Quote:
Originally Posted by scaeagles
My mom died of lupus. She had a brain tumor taken out in 1970 when I was 2 and never really recovered. Medications galore, therapy, doctor appointments, specialists.....a lot of which with my dad unemployed.
Without going into the day to day hardships, there was 6 figures of medical debt incurred over those 14 years after the surgery until she died in 1984.
Somehow, I managed to go to school. Yes, I had scholarship money, but I worked two jobs as well as going to school.
How is any of this the responsibility of anyone? How is it that any of that should be paid for by anyone else?
Our situation may not have been the worst out there. But it sucked. We made it. There is always something worse out there than what anyone is experiencing at any given time, certainly. I honestly do not understand, however, why anyone thinkfs that their misfortune or genetic impariments or whatever is the responsibility of anyone else. It's just a concept completely foreign to me, and I've been through it.
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The notion of "the family" as a holistic unit in potential conflict with the rest of society is something of a conservative fiction, no? Like society, your family is just a collection of individuals. Under your logic, your dad could have told your mom that her illness was her problem and that she should have worked, worked more, saved more, etc. to prepare for such an occurrence. (Basically the old-fashioned marital property approach.) But he didn't. Your family made the fiscally irresponsible but compassionate decision to spend hundreds of thousands on medical care for one woman in a deteriorating condition so that one boy (and whatever siblings you have) could have a mother for as long as possible. Your opponents on this thread would simply expand the compassionate unit beyond the family to society as a whole.