I may have been inadvertently jipped into donating to thuh chyldrun

So, I'm at a 4th of July event being held downtown by an organization that geared toward downtown revitalization. I found a guy that had something I liked enough to spend some of my gift money on. I made my purchases, & the entire time, guy was polite & he very talented at the handmade items he was selling.

I was thinking that not only did I like what he made, but I would be helping his business of selling these things by buying a couple items. Also, as an artist, I can relate to funneling my passion, blood, sweat, & tears into my work, & wanting to charge a decent amount for intricate work that took hours, days, or weeks to complete.

However, when I was done making my final purchase, he said its all going to medical research for kids. While I think he may have been a, otherwise cool guy, for all I know & is just a little snookered in by sentimentalist bullshit, why did it have to be for thuh chyldrun? What about something that benefits everyone? I realize I'm beating a dead horse here, but just because adults can generally help themselves, & have the where with all to do so, doesn't mean they are any less worthy of compassion & charity. This is why when I willingly donate to charity, its either something that benefits everyone or something that is not getting enough attention.

He didn't mention it until after the final purchase, so it wasn't a manipulative ploy to passive aggressively, emotionally blackmail people into buying something. It didn't really feel like I was being jipped by him, just jipped by happenstance, but it was still a little irritating, especially since I thought I would be helping a fellow artist with their business.

If the proceeds are going to charity, I would prefer to know before I buy anything because what if their charity of choice is homophobic, racist, or just something I personally don't believe in? I would like to have some control over where my money is donated.

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"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

Except adults are being more and more hobbled and are having a hard time taking care of themselves now. Good luck finding a job that pays more than $10 an hour. Or a job that offers bennies like health insurance. Weak sauce Obama care helps a little, but it's still pretty much guaranteed that if you come down with something nasty you're facing bankruptcy. Thanks to Medicaid and a million kids charities, kids have all the damn support they need medically - somebody start collecting for the adults!

I realize his heart's in the right place with giving to charity, but honestly, kid charities get plenty of donations. I like to know if my money is being donated before handing it over for the reasons paragon said: I don't want to donate if it's going to something I personally don't support. If that makes me an ass, then so be it. I give more of a shit about animals and the plight of adults than I do about someone's sick brat. Kids are not that special that they deserve help more than anyone else.

Nobody gives a fuck about adults - once you hit your 18th birthday, you are officially stripped of your Given Fucks Recipient card, so therefore, there aren't many adult charities. And the ones that do exist get hardly any donations because everyone donates to the chyuldrun.

personally id rather not know something's going to charity till after a purchase, if I like something enough to want to buy it, I'm buying it because of that, but if someone tells me prior to purchase its for the kids, I usually wont end up purchasing it, call me a bitch if you want, but im not buying something for no sap story child saving reason.

if im told after the purchase, I usually just say "oh well that's a shame, I wouldn't have bought it if I knew" and wander off leaving them to contemplate why someone wouldn't want to buy something related to helping kids.

I don't really donate all that much, I'm not in a position to have money spare to do so, but if I do donate, i'd rather it be for animals, or for a condition that afflicts my older family members, that i'm also likely to suffer from myself in the future, I see the later as investing in my future.

I was planning on buying something for my mother last year at the market. I asked what the price was of an item, and found out that it was a "pay what you like" charity sale with the money going to some children's fund. I considered paying them five cents for the item because in my opinion they deserved it for using such a manipulative tactic to encourage people to pay more than they otherwise would, but in the end I decided I'd rather just pay the normal price for the item from another vendor.

If the guy didn't make it part of his sales pitch I'm not sure you can feel cheated. When I buy something from a small shop I have no way of knowing what the owner does with that income. Maybe it is privately donated to charities I don't care about or actively oppose. But the same could be said about the donations I make; my employer has no way of knowing what charitable donations I make and cannot make my employment contingent on that.

So this guy was just a blabbermouth about his personal plans with the money, possibly in the hopes that you'd be a repeat customer now that you know this about him you can use it to inform your future purchasing decisions.

I said I didn't feel jipped by him, just jipped by happenstance, almost like fate was fucking with me. I don't think it was, that's just how it felt. Also, I'm aware that you never know what the owner does with the income & that its their income, not mine, so there is no point in worrying about it. Its analogous to how, barring a business contradicting a deep conviction of yours, it would generally pointless to boycott a business for having a practice you disagree with, because all businesses do to some degree. So, by that logic you may as well become Amish or something. I just felt somewhat inadvertently screwed over, because there I was thinking I was helping a fellow artist, appreciating his talent, & then of all of charities that his proceeds could go to, its thuh chyldrun.

Slightly off topic, but when my best friend was diagnosed as terminal and I wanted to shave my hair off to raise money for a nice holiday, someone said to me "aren't there charities that can help with money? Like make-a-wish?"

I turned to them and bluntly replied "No, make-a-wish is for kids only, my friend was a teenager when she first got cancer but she's an adult now so no one cares - there are no charities like that for adults, so they're on their own."

I too would prefer to know if my money is going to a charity, because I would feel deceived if it went to one I didn't agree with.

well, biologically kids are the same species as adults, so if a medical research benefits kids, it must benefits adults as well. there isn't a separate cancer for kids.

Off topic:
'jipped' is a perjorative term.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150468/is-jipped-a-politically-incorrect-word

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tea princess
well, biologically kids are the same species as adults, so if a medical research benefits kids, it must benefits adults as well. there isn't a separate cancer for kids.

Some diseases are more common at particular ages than others. Meningitis, for instance, rarely affects people after their 20s. If the work supports research into a problem which largely affects children, this would have limited impact on adults.

Also, there can be a lot of difference in the treatment of children and adults. There's been a problem highlighted in recent years that medcines were historically tested only on men, and this means that the effect on women isn't always known. You'd think that it would be the same, but different hormones and other differences (bone density, ideal fat levels, etc) can affect how the medicine functions. Similarly, there has been a problem with children's medicine because it isn't clear what dosage should be given since the medicine wasn't tested on children, and it is unclear if it will have the same effect on a person who is still growing as it would on an adult.

So there is, legitimately, medical research which concerns itself exclusively with children. (Not that I'm keen to donate to that cause, mind you.)

Quote
cassia
Off topic:
'jipped' is a perjorative term.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150468/is-jipped-a-politically-incorrect-word

I was just about to say that.


On-topic, there are a lot of charities for the benefit of sick children and their parents than there are for sick adults. There are hospitals for sick children where the parents don't have to pay for treatment (e.g., St. Jude's). But what about if/when the breadwinner gets seriously ill? There's no hospital to go to where they don't need to pay for treatment. They get to pay out the ass because insurance will cap at an arbitrary point. And most people in America are one catastrophic illness or accident away from bankruptcy.

We coddle children and then tell them when they reach a certain arbitrary age, they're no longer important and expect them to suddenly understand that.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan