When my kid said we should eat more McDonalds so we won’t be poor, I revisited the theory of relativity
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We were sitting at a great American food court at a great American outlet mall after a day at the Great America amusement park, when my son said something that tarnished the afterglow of a fine parenting adventure. “If we win this million dollars, then we won’t be poor!” McDonald’s Monopoly Game is back, evidently, and he wanted to make sure that McDs could be good for you. Incidentally, my daughter was having Taco Bell and I ended up with something worse than either of them.
I dropped my fork, laughed, “We’re not poor, Son.”
In the ensuing silence, which was the white noise of him reading off all the other prizes he is young enough to think he can win, I wondered why he thought that. I needn’t look far: beside us were two back to school clothes bags from the clearance aisle of an outlet store. We were sharing a Jarrito.
I needn’t look far in time, either. Earlier, I smuggled kid contraband into their rain jackets at the amusement park: apples, pretzels, gummis—shit that was gone after the second ride. I made them trade in their $8 in piggy bank change for bills to play games—I matched it, at least. Their reward for my parsimony was an outlet mall food court.
I could justify and explain all of that to him, I could go so far as saying where are you eating, what’s in this bag, where did we just come from, how did we get there, do you know how a season pass works, you want poor I’ll show you poor, pal! But I’ve never said “pal” in my life. More importantly, for a seven-year old who once said he’d rather live a simple life than earn his two-dollar allowance, there was a reason he had his perception and it wasn’t wrong.
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We’re not poor but we’re tight. Our house is small, our cars are old, our responses laced with some version of temporary financial straits ie “we don’t have the money right now,” as if any of us think we will have the money any time soon. The American Dream, forever on the horizon. Still, we both work, we have two cars, we own a house—one-fifth of it anyway. I could probably build an addition with all their Lego. We have iPhones. He got a fucking iPad for Christmas.
We’re not poor but for him, and most of humanity, it’s relative. We live in a middle class suburb that has been upwardly striving for decades, where landscaping trucks are common, luxury SUVs aren’t uncommon and North Face is a badge of upper middle classmanship from salon-coiffed head on down to toddlers’ toes. I’m not trying to be derisive, if I could I might—I like North Face until I check the price tag. That’s what the boy sees. And he hears our mad scrambles to make payments, weigh most decisions on a cost scale, and hunt and peck for car seat coins. To him, our situation has a similar feeling of insatiability as poor. He can’t discern need from want, and I hope that knowledge is never imposed on him. He doesn’t sense our neighbors’ struggles and sacrifices; he knows most tangibly what he cannot have.
There’s a fine life lesson I could reinforce about the value of chores as work and earning and saving. But he’s pulled back that veil on his own. What he lacks in sophistication of language he makes up for in perspicacity: it’s a struggle to be comfortable. Welcome to the middle class, big man.
This definitely hits home Robert. I consider us a part of the tighter belt middle class. We make middle class incomes, but due to circumstances, some definitely caused by bad decisions at a young age, we have our belts tighter right now than in past years. I took my son camping for the first time over the July 4th holiday, and due to this tighter belt middle class-ness, I opted for the “primitive” campsite tucked in the back of the campground with pit toilets and no wash house or electricity. This decision was solely based on saving $20 a night… Read more »
I used to think that my family was second class, because my mother used to buy second class postage stamps.
Lol cough splutter cough, Damn I’m middle class too. You know you are middle class when (All based on recent experience) 1) When you get a bill you think where the heck am I going to get that from but still mostly manage to pay them on time. 2) You have to save 6 months in advance for Christmas but the kids get at least a couple of expensive gifts. 3) You do a lot of your own home handy work because you can afford the material, just not the contract rates. 4) You find ways to have vactions away… Read more »
5) You add an ounce or of water to liquid hand soap dispensers to get another 12 shots out of it.
6) You eat out once a month based on which restaurant offers free kids meals with a paying adult.
Ya’ll have plenty of time. The cool part about our current economy is that it sucks. Was/is a perfect time for families to get back to some basics. “Stuff” beak or quickly become outdated. That’s what manufacturers want so that you buy more “stuff.” Our stove recently broke down, bought another at a second hand store. Gas all the bells and whistles. The one night I was watching Seinfeld and low and behold, we have the exact same stove as the Georges parents. Damn, that’s an old stove but it works great. You put food on the table, clothes on… Read more »
It’s funny, Tom, my kids started going off the diving board at the public pool this summer. The excitement on their faces, the continued thrill of it, has been far better and longer lasting than massive waterpark madness. There’s so much stimulation it all becomes noise, I think, whereas the diving boards break up the pool and create a smaller thrill but one they have complete control over with no lines or no saying no from a parental.
The saddest thing to realize at any age is that $1 million isn’t – in the grand scheme of having two kids – that much, unfortunately. School alone will chip away at a good chunk of it if you put them in charter or private middle school and high school, and they decide to go to universities and continue past a bachelor’s. And houses? Geez. If you’re buying a 3-4 bedroom house, it can be anywhere between $100,000 (Idaho) and $600,000 (California). Not to mention health insurance for all of you, cars and other normal living expenses. This is all… Read more »
So true. $1 million would be earmarked in a week. I’d breathe a bit easier, but it wouldn’t change work a bit. The thought of orthodontics has been freaking me out since my kids were born. I’m not even at college yet. One panic attack at a time. Student loans are the next bubble to burst. It’s unsustainable.