bluntmoney.com

Cavemanus left a comment recently on my fear of looking poor post that got me thinking about my money roots. He said (in part),

blunt, with all due respect, I get the impression that many of the things you expressed are things that you feel, subconsciously, or otherwise towards others. Do you personally think people who use coupons cannot make ends meet? That people order water because they cannot afford a drink? These thoughts would not have occurred to me. But, these are the kinds of things that you think about, or they would not occur to you either.

I don’t believe those things, and I don’t feel that way about others, although I did growing up. The thoughts rarely occur to me now, unless I read about them elsewhere. I wrote about the fear of looking poor because I thought it would make an interesting (and possibly helpful) post, since it was something that I struggled with a lot in the past, and still struggle with at times today. Changing my thinking on that changed my life. But, here’s where those feelings probably came from:

As a young child, I grew up in several very Midwestern, very homogeneous areas. If you weren’t a middle-class white Republican Lutheran of German immigrant descent, chances were I’d literally never seen you in person. And growing up when I did meant that I’d also rarely seen you on TV. When I did, it was as hippies, Vietnam war protesters, and rioters on the news. Maybe an Indian on the Lone Ranger or Gunsmoke. Cartoon kids on the Fat Albert show. Truth is, I mostly watched nice-guy-in-a-sweater Mr. Rogers. In fact if you look at the picture on this wikipedia entry, that’s pretty much what things in my life looked like as a young child.

Combined with that background, the people I spent some of my youngest years around were not always the most open-minded people. In fact some of them were downright derogatory toward anyone who was different in any way from them. Racist too, although I did not recognize it at the time. Apartment buildings being constructed “brought down the neighborhood”. “Those people” shouldn’t live in “this area”. “Junker” cars (meaning non-late model Oldsmobiles or Cadillacs) were dangerous and embarrassing. Japanese cars were a threat to the American way of life, and you’d only buy them and line up at the pumps if you were desperate or un-American, despite the gas crisis.

I heard those things and felt the anger and fear that often accompanied them, and I was afraid too. Not of the people that the comments were directed toward, but of the people I heard saying them. I wanted to crawl away and disappear. I left the room, if I could. I didn’t understand the anger. I just knew that these powerful people in my life seemed angry for no good reason, and I didn’t want them angry at me. So I looked around, and what were the differences that I saw between me and the people they were angry at? The people they were angry at seemed poor. They didn’t have as nice of cars or houses, and I assumed it was because they couldn’t afford them. (As an adult I realize that it’s not always that simple. But I’m talking about being a kid under the age of 8. Nor did everyone I knew act like that.) My magical thinking went like this: as long as l didn’t look or act poor, people wouldn’t think badly of me.

So to me, the fear of looking poor is probably really a fear of being treated badly, discounted, and judged. And in many ways, people who are poor are treated badly, discounted, and judged. People feel free to comment on what a person using food stamps buys in the grocery checkout, as if they are somehow misusing our money if they choose to buy a frozen pizza instead of flour and cheese. And god forbid they buy some pet food; they could have been using their OWN money for their OWN food instead of wasting ours on their dog. And what about those bums on the street? They should just get a job instead of taking the easy way out and getting handouts. Sadly, comments like those are not uncommon.

So it’s not a completely irrational fear.

It’s also balanced by other things. Some of the wealthiest people I know shop at the Kmart and live in a tiny house. No one has ever told me that they thought badly of me because I drink water all the time. (In fact, they’ve often essentially said the reverse.)

I think it can be worthwhile to really sit and examine where some of our ideas come from, and to challenge the validity of those ideas. Are we being the person we want to be and are capable of being, or are we allowing the past to keep us stuck?

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