Fantasy

[oselle]

I don't think it's much of a revelation to say that most magazines are in the business of selling fantasy, but every once in a while a particularly startling example leaps out at me.

I was leafing through the latest edition of Country Home and they profiled a woman -- described as a registered nurse -- who had retired and moved to Maine and built her dream house.

Now, in the article they also mention that she raised six children. There's no mention of a wealthy late husband or whether any of those six children are supporting mom, but let me tell you -- there is NO WAY this retired woman could live the way she does on a nurse's pension and savings. I have a retired registered nurse living next door to me and she can barely afford her prescriptions every month.

My favorite part of the article is when she describes herself as "not rich," citing cutting her own hair and not buying new clothes as examples of this thrift. The page right before that was extolling the virtues of the "double Viking stoves" in her state-of-the-art kitchen. I'm sorry but...there is no such thing as a "not rich" person who can afford not one but TWO Viking stoves.

I have to wonder who these magazines are for. Could even...10% of that magazine's audience afford to live like this woman? And what does it do to your head when you open these magazines and see supposedly ordinary people with humble jobs who live in gorgeously outfitted, storybook homes that ordinary you with your humble job could never, ever afford? I would love it if for once, these magazines would just come out and say, "So-and-so was a nurse for 30 years but her husband was an Exxon executive who left her $50 million in his will." A little honesty would be nice. It's really unfair to keep duping people into thinking that the lifestyles they depict are attainable.

Oh, speaking of magazines. I left my new job and went back to the old one. And we shall never, ever speak of this again. As far as I'm concerned I've been in a coma or something. It all just...never happened.

Comments

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* Sounds like an excellent choice, man.

Re: actually

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I suppose, but she still raised six kids. I'm assuming there must have been a husband at some point so between the two of them they must have had a pretty hefty income to raise so many children and still have enough left over for her to retire in style. I just feel like these sorts of magazines should come with warnings on them, like cigarettes:

"The Surgeon General wants you to know that you will never live like this and should regard the pictures in this magazine as pretty fairytale illustrations. Thinking that this is in any way a realistic lifestyle for you could be hazardous to your mental health."

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Jeez, I hope so. Whatever. Done-bun can't be undone, as Annie Wilkes used to say. I think.

[sixth-queen.livejournal.com]

She may have gotten lucky and sold out of the housing bubble.

1. Buy small house with husband in, say, California, 30 years ago.
2. Raise kids.
3. Pay off house, husband dies or divorces.
4. She sells house in 2005 for $700K.
5. Lots of money for new house with Viking.

Although, if you're living on a fixed income, or living off a fixed lump sum, Viking is probably the stupidest thing to buy.

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're out of that hellhole.

In my experience, people who say things like, "I'm not rich" in articles about their fabulous dream home in Maine really mean "I'm not fabulously rich like my neighbor, Martha Stewart. I only have a FEW million." ;-)