Poor-ish-ness (In which I talk about money like some tacky, uncouth beggar)

"Ugh. I HATE being poor!" moans the Anarchist on the way home from dance. According to her, we are the only family who cannot afford to purchase the totally optional sparkly rhinestoned t-shirts with the studio logo, and she's feeling left out.*

 "Why do we always have to be so poor? We are the poor ones every time!"

I take a deep breath. I know the feeling. I pretty much constantly have that feeling. I am forever the only mom saying "no" to simple things because we can't afford them. Every once in a while is no big deal. But every single time is a bit taxing. But I also know that, in reality, it's all about context. So then I say a thing that makes me feel like Supermom.

The Anarchist with her (only!) two American Girl
dolls.  Note the third doll is a relic from my
privileged childhood. Note that it is dressed in rags.
You can go ahead and blame my desire to analyze
Hindu ritual for that one.

"Anarchist, we aren't poor at all. No, really, we aren't. We have food to eat every single day. We have a house that has running water and electricity. You can take dance classes, get birthday presents, go out for Slurpees sometimes, have lots of clothes to choose from every morning, and can have an allowance. It's just that we spend time around people who have a lot more money than we do. So it seems sometimes like we are poor. But we aren't. If we were poor, we wouldn't have all the thing I just talked about. So even if we can't go on lots of fancy vacations or have sparkly t-shirts every time they are available, it doesn't mean we are poor. We just have to be careful about how we spend money. But we should really try to appreciate all of the things we do have without worrying about other people having more."

This is hard for her. The Anarchist is all about fairness. Fairness is her thing. But I just said a Supermom thing, and Supermom things are hard to dispute. I glow for a few minutes as a result.

But here is the problem. This is hard for me, too. And so really, after glowing, I go into a terrible downward spiral of self-loathing, envy, and shame. I feel inadequate because I can't provide Disney cruises and sparkly things for my children. I feel terrible because they have maxed out at two American Girl dolls apiece, and those were the result of a large group effort on the part of our families. I avoid carpools because our cars are falling apart and rickety. I become enraged when they need school supplies or field trip money on short notice because sometimes I simply cannot give it.

And I feel like I have exactly no excuse for this. I had potential. I was a smart kid who did well in school. I came from a middle class family and I went to college. Theoretically, I should have a nice house in the suburbs, a stable career where I sit at a desk all day and drink coffee, a leased family vehicle that doesn't have chunks of metal falling off the side, and the ability to pay for extracurricular activities without driving myself into bankruptcy. But I don't. I was an English major. It seemed really cute and intellectually rebellious at the time. I was a very smug and proud-of-myself 19 year old. And now my poor kids are paying for it

This afternoon I tried to explain to the Anarchist that she couldn't have her allowance money until Friday because it simply wouldn't exist until Friday. I owe her $5, but until I get my paycheck, it's not happening. She was enraged. "Well, then GET the money!" she said. She sounded like a seedy landlord, or maybe some sort of mobster. I didn't blame her. After all, she's being denied what was promised to her because Mommy just had to spend that semester really enjoying the heck out of Poststructuralism.

And then I feel guilty for feeling like it's hard. "For Pete's sake, you greedy jerk!" I'll tell myself, "You're worried about money for dance competitions like the world is ending, and there are people who are literally starving! You are for real the worst person I can think of!"

This is probably true. But for whatever reason, saying it doesn't help.

I've tried surrounding myself with other poor-ish people like myself. Friends who had kids early, bought houses at the wrong time, ran up credit cards trying to scrape by, and entered the career markets with the wrong degrees in the wrong year, like we did. These friends help me to feel not as alone. But for some reason, I am even more depressed when I leave them. This is probably because our conversations lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is no hope. We will all be working full time, and we will all be doing worse than our parents. If our kids have nice childhoods, they will not be able to go to college. If we save any amount of money for college, they will be miserable and deprived for the 18 years leading up to college. And then they will probably want to go to college and spend four years reading Edith Wharton and not making money...because that's probably genetic.

So what is a not-at-all poor, but relatively poor-ish mom to do? How do I explain to my kids that we have more than plenty, while simultaneously denying them 90% of what their friends have? The Bureaucrat suggests moving far, far away from the yuppieland in which we reside. That, or winning the lottery. I'm more a fan of viewing Living Simply as a spiritual practice, and then failing to view
it as a spiritual practice, and then becoming depressed because I suck at being all austere and whatnot, and then spending money I don't have to buy bagels and donuts and entire loaves of cheese bread to ease the pain of my depression. That method has been my go-to for the past several years. Why stop now?

And really, I just need to suck it up. Like I told the Anarchist, we are not poor. We are just not wealthy. We are not suffering. We just don't have the ability to take multiple vacations per year. I mean really, I'm just an entitled Millenial who's disappointed that being my own, unique, individual, Jane Austen-loving snowflake didn't lead to fame and fortune.** And I need to get over it. And so do my kids.

In the meantime, I think that the Bureaucrat might be on to something with this lottery nonsense. After all, there's a high probability of winning, right? And I know a lot about probability because I spent a lot of time studying statistics in college.

Oh. Wait. Nope. Nope.

I spent a lot of time studying the negative theology of female mystic poets across religious traditions.

Of course I did.

Better go buy those lottery tickets.

* I am well aware of how super-tacky it supposedly is to talk about money in polite company. But I feel like this is a rule that rich people made up so that they wouldn't have to hear me whine. Plus, this is not "polite company." This is a blog. I'm not wearing pearls, or readily distinguishing between a salad fork and a dessert fork, or anything. So I think we're cool.

** Speaking of Jane Austen, I think that a more apt description than "entitled Millenial" might be "that character from a Jane Austen novel who complains about being the poor relation, but really only has a few fancy Edwardian dresses instead of many, and needs to stop whining, because at least she's not the scullery maid!" I like that better.