I understand what you mean, I've noticed this trend, too! Apparently more families are "camping" now, too. This means driving a few miles down the road and sitting in a gravel parking lot with your giant camper...sure sounds rough.

Thank you for your view. Despite all my pronouncements against the privilege of being modern, industrialized, educated middle class westerners with access to the Internet, the topic of gasoline itself and its relation to privilege never entered my mind, though the related inflation has surely grabbed many people's attention in Hawaii, where we are dependent on air or sea transport for most of our needs, like our staple food, California grown rice, which has doubled or tripled in price since last year. This has a serious impact on underprivileged families and small businesses. Even two out of four airlines for interisland travel have gone out of business. I am someone who remains thankful for the life I am able to lead. My job is devoted to serving those who may no longer live as they please, indeed, explicitly waiting or wishing for death; another reason the concerns of the privileged sometimes irritate me.

I'll say this though: the REALLY poor people I have seen, as in the rural Philippines where one side of my family hails from, don't use much petroleum, and are likely largely unaffected. They live off the land using natural energy sources like the labor of their water buffalo, not gas or diesel powered farm equipment. They also heat water with wood fires, not electricity or gas. Or they simply bathe themselves and their animals in the rivers and ditches (risking serious infection). When life really becomes unaffordable, or we really deplete our supply of readily available energy, those who remain will be living like that, as humans have lived for perhaps thousands of years. Out of curiosity, I'd like to live long enough to see it.

SmartLikeMe commented on July 23, 2008, at 04:40PM: "Why are middle and upper-middle class families and their precious Disney vacations the face of the rising cost of gasoline and not the working class families who lived month to month as it was before the exponential price increases…who maybe have to skimp on food or medical services, and for whom a Myrtle Beach trip isn’t even on their radar?"

...and who live in areas where population density is too low to get mass transit, and who can't afford to lose jobs in strict workplaces?

Other faces of the rising cost of gasoline I've seen are urban people of all income levels and their buses and subways and sometimes even jobs a short walk away from home, and people with progressive employers who won't fire them (or refuse to hire interviewees in the first place) for showing up sweaty after long commutes on bicycles. Not everyone can take those for granted either!

The question of privilege hadn't entered my mind, so this really made me think. Until now, what was irking me about the coverage of rising gas prices were some articles I read about how people were coping. Some married couples decided that the best way to save gas money was to sell one car and have one half of the couple quit their job and stay at home. Which gender was usually the one to quit? Two guesses and the first one doesn't count. And the thing is, it's not like these women become stay-at-home wives who go out and run errands, volunteer, etc. They are literally staying at home since their husbands have the only car. And they also mention how nice it is to have to spend time in the car together since they have to plan their trips carefully now, with the man driving. In these lists of "reasons to love high gas prices" that come out on CNN or AOL, I'm fully expecting to see "women staying at home" as one of those reasons.

A male commented on July 24, 2008 9:11 AM: "My job is devoted to serving those who may no longer live as they please, indeed, explicitly waiting or wishing for death; another reason the concerns of the privileged sometimes irritate me."

What about the concerns of the ones you're serving? They're some of the privileged too - privileged enough to have access to your help. Some other people can't even take that for granted because they don't live where there are enough nurses, don't have enough savings for nursing care and live where there is enough public funding for it, have families who neither let them talk to outsiders nor provide equivalent care at home, etc.

A male commented on July 24, 2008 9:11 AM: "When life really becomes unaffordable, or we really deplete our supply of readily available energy, those who remain will be living like that"

The ones who have the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, that is.

"What about the concerns of the ones you're serving? They're some of the privileged too - privileged enough to have access to your help."

Yes, there is quite a waiting list for residential care, in any facility of any price or quality. Those without Medicare, or who cannot afford $10-14,000 per month, or without a slot, and naturally, society before us, looked after the aged and infirm on their own, likely at home. Traditionally, Japanese wives do this for their husbands' parents, which sucks, as it is one of their expected duties, and the nature of the care itself.

My clients, however, with their health concerns, are not likely to view themselves as privileged, but sometimes as having lived too long. Imagine, for example, facing the remaining 40-50 years of your life mentally alert and otherwise physically stable, but in a body you cannot control. And you cannot speak or eat. If you had the power to do so, what would you do about yourself in that situation?

"The ones who have the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, that is."

Yes. "Those of us who remain." I expect a mass die off from starvation and war over the dwindling resources. One more reason I am privileged to be living on series of rural islands isolated from major population centers and continents. One 19th century British economist estimated the sustainable population of the earth (based on his level of culture of course) to be one billion. The pre-contact, self-sufficient population of Hawaii was estimated at 400,000, one third of that today. I forsee that.

And up until now, I didn’t realize that going on some wonderful elaborate trip was some sort of innate American right such that we ought to spend valuable news time lamenting that middle class families this year can’t afford to drive halfway across the country and stay in a resort for a week.

Up until now? Now when what -- when you read a bunch of fluff pieces in mainstream newspapers about people not going on vacations? The fact that the mainstream press likes to report on what it deems an issue doesn't make that issue automatically prevalent. If I just went by everything I read in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, my standard newspapers of record, I'd think everybody in New York brings their chihuahuas to doggie hair salons in between calling their financial advisors to short sell some mortgage lender stocks. Those stories you acknowledge with scare quotes are "'news' stories" might not deserve an assumption that everybody's biggest concern about gas prices is how it affects their "innate American right" to vacation -- or even an assumption that vacation's so ingrained as to be considered such.

This has been totally irking me too, SmartLikeMe. My educational goals took me 3,000+ miles from my friends and family and made me too poor to go see them. They're all too poor to visit me, so as a result, it's been 2 years since I've had a beer with my sisters or hugged my mom. I finally managed to save enough for a trip - by not purchasing health insurance and, importantly, by limiting my driving. I am lucky to have been able to make that decision, since my school recently mandated health insurance for all students who came in after me, as meanwhile tuition is increasing and access to financial aid is declining.

The recent spate of stories about Americans' vacation woes gets under my skin. I agree that it focuses on the experiences of relatively privileged Americans. Moreover, though, it vastly understates the real impact of current economic woes on people's lives. Gas prices are a part of that. High gas prices are not problematic in and of themselves, in my opinion. In fact, the gas prices are a huge red herring. It would be more honest and productive to focus discussion on all of the other factors that are making the high gas prices very difficult for people to accommodate (e.g., the fact that high food costs, a slack employment market, housing crises, and decreased education funding are all occurring simultaneously just might have an effect on how much people have available to spend on transportation, let alone vacations).

I'm not sure I agree that a decline in upper-middle class family vacations is not newsworthy. It may be primarily an upper-class concern -- but many tourist spots throughout the country depend heavily on family vacationers to stay afloat. The summer months are quite important to hotel owners, bed and breakfast owners, small businesses, minimum wage earners, etc. in vacation spots like Martha's Vineyard, Orlando, Hawaii, Padre Island, etc.

Without these vacationers, many may have to close businesses or lay off low-wage employees. This may not be the most important symptom of economic problems -- but it seems newsworthy.

kbz

everybodyever:

There was a hint of sarcasm in that sentence.

Regardless of "reality," the way the media is hounding on this "oh noes, no summer vacation for the privileged" would make you think that this is the worst effect of rising gas prices, when surely, it's one of the least.

KBZ:

Without these vacationers, many may have to close businesses or lay off low-wage employees. This may not be the most important symptom of economic problems -- but it seems newsworthy.

Except that that's not what these stories about. They're not about the larger effects of Staycations, they're about families who now can't go to Bermuda and crap like that. And it's not that I mind a story or 2 like that, especially if it was rounded off by presenting the economic effects of it like you suggest, but I see them several times a week, and despite their relation to reality, they for sure have rhetorical effects, and that's what I'm getting at here.

There are two sides to these stories, of course. Unfortunately, the news media only cares about covering the side that centers around the upper classes. There is reason to be troubled that our tourism industry is being hurt, a lot of people on or below the poverty line rely on tourism to keep paying the bills. Rather than going to tourist areas (that are typically more impoverished anyway), they keep the money in already privileged areas (the lake town close to my middle/upper class suburbs is more likely to be well off than the historic lake town I might visit if I had the traveling money).

The fact that they the media doesn't focus on the tenuous intracacies of the economy, and how the minor things that hurt the upper classes make the lower class hurt even more, is even more indicative of the privilege. The overreaching effects, and more importantly the lower classes, don't even come into consideration.

A male commented on July 24, 2008 10:03 AM: "My clients, however, with their health concerns, are not likely to view themselves as privileged"

Lots of people who aren't likely to view themselves as privileged still do have some privileges and have their privileges noticed by other people or even have their concerns labeled irritating for it by yet other people.

A male commented on July 24, 2008 10:03 AM: "'The ones who have the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, that is.'"

"Yes. 'Those of us who remain.' I expect a mass die off from starvation and war over the dwindling resources."

Not everyone who lived before the Petroleum Economy began had the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, so why expect everyone who lives after the Petroleum Economy ends to have that privilege?

Sure you and some of your relatives live in rural island areas, but for thousands of years millions of other people at all income levels have lived in cities. For that matter, for thousands of years many other people who did live in rural areas were enslaved and worked to death by owners instead of being happy harvesters earning a living (1700s colonial North America, 100s Roman Empire, and many other settings).

Peepers commented on July 24, 2008 12:22 PM: "It would be more honest and productive to focus discussion on all of the other factors that are making the high gas prices very difficult for people to accommodate (e.g., the fact that high food costs, a slack employment market, housing crises, and decreased education funding are all occurring simultaneously just might have an effect on how much people have available to spend on transportation, let alone vacations).

Very good points. I'd add that while the rising food costs are making transportation less affordable for some people who drive cars, take buses and subways with rising fares to cover rising gas prices, etc. rising transportation costs are making food less affordable for many people even if they walk or bicycle to work instead! After all, the freight transportation that gets the food from farmers to where landless people, people who have a share of community gardens but not enough acres for their families' staple carbs, etc. can buy it is getting more expensive too. Then there's the whole matter of devoting acres and acres of crops to biofuel instead of making biofuel from organic byproducts of other crops.

Also check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2008/costoffood/ , where BBC News collects its various articles and analysis on the current food price crisis (for even more collections, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/slavery/ )

This bothers me as well. It's the same tired old story that doesn't reflect my life in the least. Vacations? HA. Growing up neither of my parents had vacation time from work [they still don't], nor the money with which we could vacation. Now the rising costs of gas, impacting the prices of everything else around me, from tuition to food, make low-wage employment nearly impossible in rural areas where it is necessary to travel a distance to get to work. Rural means no public transit. Distance means more gas. Low paying jobs that require that much gas are nearly futile for some.

As these middle and upper-middle class families boo-hoo about their inability to take their Disney vacation, I have been spending the entire year [in school, racking up even more debt because of rising tuition costs] wondering how my family will manage to HEAT OUR HOUSE [read: rented apartment] this winter, when the cost of fuel will be nearly half their real wages for the year. We're still not sure, but have been stocking up on sweaters and blankets.

How's that for newsworthy?

Focusing on family vacation is classist, yes. But high gas prices hurts everybody. It's definitely newsworthy.

My two sisters and I went on one "real" vacation growing up -- the three of us flew (without our parents) to North Dakota from Arizona to visit our Grandmother. That was the fanciest vacation I went on as a kid.

Otherwise, we just camped. A LOT. And since we grew up near the river and lake, we spent most of our summer days there.

I'd say we were lower-middle class -- my dad was/is a small town plumber, so he made decent money, but he was far, far from rich or even well off.

This bothers me as well. As a child, I went on one family vacation, to Branson, MO when I live maybe a few hours north of it. And that was a good 14 years ago. I'm not complaining that my life was oh-so terrible without the luxury of family vacations, but to read news stories with other people complaining that they can't go on their yearly jaunt to somewhere tropical makes me want to vomit. Seriously? When the poverty line is rising to include people who were once considered to be living "comfortably," how ridiculous is it to write news stories about something so insignificant?

I do understand that many people make their money off of tourism, but these stories aren't written from that point of view.

I think the talk about gas prices also reeks of privelege in who people are blaming. I see a lot of people blaming the high price of gas on either (a) Detroit or (b) the Middle East. Convenient, right? Blame the overwhelmingly poor, overwhelmingly black city! Or, better yet, foreign brown people! Let's not blame, you know, speculation on oil or a failure of energy policy or anything like that.

And the same thing annoys me when a lot of my liberal friends say "I hope gas gets more expensive, because then there will be a greater push for green power." Like, they might be financially stable enough to afford to pay more in gas, but there are a lot of poor people who simply cannot afford the hike in price. I'm all for developing green energies, but not at that cost of human suffering.

Thanks for talking about this. It drives me crazy too. I'm like Peepers, far away from my family and unable to see them because I can't afford to take the time off, let alone go anywhere.

And it pisses me off that even people here are acting like it's no big deal. People in our country are sheltered, so if a group is not shown in the media (as poor or even lower middle class people so rarely are), they effectively don't exist to the rest of America. I didn't think pretending like a large segment of the human population doesn't exist was compatible with feminism. There's this thing we like to call "privilege"....

qwerty, and all:

Focusing on family vacation is classist, yes. But high gas prices hurts everybody. It's definitely newsworthy.

I never said I didn't think fuel prices are worth discussing.

I just think that several stories per week about middle class families and their poor no-cations are not so worthy,....as if the stressful effects of rising gas priced are typified by Staycations, and not by oh, the price of food, public transit, and utilities going up and the effects on poor families? On everyone?

I have yet to see one news story about the plight of the poor with regard to rising fuel prices (save for NPR)... and you don't even want to know HOW many of these damn Staycation stories.

If the worst effect of gas prices on a family is their Staycation, they're pretty damn lucky.

"I think the talk about gas prices also reeks of privelege in who people are blaming. I see a lot of people blaming the high price of gas on either (a) Detroit or (b) the Middle East. Convenient, right? Blame the overwhelmingly poor, overwhelmingly black city! Or, better yet, foreign brown people!"

Good points!

Meanwhile, isn't the word "Detroit" sometimes used as shorthand for "the American car industry" and its bigwigs who resist demands for higher fuel efficiency? I got the impression that people blaming "Detroit" aren't blaming the low-income majority-black residents of the city, they're ignoring the low-income majority-black residents of the city while using the name of the city as shorthand for a few highly paid executives...

A male commented on July 24, 2008 10:03 AM: "My clients, however, with their health concerns, are not likely to view themselves as privileged"

Lots of people who aren't likely to view themselves as privileged still do have some privileges and have their privileges noticed by other people or even have their concerns labeled irritating for it by yet other people.

A male commented on July 24, 2008 10:03 AM: "'The ones who have the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, that is.'"

"Yes. 'Those of us who remain.' I expect a mass die off from starvation and war over the dwindling resources."

Not everyone who lived before the Petroleum Economy began had the privilege of access to enough land to earn a living from, so why expect everyone who lives after the Petroleum Economy ends to have that privilege?

Sure you and some of your relatives live in rural island areas, but for thousands of years many other people lived in cities. For that matter, for thousands of years many other people who did live in rural areas were enslaved and worked to death by owners instead of happy harvesters earning a living (1700s colonial North America, 100s Roman Empire, and many other settings). It's a lot more complicated than dividing the number of people by the number of arable acres.

Peepers commented on July 24, 2008 12:22 PM: "It would be more honest and productive to focus discussion on all of the other factors that are making the high gas prices very difficult for people to accommodate (e.g., the fact that high food costs, a slack employment market, housing crises, and decreased education funding are all occurring simultaneously just might have an effect on how much people have available to spend on transportation, let alone vacations).

Very good points. I'd add that while the rising food costs are making transportation less affordable for some people who drive cars, take buses and subways with rising fares to cover rising gas prices, etc. rising transportation costs are making food less affordable for many people even if they walk or bicycle to work instead! After all, the freight transportation that gets the food from farmers to where landless people, people who don't have enough acres of community garden for their households' staple carbs, etc. can buy it is getting more expensive too. Then there's the whole matter of devoting acres and cares of crops to biofuel instead of making biofuel from organic byproducts of food production.

Also check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2008/costoffood/ , where BBC News collects its various articles and analysis on the current food price crisis (for even more collections, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/slavery/ )

Good point, I never thought of that.

But then again, when is the mainstream media NOT focused on things that pertain the the middle class?

I agree that the coverage is grossly skewed and that those simply trying to survive deserve the most coverage. I also don't have a ton of sympathy for those who would go to some fancy resort or Disney World (though that may be my own personal bias). However, that said, I do think that the decline of the "middle class" is an issue. This country is becoming increasingly divided into an upper class and the poor with the middle class becoming a thing of the past. I consider my family middle class (both of my parents were teachers) but we still took family road trips on certain summers (albeit the destination was usually a relative's house or tent in the woods). With gas the price it is now and more importantly economic/social conditions as they are now (and which make it difficult/impossible to afford the gas price raise) I doubt we could have afforded to go on these family trips which I do consider valuable. I don't believe that because there are others that have it much worse that middle class Americans should keep their mouths shut while the businesses/politics of the top income percentile steadily rob them and reduce privileges. Instead of middle class families keeping silent while their standard of living declines and being content to no longer have the means to travel or take family trips why not put the pressure on that top percentile and work to both raise the standard of living of the poor and keep their own standard of living from slipping? That said, I do agree that those who are really struggling should get the main focus of attention and most coverage. I just would hate to see it reach a point where it becomes accepted that only the rich can travel. I don't believe the difficulties of either the poor or the middle class should be ignored because some of the causes are the same.

This is me being sore.

Or theres families like my mother and I who are finally at a point in our lives where we can take our first family vacation in (quite literally) 15 years...but we can't because now plane tickets alone cost over 800 dollars each.

I grew up privileged. I went to disney every year. I'm 20 now and my family still takes vacations together twice a year. And we still are this year despite gas prices. I agree with you. I see staycation stories everyday and it's just ridiculous that these people expect sympathy. Yes,gas prices do affect the upperclass a bit but being part of that I don't feel it is news worthy, and I don't feel the need to whine about it when others less fortunate have it 100000 times harder than I.

I thank god that gas prices are rising, and we greedy Americans may drive less. Every gallon of gas saved is that much less pollution we're spewing into the air. Where I live, the poor were already walking to work, riding the bus, on the subway, and carpooling. It's the middle class who are finally changing their lifestyle. I've seen comparatively wealthy relations have begun turning down the ac, unplugging appliances when not in use, carpooling, telecommuting, combining errands and yes, canceling vacations. We can no longer afford to be so profligate, and the planet will reap the benefits.

Maybe rising gas prices will finally give the complacent and our elected reps the kick in the butt we all need to get off oil and onto renewable fuels.

Interesting piece! It depresses me to see mention of any paid leave as a privilege though - in NZ every employee is given 4 weeks (20 days) annual, paid leave legally.

I must say I get really pisses off at comments (usually by car drivers) about how great rising petrol prices are because more people will use public transport! As someone who has to use public transport - yeah fucking right. Everyone who's used it once in a blue moon or is lucky to live on a main bus route says how Great! Wellington public transport is. Yeah, no. It would take me 10 minutes to drive to work, it takes me an hour to bus - walk 20 minutes to the nearest bus stop, wait 10-15 minutes and stress about whether the bus is late or possibly it came early and I missed it, 10 minutes to get there, I allow enough time to make me early if it's on time.

It also makes me very dependant on my partner who's happy to pick me up from work, or drive me to my mothers a 30 minute drive away - I could do all this by myself but just going to visit my siblings would be a day trip.

Also, if I had a job where I had to look nice for work, I'd be screwed. 20 minutes walking in Wellington wind = sweaty + messed up hair. And really, we can't afford anything efficient and awesome like a skytrain because we're a tiny country with tiny cities in recession. We live above our means. Siiigh.

To actually reply to the main story that does suck, though I don't think we have quite that much crap in our media I wouldn't know as I avoid most of it :P