#childcare is also SO fucking expensive

[quietwingsinthesky]

pre-canon spn to me is just Azazel having to show up to parent John’s kids for him so they don’t die a la the Maleficent movie until he starts feeling partial towards Sammy as his favorite of the special children

[stringbeanmcmean2]

RANT!!

My only irl friend keeps trying to make plans with me. And I wanna hang out. But idk how to just go out and pretend like my life isn't completely falling the fuck apart around me. How am I supposed to enjoy myself knowing that it's all balancing on the edge of failure. When does life chill the fuck out lol. How are we supposed to fucking make it when I can't go to work because childcare is too expensive? And yeah the state has a program for discounted childcare for low income families but they have a waitlist WHO KNOWS how long. I'm on the list, but it's been months. I can't just go apply for jobs and be like, yes, I'd like to work here, but I don't know when I can start. It's an endless fucking cycle of FUCK. At this point I want, nay, I'm DESPERATE to go back to work. I need the fuck out of this house. I need space from my kids (I love them but also fuck them) I'm literally doing everything in my power not to fucking scream rn. I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes trying to fucking sort my thoughts out and separate the rational from irrational and my 4 year old comes up screaming in my face cause he wants juice (he has a cup of water already) even tho I already told him he can't have juice till he finishes his lunch. I just need to get out. Without feeling guilty for possibly trying to enjoy myself. So a job is my only option. I could get out of the house if it's to makemoney.

I just wanna quit. I don't want to fucking be here.

[radish-lesbian]

Wanted to talk about this popular Reddit post I saw the other day. This is a worrying trend to me; as left vs right also becomes a debate of female safety and reproductive rights, I’m worried for women who are in a place where men their age are heavily right-wing. The comments on this post are absolutely noxious as well.

“Attitude and disrespect” sorry that women no longer need to be submissive to you just because you’re a male. I guess if you’re used to that it would feel like disrespect but grow the fuck up. Whiny babies.

“Benefit of women at the expense of men” e.g. when you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Also, I haven’t met any of these so-called “gentlemen”. Usually they do fuck all and expect you to work full time while also maintaining the house and doing childcare for them.

If some leftists pointing out the privilege innate to your social caste hurts your feelings enough to make you run to the side that wants to harm minorities and women, you were always a right-winger. I am wary of men, but I’m not immediately mean to every white man I meet in real life and as the responder points out this doesn’t happen anywhere other than online.

This is the most amazing take. I’d love to see a space that does ZERO to support men and women are everything. I’d like to live there. Also, as before, something something equality feels like oppression.

This is the new generation. Men feel hurt and repressed because they’re losing their ability to force women as a caste to be their mommies/maids/fuckdolls. If we don’t cater to their hurt egos they threaten to ‘switch sides’.

Rule number one of misogyny, women are responsible for anything men do. Men’s bad behavior? The mean feminists bullied them. Men buying in to right-wing cultists? Women didn’t give them enough love and attention. Men are violent? Feminism didn’t do enough for them.

[abigail-pent]

a donation post, but not for me.

so. the graduate workers at the school I'm about to graduate from are on strike. they* have been on strike for 3 weeks at this point. this has happened because our university administration has shown up all year long to gaslight us at the bargaining table. we showed up, passed proposals, and they refused to pass us back any counteroffers. they spent most of this past year arguing with us about whether or not union members would be allowed to observe the bargaining process. they called in multiple mediators at multiple different times, trying to paint our union as acting unfairly/uncooperatively in this situation, and every time the impartial mediator was like "no this is fine, you should bargain with them, in fact what is your problem here exactly?"

this university is making a big performative deal out of DEI efforts, but pays its workers below the poverty line,** which of course means that graduate education here is effectively inaccessible for people who don't have family money. grad students I know have sold their plasma to make ends meet. and we are asking for many extremely reasonable things: like "don't cut our real wages"*** and "make adjustments to the childcare vouchers so people can actually use them" and "do better with protecting healthcare for trans grad workers and also with protections for survivors of sexual assault and harrassment"****. we are also asking for the creation of a nonviolent crisis response team. it's a lot of things, but a lot of them are pretty fucking basic, and we have gotten nowhere on any of that.

well, that's not entirely true. we have gotten to court. multiple times. because this administration hired fancy and expensive lawyers to sue us instead of bargaining. one of them actually said in court that they could not find more than one undergrad witness that says they have been harmed because we, their classroom instructors, are scaring them the same way a domestic abuser terrorizes their victim. literally the Larry Nasser sex abuse lawyers compared us to domestic abusers. we won one injunction and lost another (nonbinding) case.

and now, the university has decided to pay grad workers only $100 for the entire April paycheck. they saw my colleagues were starving and they said, instead of your regular salary that you already say can't cover rent, have $100. they are doing this not only to striking workers who didn't fill out this bullshit "attestation form" to say they are working, but also to workers who did fill out the form and are scabbing. also a ton of grad workers didn't even see this form because it went straight to the spam folder. this admin is extremely bad at their jobs, except when the job is to be cruel.

all of which is to say, if you have anything to spare, send it over to our union's strike fund. a bunch of folks, myself included, gave $101 just to say we paid a grad student more than the university did this month.

*not me, I'm on fellowship

** for a single-person household, as defined by the city where we live

*** nominal wage = real wage + inflation. inflation has been going absolutely hogwild lately, and admin is offering a small % wage increase that doesn't keep up with the inflation rate. and in fact is so small relative to inflation that it would erase the gains of our past 2 contract cycles.

**** our institution has had big, public problems with this recently

[kira-bennett]

I'm just going to rant about this here because whenever the topic comes up IRL no one bothers to actually listen to what I am saying and it devolves into people being condescending as ever-loving fuck to me. At least if I post it here I can pretend people actually care what I have to say, and get it out the way I want to say it without being interrupted, having jokes made at my expense, and being ridiculed for having issues of my own.

The concept of awkward, really forced methods of getting people to date, especially in east Asian countries, came up, and it turned into a whole debate about the loneliness epidemic. The key points that were used to justify these awkward methods were, 1. Well the people are not reproducing so if they don't do this the population and culture will die out, and 2. work culture (specifically in east Asian countries) makes it impossible to date normally.

In response to point 1, culture is based on how people are raised, not genetics. You don't have to have a bunch of kids to keep a culture going. Letting people who truly want to embrace the local culture move in isn't going to change the culture much more than it would over generations because every generation, even if raised in the culture, changes it in some way. It's why we can look back on previous generations like they were a bunch of idiots and assholes. Typically my point that reproduction isn't the most important thing in the world, and in fact, expecting constant growth is just capitalist bullshit, is met with "we have the resources, just not the proper distribution" and honestly my point to that is that you have to work within the system you are in, not the system you could be in. Still work towards those better systems, but plan as if there isn't going to be a miracle because change, especially on a global scale, is slow.

Point 2 is an interesting one, because the obvious answer is to improve work culture, and to do that, people are bargaining with the best chip they have, the future. If people are not dating and reproducing because the culture is hostile to that sort of thing, the people in charge will have to decide which matters more to them, the culture or the future/reproduction. These half measures of awkward, forced encounters is just an embarrassing attempt at distracting from the real issue. It reminds me of the 4B movement (which started in Korea but is gaining traction in other countries) where women have decided not to date or reproduce because the current conditions for that are not favorable. More importantly, these measures seem to have been working, as changes seem to have gone in the worker's favor. According to statistica, Japanese employees work on average 136 hours a month, or 31.6 hours a week (for context, the average in America is 34.2), which is notably different from the 147 hours a month (34.2 hours a week) that was considered average in 2012. An anti-karoshi law, the Work Style Reform Law (which capped overtime) was ratified on June 29, 2018. There are other changes that have been made, but I feel like I have made my point. This begs the question of why dating has gotten so much harder despite work conditions, the supposed cause of this issue, getting better?

This study by Japan's Gender Equality Bureau illustrates how, married women, even while working outside the home, do 77% of the household labor and women are pushed out of careers they enjoy because they have kids. Another report by the same organization shows that women report not wanting to get married because they want to maintain their freedom, and don't want to be burdened with childcare and housework. In that study, you will also find that the majority of divorces were caused by personality conflict, mental abuse, and adultery, with illness and financial hardship being the least common causes of divorce (a hard blow for the "women only care about good looking wealthy men" crowd, I am sure.) People around the world are refusing to have kids, as evidenced by total fertility rates slowing worldwide, so it only makes sense to look at this issue on a global scale, and I'm sure that, while the exact numbers may be different depending on the country, many women across the globe can relate to these statistics. What I am trying to get at with this is that, as women gain the ability to support themselves independently from men, but still face a disproportional level of violence and discrimination, it is no surprise that those women will shy away from dating.

This draws me closer to another point I need to make, and the reason this topic bothers me so much. We are Americans, having this conversation in America, and, as such, enter this conversation shaped by the cultural conflicts of western society. A common issue here is what is known as the "male loneliness epidemic" and the incel problem. According to multiple studies men and women experience loneliness at similar rates, but the media frequently talks about the "male loneliness epidemic" and what to do about it, but if men and women experience loneliness at similar rates, why does only one side's loneliness warrant a solution? Well, its the incel problem. A lot of men who don't have much luck in relationships resort to violence (Elliot Rodger, Alek Minassian, Armando Hernandez Jr., and Oguzhan Sert, are some infamous examples), some men profit off of promoting violence and abuse (Andrew Tate, Jordan B. Peterson, etc), and even more justify it. This misogynistic entitlement to sex has gone on for a while in American society (after all, it was legal to rape your wife in the US until 1993) and a lot of women are done. They can support themselves financially, trying to date could put them in contact with someone who will rape and/or murder her for saying no, and if they did get married they would have to do the majority of the housework even if they have a job. It is no surprise that women don't have much motivation to date men, and, if they do, some choose to engage with them in the same, disgusting, transactional ("I'll provide sex if you provide money") way the men that listen to Andrew Tate expect. Meanwhile, the men who seem to be having the most issue finding a date always blame women for "only wanting a 6ft tall, fit, 6 figure man" despite the fact that, if you just take a second to look around, most women are not exactly married to/dating the stereotypical "desirable" man. Most women I know are dating or married to someone generic as hell looking with an income similar to theirs.

The worst part about it is, these people are spouting these lies about "what women expect" or, if they are at least trying to cover their misogyny, "what most woman are told to want," but these things are completely divorced from reality. As someone who was born female and socialized as a woman (the fact that I don't identify as one seem to only be respected when I am agreeing with them, so I feel the need to use more precise language here), I remember being told by parents, teachers, and strangers to give men that made me uncomfortable a chance, date the guy who gave off school shooter vibes so (if he decides to do it) I would be safe, a decent woman can change a horrible man (so give the guy covered in red flags a chance), and many other horrible things that basically say "what you want doesn't matter, what he wants does." I don't know where they got this whole "women are told to only accept physical and financial perfection" bullshit from, but it doesn't align with my experience, nor does it line up with the experience of most women. I have done that in the pass, swallowed my feelings in hopes of making the creepy guy feel less alone, and it invariably led to violence and/or sexual assault, which is probably why this conversation sets me off so much. I have also experienced profound levels of isolation and loneliness in my life (try having your only human contact, for years at a time, be your abusive immediate family and tell me again how "I can't get a date" compares on the loneliness scale). I will never condone any argument where someone has to accept putting themselves in that level of danger just to make someone feel less lonely, and that is exactly what these people imply when they complain about women choosing not to date (let's not get into the misogyny of not believing the reasons these women actually give, as shown in the previously mentioned study, just to substitute your own reasoning. It's not like women can make logical decisions and voice their reasoning, right? /obvious fucking sarcasm). I am tired of being told I'm the one in the wrong for saying people need to stop prioritizing sex, dating, and marriage, over someone else pursuing happiness in a way that feels safer for them.

[lemontongues]

yknow what i am actually going to make a post even a mutual couldnt love lmao, under a cut for pregnancy/baby ponderings

i know im in the minority with this on tumblr bc a lot of ppl on here hate and despise the idea of being pregnant (and i fully respect that lol) but ngl i do kinda feel like on the Post Revolution Utopian Commune my job of choice would probably just be having babies until my body called it quits on that whole bit skfjfk like. just being pregnant and nursing them and then handing them off to ppl who like doing the next stage of childcare labor, probably while doing some sort of fibercraft in between! why? no fucking clue i just have kinda always felt like i should be pregnant and i love tiny little babies ♡ and if im on the Post Revolution Utopian Commune then feeding me is somebody else's problem and my pals could wander by and chat with me while i puttered around and spun or crocheted or whatnot :]

but also i feel like its SO hard to say that without sounding like an insane tradwife type sdkdnhdkds i def do not need all the babies to belong to the same person. or anyone in particular tbh. if technology was still a thing they could even do the thing where they put someone else's egg in me and i just incubate that shit idc, its not like. a marriage thing or a Breeding Thing lmfao there can be absolutely zero sex involved, i just. should have babies. i probably wont ever bc this isnt the Post Revolution Utopian Commune and that shit is a) hard and b) expensive so i expect to be living a permanently childfree lifestyle lmao but. babby.

[hyggehooligan]

(Also last night at my wife's high school athletics event) she was catching up with one of her teammates she hadn't seen in a while and we were asking about her kids, and she said "we have a 6 year old and also 3 year old twins" and I said "oh twins! We have twin nieces and we love them!" And she basically brushed me off and said "haha well being a parent is a lot harder than being the aunties" like ok???? Casual misgenderjng aside, why the fuck would someone say that? First of all, my feeling with polite conversation and small talk specifically is the same as with improv: "yes, and." You want to be able to volley with people. I was trying to relate to her and she just shut me down. Also it's not a competition, I didn't imply it was, actually I implied that twins are very cool and fun! But she didn't want to hear anything about my experience.

Additionally, it was a special kind of shit feeling to be told that my experience was "less than" just because they aren't my children. I've always wanted to be a parent with my own children and it is becoming more clear that that might not happen, I am processing it, it is what it is; and I'm working on building other areas in my life to fulfill that need. I really enjoy my work with animals (cuddling some foster puppies as I write this) and I love my nieces and all my friends' kids and I feel so lucky that I get to be in their lives as they grow up. I want my own babies but I can't do that for a variety of reasons. As a queer trans person, logistically that is complicated and expensive. As a person with physical and mental illnesses it makes full time childcare difficult. But I have a lot of love to give and I give it freely where I can. Love takes many form and there are so many different types of families. We don't have to compare. We just need to support each other.

But I think it's very important to be sensitive to the struggles people might be going through in their families, whether we know about them or not, whether they are your friends or not, because these kinds of casual comments can really hurt. And the thing that gets me is that it was just such a rude and unnecessary response.

[nukenai]

My boomer moment is always going to be vet costs because like. I agree vet costs have gone out of control but if you can't afford it then don't have an animal. I don't qualify for low cost spay/neuter stuff bc I make decent money so Sammie's neuter cost me a little over $400. That includes pre-surgery blood work and pain meds and stuff from my trusted vet of over a decade. And I can afford that! It's a surgery he only needs once and it's not an insurmountable amount of money.

You can't predict if one of your pets is going to become sick, disabled, generally special needs, etc. Your dog may become diabetic and need medication for the rest of their life. If you're not prepared for something like that, don't have a dog! It's not fair to them!

This isn't comparable to childcare costs because you have to very aggressively choose to take in an animal. I see people complaining about $200 adoption fees for animals that came into shelters unfixed with no vet work done. I paid $400 for my cat because she was abandoned unspayed outside and had to be transported to me. And I was happy to pay it because it supported an organization pulling animals directly from overcrowded shelters in the South.

Pets are an expensive LUXURY. No one "deserves" animal companionship because animals are living individuals that require expensive specialized care, not accessories for your fucking Instagram account or toys to play with only when you want.

And I'm honestly not talking about areas that are stricken with poverty and have deep systemic issues with stray unfixed dogs running around. I'm talking about people who make decent money like me who yell about stuff needing to be "affordable" when they balk at any vet bill above $50 while having spent 3k on a fucking "goldendoodle" puppy mill dog. And this is coming from someone who spent a lot of money on a dog who wound up dying tragically in an accident.

Anyways. There's my monthly rant about people getting dogs who can't afford them because they think they're entitled to animal companionship but also think regular vaccines are too fucking expensive and go to the cheap clinics when they can absolute afford it but just didn't want to pay the extra $50 for an actual physical exam for their animal.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

Tory MP and Woman Shouting On Corner You Try And Avoid Eye-Contact With Miriam Cates has apparently blamed women in the workplace for, uh, more children going to nursery in nappies.

Hmm.

Specifically, she is blaming a “GDP-obsessed” economic climate and the “distorted pursuit of freedom, prosperity and happiness” for forcing women to go to work when what they should clearly be doing is staying home and looking after the children they should be having.

(And teaching the children to use the potty, presumably.)

This is not a woman you can or should take seriously, because she is an idiot and says idiotic things, and it is deeply uncomfortable that she is in politics. This is someone who looks at the difficulties of having and raising children nowadays (because it’s fucking expensive and childcare has been hacked to bits) and confidently says the answer is that women, baby-factories that they are, should just stay home and take care of it – problem solved!

I’m being hyperbolic, but not much. She is very much the embodiment of “Ban this woke filth also we need to go back to Traditional Traditions because a happy, healthy society is one where everyone knows their place and toes the line” and she isn’t hiding this. It’s her main selling point! That’s her angle!

But what annoys me most – well, one of the many things that annoys me here – is that tiny, tiny sliver of something approaching a valid point. The ‘GDP-obsessed’ bit. You could have done something with that! You could have taken that in a worthwhile direction!

Only you didn’t! You took it somewhere buttfuck insane!

Also, what is with Tories and an increasing attack on the individual? Suella Braverman and her weird thing about how we shouldn’t be so focussed on human rights but rather on our ‘duties’ to one another and now Miriam here with her angle on how pursuing happiness is bad, apparently?

You people worry me.

[a-room-of-my-own]

Had the most INSANELY stupid conversation with a manager - 1990's working gurl type. I said in a meeting that young mothers should be able to leave work earlier : let's not kid ourselves, men never ask to leave earlier to pick up their kids and when they do everyone throws a parade, so it's a women's issue. And she replied "that's a wrong message to send because YOU can be a mother AND be there for the company".

LADY

If you want to sacrifice your family life and not see your children grow up for the glory of Capitalism (hallowed be his name) do whatever the fuck you want but some of us want to have a life outside of a cubicle. Also childcare is expensive and people aren't paid enough to have someone picking up their children from school everyday wtf.

She's like 15 year older than me so it's not like she's my mother's generation when women had to fight tooth and nail to be included in the workplace god damn it. She's also always making crass jokes to be "one of the boys" at 50 fucking years old and gooooood how pathetic can you be you pantsuit wearing freaking waste of space!!!

[rhizomehaunt]

here's the thing, in a world where like, everyone had universal income and housing, free healthcare and childcare and education, didn't have to worry about food insecurity, had all debts forgiven, got the care they needed, weren't under constant threat of violence from the state and fascists, etc., I'd maybe be like aw, cool outfits. but I do not give a shit about rich celebrities celebrating their own extravagance and I fucking refuse to invest even one iota of energy into people whose lives and values are so in opposition to everything I believe and who are actively profiting off extortion, destruction, and the capitalist death cult that threatens the livelihood of the planet and literally everyone I love. it is fucking grotesque seeing the rich class parade around as if their entire existence was for us to find spectacular and visionary, for people to wear clothes that cost more than I have ever made in years at a time, for the wealthy to consume more and more at the expense of all of us and then throw a party to show it off. it's like when people bemoan what "we've" done to the planet—like excuse me? don't fucking lump me in with the millionaires and billionaires who are responsible for mass destruction and violence and death and absolve themselves of it by making imaginary shows of philanthropy or throwing balls while people are starving. eat the rich also means your favs!!! stop caring about celebrities, they do not care about you!!!!

[grannybeards]

Hello my friends

As it so happens - as often does in this world - I can't afford to go back to work as I can't afford childcare. Fuck the UK government and all of that, but more importantly I need to make money to help towards supporting my family. We are moving into a different rental soon to save money but with a baby we still had to take a more expensive property so we could have one with heating for wintertime as its very cold in northumbria.

To make ends meet, I have a vintage shop selling vintage and antique books and jewellery. I also make washable breathable chunkyknit baby blankets which you can find on etsy or buy direct for £5 cheaper (etsy commission rip).

I'm making a tumblr for my vintage shop called @coplandvintage and I would really appreciate a follow. I understand people can't afford to buy much right now but even a favourite on etsy makes a big difference to my listing rankings and lets people find my shop. I love being on tumblr and have found so much kindness here in the last ten years. I hope that kindness may continue in one form or another xx love u

[warriorlid14]

Two related Gale asks:

One, what would your top three majors for Gale in a College AU?

Two, when College AU!Gale is padding his college application (he has a lack of "good" extracurriculars due to working as close to full time as the law would allow and then some in high school, plus the good extracurriculars are super expensive), what activities would he list and what would they actually mean?

Ooh love these!

Majors

Engineering

Physics

Government/Poli sci

He consider computer science for a hot second because it brings in the big bucks, but he found it ungodly boring. I think he actually does major in a STEM related field and does gov/poli sci as a minor.

He does end up working in the field for a year or two after graduating and hates the corporate company so much that he decides to go to law school to go after companies like them. (Maybe environmental law or labor law or some sort of public interest). It takes him a while to actually get there because he likes to send money to his family but he gets there eventually.

Resume:

Leadership: co-manager at a bike shop/auto shop . The reality is that the shop has two or three employees and no leadership because the owners never bother to be there or deal with customer issues. So both Gale and his coworker have the authority to politely tell people to fuck off when they're being rude as well as other managerial duties (ordering supplies, etc)

Jobs: he has worked at so many places over the years ranging from working there for a few days to a few years (auto shop). He does the thing where he doesn't list the exact dates he worked there but puts the season he worked there. Looks like it could have been a few months when it was really only a week

More jobs: Tutoring . To be fair, he did actually try tutoring either other classmates or his siblings' rich friends. But oftentimes they were pretty entitled and Gale got frustrated and he sometimes just did their math assignments for a fee

Volunteer work: childcare. that was mostly friends of his mom dropping off their kids and him sitting down like 6 kids in front of the TV while he did homework in the kitchen and made sure they didn't die

Extracurriculars: Robotics and track. He wasn't actually in robotics but sometimes during his lunch period or free period, he would tinker with the robotic team's projects because it was fun and also the teacher liked him. He also wasn't in track. Katniss was though (her mom pressured her to do something for herself and track was the compromise) and sometimes he would jog besides her in the mornings just to hang out (or vent or rant). Also one time he accompanied her to a track meet for moral support and one of the runners was sick so he tagged in so they owe him for that

References: the robotics teacher and the owner of the shop, as well as his friend Thom, AKA fake youth leader as a fake reference because why not?

Thanks for the ask!

Send me your Gale asks/questions!

[jechristine]

Besides streaming, we have to consider that home entertainment systems provide really good quality image and sound. We are not in the time of really small tvs with awful sound. You can sit in very comfortable furniture, eat and drink whatever you want at a comfortable price, pause a movie to go to the bathroom, you are not interrupted by a bunch of loud people and you don't have the share the air with people that don't give a fuck about their health. Plus you can drink alcohol without a fear of having to drive while intoxicated a few minutes later. And now you don't have to wait too long for new releases to be available on streaming. The films that are still having some success in theaters are those appealing to teens and young adults that want to hang outside their parents' house. Many in this demo love superheroes, action and horror movies. During summer, some families also decide to send their kids to theaters so they don't have to turn on the AC at home. So the movies targeted to adults have suffered the most in this period. Just a handful of them have bucked this trend

Interesting—I haven’t thought about it in terms of age demographics. I do like some films in the genres your mention and other adults can, too, but I will add that childcare is a big expense so my husband and I usually wait until our own parents are visiting to go to the cinema.

[cupboardgods]

I'm seeing a lot of "what are arts grants" in the tags. I want to help!! I used to be the Grants Manager at an arts council and ran like 5 different grants programs. I am also a solo artist myself (illustration/visual arts).

Who gives grants?

Arts organizations, including arts councils, foundations, collectives, agencies, government departments (often parks and rec if not a separate arts dept), nonprofits, and associations have money to grant to artists!!! This usually requires an application (hopefully an easy one) and possibly a project proposal.

Who is eligible?

ALL art disciplines. Theater, dance, music, choral arts, visual arts, film, writing/poetry, culture/folk arts, etc. Some grants are general, some are specific to disciplines.

Some of these individual artist grants only fund project expenses. Others fund your salary without restrictions on what you use the money for.

If you're an artist who primarily displays your work online, emphasize your IMPACT on your audience. Some grants are hyper local and only open to people living or working in a specific region. You should not be barred from those grants just for having a predominantly online presence.

How to find grants:

Tbh, even I haven't totally figured this out despite working in this industry. Beyond googling, your local libraries may have access to databases where you can search for grants (mine does). If you're an individual artist (not part of a company, collective, or non profit), there are specific grants for you, but they may be more rare and harder to find.

Reach out to your local arts councils. Hopefully they are plugged in to the local grants scene and can steer you in a helpful direction. They might even have a newsletter or webpage specifically for artist opportunities.

You can also try searching on grant application websites. My former organization used Submittable as our application platform.

Why does America lack arts funding?

Fucking politics, man.

Unfortunately, op is right, there is a massive lack of arts funding here.

IMO, this is primarily because artists, regardless of discipline, are not seen as workers like people in other industries despite contributing billions to the economy. Artists are workers, obviously, and need funding for expenses for everything from specialized equipment (like dance studio flooring) to childcare, food, rent, etc. In a perfect world, we artists would all be earning a guaranteed, basic salary just because we make and share art and for no other reason. (Read about AFTA's survey of economic impact of the nonprofit arts sector->AEP6).

I used to work for a really cool arts council in a culturally diverse county in a major metropolitan area with over 1 million residents. All our grants money came from the county budget. Despite HUGE NEED AND DEMAND, we had less than $1 million to give out, and pretty much all of it went to nonprofit, community arts organizations. Individual artist grants were cut during the pandemic, and while I was there, I was working on proving that there was demand for salaries for working artists.

Meanwhile a neighboring county in another state with similar demographics had over $3 million to give out (more than my entire state, I think). And their state has tens of millions to regrant. Maybe more.

I grew up in Maryland which happens to be one of the better funded states. Here's an example of an artist grant (link).

Desantis just cut ALL OF Florida's state level arts and culture funding. The previously approved amount was only HALF of the demonstrated need requested by their arts commission. This is so tragic like, I can't even put it into words (read more: link).

Speaking from the perspective of a former grants manager in an underfunded state, all is not bleak. My county increased arts funding for nonprofits because of the pandemic.

Also, the grant making industry is trending towards very progressive practices and theories, including anti-racism and universal basic income. And I've spoken with grants managers from other orgs with so much funding my head was spinning.

Even if you can't find a single grant you're eligible for, you need to vote for politicians who will INCREASE arts and culture funding. Please vote, please. You can also communicate with your representatives and show up at budget hearings to show your support for arts funding and granting.

[shutup-logan]

I just don’t think I can ever justify having kids in this world, especially if I never become wealthy. I don’t feel like an adult and I’ve apparently been one for 10 years now. Is that ever going to change? I only feel safe when I’m rotting in my bed and I don’t want to spend money just to waste my time off trying to find a dr that listens. Why is it in the 70s on Nov. 1 in New England ? Why is no one worried about the environment? One of the few good things in this world is the beauty of the earth and so many people trash it and don’t appreciate it. I often wonder why no one seems to care about the injustices in the world but I can’t even get myself to clean my apartment, let alone make a change, so who am I to talk? I voted early but it feels pointless. I’ll probably die of listeria before the election results the way everything is getting recalled. In my perfect world people would be kinder and I’d spend my days hiding on a farm feeding peas to ducks. Why do I type like I’m the fucking catcher in the rye? And why is it unacceptable and so expensive to run away to Disney world when life is overwhelming? If I didn’t have a business I feel like I would be struggling financially and mentally, I still am a bit of both but in a different way. And what happens if I ever get hurt or sick? Do I have to shut down? It isn’t like I can work from home. And kids if I ever had children wouldn’t that mean I’m expected to give up my career? The good childcare is unaffordable and the affordable childcare is still unaffordable and less reliable. Also isn’t it inevitable any children I have will have some sort of similarities to me? If my brain hurts I wouldn’t want that for them. Sometimes I wish my parents thought more like me before choosing to have children. It’s not that I want to leave the world but I also don’t know how to find peace here if that makes sense? How am I supposed to be calm or productive when my brain is constantly racing and my body refuses to move? I stopped taking my anxiety/ depression meds because I really thought I could handle things. It’s kind of hard to handle anything when my stomach is constantly sick, I stutter when I talk to people and I cry constantly whether it’s from frustration or sadness. I’m much funnier without my meds I’ll give myself that, but I’m also a raging bitch. If there was a magic button and I could just feel normal, whatever the fuck that is, I’d hit it. What the fuck is normal? Like are there actually people that feel fine? Nothing bass happened to me recently other than my dog passing two months ago but that does still weigh heavy on me. I try to not think about it because it hurts but then I also don’t want to forget her. I would have done anything to save her if that were an option. Last week Charlie had to go to the emergency vet and I charged the shit out of my card. I’m stressed about my bills but he was worth it. If I lost both my dogs within two months I know that would be what breaks me. Halloween isn’t as fun when your rent is due the following day. My chest feels heavy and empty at the same time. How can that be?