Being a young 20 something and not having much money was a struggle. I didn’t like it one bit. I wish I could say it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. I worked, I was in college, I had a marriage, and I had a little kid. The worst of it was not being able to do the things that made life fun. We didn’t have a Christmas tree one year. We didn’t go out to eat. I had this familial obligation, or so I thought-healing and growth happen so much throughout life-to buy presents, something, anything, for extended family, so while we didn’t buy anything for each other, I was out buying some small thing for extended family, and we had to wrap the gifts in newspaper. It was depressing. We did buy presents for our little kiddo, but that was also a struggle, because I wanted to do more. Of course, what parent doesn’t want that? The young are always so oblivious to the struggles to get magical presents in the home, only that they are there. Am I right?
I had a decent exposure to living a decent life in a decent environment during my formative years. I saw very little of the tough stuff: few fights, few drugs, few theft, few fear inducing things. In fact, the only fear we had was through stories, admonishments, and the 4 o’clock hour on television.
Dad grew up in a two bedroom two room house. His dad was proud to have bought it. A bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms was all that little house contained. Dad had to share a room with his sibling. I didn’t have to do that. I have no context. I also don’t have context for living in a small house, of having clothes given to me from others, of going to a food pantry, of living with a chronically ill and crippled parent. Dad remembers going out to eat twice his entire childhood. Fast food wasn’t even a thing back then.
I do recall having to go to an overflow store for clothes, where they didn’t fit well and weren’t in style. I was embarrassed, but I guess the clothes were new. We did have yellow label cans in our home, but I should have been grateful that we had food and we could buy it. I wasn’t, I suppose. Instead, I was embarrassed because it wasn’t name brand.
And as a result of my dad’s upbringing, we did a few things halfway to make up for what my dad didn’t experience, and halfway to take advantage of new discoveries, such as fast food-quick and easy, or the god-forsaken t.v. tray worthy frozen meals. We didn’t get the new experience of cable television, but we did go to quite a few movies, mostly because dad didn’t get to see many growing up, if any. I don’t quite know because he held many childhood disappointments close and quiet.
Today my children have things in abundance that used to be luxuries. I’m not quite sure they comprehend what it is they have that is so amazing. My brain still gets frazzled when monies trickle out of my fingers to the fast food building for the liverstomachcolon destroying tongue enjoyment we call food. I must admit it’s the ease and frankly the peace of no kitchen clean up. However, some have transitioned to being more healthy and less death defying, so I try to comfort myself with bonus points when we eat there, then deduct points for the higher cost.
I struggle with how to teach them to appreciate what they have versus what they would have had. I try and share the family history like some tribal ritual of oral story telling, hoping to pass down the family history so they, too, can retain the history, be mindful, thankful, grateful, and maybe a tad repentant for any excesses they haven’t actually earned. We give, we model giving in secret, too, because we don’t need attention for being helpful and adding hope to someone else’s life.
If I could put them in my life all those years ago, would I? Would my dad have put me into his 4 room house all those decades ago? Would I have appreciated it? Would my children have any appreciation for my childhood? Perspective is shaped by experiences, but even then, putting them into another’s shoes doesn’t provide perspective UNLESS…unless they understand the impact of that experience, because experiences mold a person in a way that simply hearing about it never will. Listening to stories is trite, in a way, because they can feign compassion or emotion, but until they have some level of understanding that experience it simply exists in a vortex of time. Still, I do not fault them for that. I cannot hold them accountable for my experiences, and certainly not for my father’s experiences. How could they even begin to imagine his life, or his poverty? How could they live through his firsts as an adult the way I did while I was a teen? They can’t, and they won’t.
As irrelevant to what really matters in life it is, the only first my kids may live with me is an experience I’ve not yet had: a live band concert. I don’t mean sitting and listening to a three piece orchestra or a cantata or a church musical or anything of that sort. No. I mean putting on a band t-shirt, grabbing some ear plugs, sitting in traffic, walking with the masses, paying exorbitant amounts, and sitting with screaming fans who wreak of cologne and body odor, who are young and old, who are well dressed and in faded and ripped clothes, who congregate to listen to some group of mediocre or well appointed musicians assisted or not by technological enhancement, fog, and gear, and enough strobing to give one a seizure. It may or may not happen, but that is the only thing I may culturally experience with my children that I’ve not experienced. Otherwise, the collective stories of memories are shared before they fade into nothingness, with all the hope and expectancy that the stories and emphasis on determination, grit, and fortitude will enlighten the next generation and encourage them to focus on what really matters in life more than getting ahead or up or in, it’s getting through. And, when we can do that with joy, and be at peace, regardless of having it all or having nothing at all, then that means we have attained what each one of my family had finally figured out in the end. The property is poverty, while family is freedom.