A Letter to Trent
May 27, 2009 3 Comments
Ah, the joys of summer! It is time for lazy weekends on the shores of our favorite fishing hole; time for playtime in the backyard with our children; time for grilling out with friends on a warm afternoon; time for baseball at the park & it is time to hang our laundry out to dry!
Only a year ago Trent at The Simple Dollar debated the pros & cons of whether or not to install a clothesline in his backyard so that he could take advantage of our gifts of sun and wind to dry his clothes. After a very thorough discussion of the advantages & disadvantages, Trent decided it would not be socially acceptable to install a clothesline. He felt that doing so might create tension with his neighbors as a clothesline has somehow become an icon of poverty.
We live on the very edge of a smaller town. As a result, there is some social pressure and limitations on what you can put in your yard.”
Trent is known in the online personal finance world as being the “leader” of frugality. His website is based around the idea of living a frugal & simple life. This decision for him to break his frugal values as a result of social pressure resulted in a very long discussion from his readers, most of whom told him he was being foolish and that clotheslines are socially acceptable all around the world.
Not only did they discuss whether or not clotheslines are socially acceptable, there were discussions of whether or not clotheslines were environmentally responsible, which they are. The benefits of utilizing a clothesline far outweigh any social pressure one may face as a result of hanging clothes out to dry.
Today while outside hanging my own clothes and looking at my neighbor’s clotheslines, I couldn’t help but think of the article Trent wrote and wonder why on Earth he would fold under the pressure of a social standard which, quite honestly, doesn’t make sense and may not even exist.
Trent, be proud of your frugal life and share it with your neighbors. Who knows, maybe they are making the same assumptions as you and are just waiting for someone to blaze the trail. Be a leader & don’t buckle under social pressure. Stand behind your words. What is good for us is good for you too.
About Steven
This does seem odd. Trent’s neighbors are probably equally amazed that he doesn’t have a clothesline, because they make sense dollar-wise and earth-wise.
If the neighbors are a little freaked out by a clothesline (a permanent addition to the yard) perhaps they could be gently conditioned to the idea by seeing a nice portable clothes drying rack being used on the patio or deck during the warm months?
Then after awhile of getting used to the concept they would be OK with the clothesline and neighborhood peace would be maintained…
This sounds like a good alternative as it is a temporary fixture. Maybe I am just from a different place (a few hundred miles away in a small town) where we all have clotheslines in our backyards. It just seems so…suburban to me that there is this stigma with a clothesline being a sign of poverty. Apparently the people who live in the middleclass areas don’t fully understand what it means to be poor. I doubt there are poverty-stricken people stringing up clotheslines between their shopping cart and cardboard box next to the dumpster…it is a naive idea for Trent to hold.