Letter to the editor: Look to Depression for real struggles

Joe Mistick’s column “Life’s struggles hit single moms hard” lists among those struggles finding clothes at Goodwill, looking for family hand-me-downs and taking the kids to public parks. Really? I don’t doubt that single moms face all kinds of struggles, but what kind of society believes shopping at Goodwill or looking for hand-me-downs is a struggle?

During the Depression woman made dresses out of fabric flour and other food and animal feed sacks. Companies began printing patterns on the sacks so the dresses wouldn’t be plain. Having to make a dress out of a flour sack is a struggle; picking a dress off the rack at Goodwill is not.

The little girls who wore those flour sack dresses went on to become part of what we now call the greatest generation. In 50 years what will we call the generation that thought playing in a public park was a struggle?

Ed Pencoske

Trafford