abuse and basic human decency laws.

You'd think that people automatically assuming that preschool teachers are "too dumb" to teach older kids wouldn't surprise me, but it does. Has anybody looked at what preschooler teachers do? They have to be experts on every topic because you never know what a three year old is going to want to know about.

It's important to know how individual children are learning from an early age, so preschool teachers have to be able to perform assessments on the kids in their care and  evaluate their learning level and abilities. They need to catch any "early warning" signs that a child might need extra or different help.  The preschool teachers evaluate learning levels and abilities, and they sometimes work with children whose parents refuse to acknowledge or accept that a child would benefit from a different style of learning.

Preschool teachers work with children who are in some cases just barely able to talk. The ones who do talk are apt to jump from topic to topic faster than I can follow, and I generally jump topics every few sentences. I live next to a preschooler and a toddler, and I rarely know what they're telling me. The oldest will say they went to the park and the youngest will say something that appears to be, "tew98afs  oasdoiwer," while I stare at the grandparents asking for translations. The grandparents say, "We usually don't know what he's saying," the older sister says, "I know!  I love the slide, too!" The preschool teacher spent all day with the kids and would already know about the trip to the park and be able to understand what the preschooler was communicating. Preschool teachers work with the children from the time they are little, so they learn their personality and non-verbal cues as well as their verbal abilities. Even when a child is verbal, they might not be coherent. If you think a crying adult is difficult to understand, listen to a three year old sobbing and panting and attempting to tell you what's wrong!.

Preschool teachers provide all this individualized attention while tracking an entire classroom of little kids. Preschool teachers skip personal bathroom breaks and might manage to scarf some food down during lunchtime, but they're usually too busy making sure the youth in their care don't choke on their lunch. They're also busy keeping track of individualized notes from parents with specific instructions (for example, please tell me what time my child uses the bathroom and what the consistency of each movement is).


Preschool teachers are skilled at first aid, and yes, performing Heimlich on a three year old is very different than on an adult. They can fix booboos. They also track booboos, watch for physical, emotional, and behavioral signs of physical abuse, and sometimes cry their eyes out when they get home because they are mandated reporters and watched a child covered in filth and bruises go off with children's services while the police wait to arrest the parents at pick-up time.

Nothing that happens in your house is a surprise to the preschool teacher. Most children describe their home life in bizarre detail, and thankfully preschool teachers are the height of discretion (although perhaps giggling with their coworkers about the specific acrobatic feats you were accomplishing when your child walked in on you). Preschool teachers also field statements like, "Lift up your shirt and show me your boobies!" without lifting an eyebrow or assuming that the parents are deranged.

Preschool teachers make sure your children are aware that we play on the playground and pee in the bathroom. They clean up after children who have accidents or make messes, and there will be both in preschool - paint all over the floor?  No problem!  Pee all over your nap mat? Easy peasy! Many parents have difficulty getting their one or two children to lie down, but these preschool teachers get 20 children napping simultaneously every single day.

I'm sure you're aware that the toys at preschools need to be kept disinfected.  Do you think there's a disinfectant fairy who shows up?  Nope. The preschool teachers do it. They also spend their evenings on lesson plans. 

Oh, and like all other levels of teachers, they buy supplies for their classroom out of their own pocket, and they do it on a much lower salary.
Preschool teachers generally don't have health care or sick days, but they're constantly getting sick because mommy had to go to work and sent Johnny in with a stomach flu hoping that the school wouldn't notice all the projectile vomiting. When they stay home because they caught the stomach flu, again, they do it without pay. They get paid less than grammar school teachers. Heck, they are lucky if they get paid as much as the part-time softball coach at the junior high school.

You'll never convince me that people who are smart enough to do all of that, and do it for a salary that isn't a living wage, aren't bat shit crazy.

Donating Blood Products

September 15, 2012. I just found this post sitting in my draft pile. Whoops!

Photo from Rush University Medical Center

I've been donating blood since I was 17 years old. My parents signed the permission slip so that I could donate at the high school blood drive.  For a few years, I donated every six months, and then I began to slack off. I'd donate when I had a chance, but I didn't search out the various blood drives in order to do so.  I had to take a few years off from donating because of my tattoos and piercings, but I'm back at it.

Since I'm freelancing, I have a malleable schedule. I decided that it was time to donate platelets. I donated at the Red Cross, and it was an interesting experience. Basically, the blood takes a couple of hours to get out because they filter the platelets out and then give you your blood back.

A friend had been donating platelets for cash and directed me to a location downtown. I decided to give it a try. I've been donating for years, but I hadn't ever been paid for it.

The place she sent me was pretty bad. They were very rude when you were signing up, and you had to wait hours just to be seen. When you finally got in to donate, they took forever in getting to you. You were in a huge cattle-zone of beds, and the folks who stick you absolutely ignore you while they do it. It's an odd experience to be ignored by someone who is shoving a needle into your arm.

When it was all over, they don't even give you juice before kicking you out. Nor do they tell you how to find the door.

I later found out that my $35 (for about five hours of total time, sheesh) blood wasn't going to be used to help people directly. It's being purchased by drug companies. Which is for the best because I even lied to these people after sitting in line for five hours. I told them what medications I was on, and one is an epilepsy medication that my doc prescribed for an off-label use (I've never had a seizure in my life). They made me get a note from my doctor. So I got the note and went back so that I could donate (at this point, I was invested in that $35, and I wanted to see how the whole thing would end).

They asked a couple other questions, and there was another question that had the same type of answer as the stupid not-epilepsy medication. None of these questions were on the original survey (you know, the one where they ask if you've had sex with a man who's had sex with a man since 1973, if you've eaten a bovine in a country that gets mad cow disease, etc.). They were at the end after you've been there for hours already.

A lot of the folks there were desperate for cash. I'm willing to bet that a lot of them lied on all of the questions. It's probably for the best that the blood doesn't go to sick and injured people.

I won't ever go back there. I'll stick with donating for free and being treated like a human being. These people at the for-pay place are not treated like human beings. I've never been in a situation like that, not even when I went to clinics instead of doctors' offices when I was younger because I had no insurance.

It was really disgusting how people were treated and that they had to sit there and take it because they had no work.