More Moola for Schoola

The same supplies box I used in 1st grade. 

When I entered public first grade in August of 1977 I carried with me a small colorful cardboard flip-top box. I picked it out myself at the local drug store. It contained a box of crayons, a bottle of glue, a couple of No. 2 pencil, and extra cap erasers. When I got to my classroom that box went in my assigned desk, where it stayed until the following June. My classmates brought similar supplies. I don’t know if any kids didn’t bring anything at all that first day, but I suspect there were a few. But no big deal, the teacher had extra pencils and a box of broken crayon odds and ends. The big lined paper on which we learned to write was already in the storage closet.

In this millennium, however, parents are emailed an ever-growing list of required school supplies that includes everything from antibacterial hand gel to toilet paper. We’re not talking just one per kid, but multi-packs of each item. With multiple kids in one family, these supplies can really put a dent in the weekly budget. 

This morning a friend whose son just started first grade lamented about what he saw when he delivered his boy and accompanying bagful of reinforcements to the classroom. 

“I’m already pissed off,” he said. “They dumped all the supplies I bought for him in separate bins for all the kids to be used throughout the school year. Some parents didn’t buy shit. So I have to pay for some other kid’s supplies?”

Yes. You do. I’m sorry. Our schools’ budgets are cut so badly that the very essential tools students need have vanished from the supply closet. Teachers are spending their own salaries not only for classroom needs but also for food for some of their students. And they have to ask you, the parent, to spring for essentials. You understand this, and you comply because you’d do anything you could to ensure your child’s success in education. But when it comes to the kid sitting next to him you’re less than enthusiastic.

And you’re being selfish and entitled for thinking that way.

Here’s why:

That mom who always used to help out but now has backed out of every volunteering position? She has lupus, and some days she cannot get out of bed from the pain and fatigue, let alone organize the Halloween carnival.

That dad who usually donates money and auction items from his own business to the fundraiser…the one who says he can’t donate anything at all this year…(and why NOT? He owns the business, it’s a tax write-off you say)…he hasn’t drawn a salary for himself in six months in order to keep payroll going for all of his employees after a decline in business this year.  

And that new mom who drives the nice SUV and has the pretty diamond on her hand, the mom who only has the one child in school so what’s the big deal of buying the school supplies that are on the required list? She’s new to your school because she just upended her entire life to move cross-country so she can take care of a sick relative. She really, really can’t afford the $60 worth of handiwipes and laminated folders.

In every nice neighborhood near every A-rated school there is a family that doesn’t look like they’re struggling, but they are. And yes, you as the keeping-your-head-above-water-at-least-for-now family will be asked to cover for them in some manner. Please don’t complain about it. Please remember when someone helped you out somehow when you were at a lower point in your life. I guarandamntee you somebody did.

Would it make you feel better if your child had three boxes of crayons but the girl next to him didn’t have any? If so, I dare say you are teaching terrible values to your son need to reevaluate your thought process.

Don’t complain to me about this being “socialism at its purest form.” This is humanism. This is giving everyone an equal chance. Do what you can, and stop complaining about being able to do so.

Reality: Still Biting

Several posts back I wrote about the competitive nature my fellow Gen X peers and I seem to have when comparing our financial woes (Bragonomics). It was written 3 months ago, and the incident that inspired it was 3 months prior to that.

Since then, I’ve seen a shift in the discussions among us. Continued economic downslides and family crises have lessened the novelty of the recession. It’s no longer a fascinating time in history that is affecting us for a short while; it is now some serious muck we’re mired in. We’ve shifted from gabbing about it over drinks to internalizing our stressors quietly, especially the effects they are having on us.

A few days ago the author of the site are you there god? it's me, generation X (http://www.jenx67.com/) wrote:

“Gen X is said to be the most neglected generation in American history. The experts say the Gen X childhood and teen years were marked by profound loneliness (all those cartoons, all that cereal), and followed by an even lonelier, more stressful adulthood (the worst recession in 75 years; booms and busts, and oh, BTW, how am I going to pay for my kids’ college education?) Of course, nobody will admit to being lonely or stressed on Twitter.”

JenX, let me profess loud and clear, I AM LONELY AND STRESSED.

And I know my friends are, too. I read it in their Facebook posts, even when they try to disguise it.

I try not to whine. I know everyone is going through multiple issues in their lives. Mine are no worse than theirs, but they are MINE. I have a stack of medical bills (even with insurance!), a job I’ve outgrown but can’t break free from, graduate school studies, two family members with serious health conditions, and a bank account that never seems to get out of the kiddy pool. My house is worth $30,000 less than what I owe on it. Likewise, my friends are facing unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, infertility, divorce, children with learning disabilities, parents with Alzheimer’s, cancer.... Some of them are dealing with 3 or 4 of these things all at once. For all our efforts to be responsible, productive adults, we’re feeling like the punching bag generation.

Gen X-ers still have a strong sense of self reliance despite what older generations might say. We want to make it on our own, to be successful and comfortable through our efforts. But unlike our parents and grandparents, our sense of pride is different. We’re not above admitting when we’re on a losing streak. But at the same time, we don’t want to appear weak, as if we can’t handle what life throws at us.

We want to lean on each other, but we don’t want to be a burden, even emotionally. We want to encourage our friends when they’re dejected, but some days we can barely hold up our own heads up. It’s hard to inspire others when you’ve lost your own faith. But we hope for and rejoice in bits of good news in anyone’s life as it gives us a glimmer of hope that something in this world is going to turn for the better.

Not Alone, But Still Lonely
I have a loving husband and wonderful friends whom I can count on for levity. My Facebook page is a portal across the miles to friends past and present. Thank goodness for those daily doses of baby pictures and corny jokes. They divert me from my stress for brief moments. Yet, I feel lonely.

I’m lonely for a time and place where my paycheck was more than enough.
I’m lonely for friends who are always in a good mood because their lives are all falling into place.
I’m lonely for friends whose eyes don’t well up when I ask how everything is going, even though they say “pretty good.”
I’m lonely for the babies my friends realize they will never have.

I don’t have the answers yet. I don’t know how we’re going to get through all this. I know we will, because we’re resilient. But in the moment we’re mentally bruised, and tired, and struggling.

What are you lonely for?

Bragonomics

Recently I spent a girls night out consisting of dinner and a chick flick with a friend. While feasting at the Olive Garden, we soon found ourselves divulging personal details as girlfriends are prone to do when the husbands aren’t around.

“You know, we had to sell one of our cars. I have to walk to work now.”
“Oh, well we had to cash out a retirement account to pay the credit card.”
“Yeah, we had to cash out a life insurance policy to pay the mortgage.”

In the midst of this conversation, what struck me as strange was not the secrets themselves, but rather the competitive attitude with which they were being divulged. It was as if we were trying to win the “My Life Sucks More Than Yours Does” title. Despite the dire straits many of my friends are currently in, we seem to actually take a strange delight in being forthcoming about how bad off we are.

Our parents and grandparents would never let on to their peers if they were having “money troubles” as my mom calls it. Their generations would scrape and scrimp, work second and third jobs, and find a way to NOT let their issues be known. They weren’t going to take any handouts from anybody. They had a different sense of pride. To them, financial duress was failure in their role as head of a household or family. But not us Gen-Xers! I don’t know if it’s a lack of pride, or a just stronger ability to roll with the punches, even when the punches are ruining our credit record.

But it’s not as if we’re miserable people. We’re happily married, some of us have kids, and we all have stable and supportive families and friends. The difference between us and our parents is that most of our financial woes are attributed (okay, blamed) on everyone other than ourselves. Companies had mass layoffs, health issues brought stacks of medical bills, jobs were outsourced to India, a sinkhole swallowed the neighborhood. And while all of these are very real and valid contributing factors to our respective fiscal fiascos, I’d like to see a show of hands of how many of us don’t have some purchases or creative financing in our recent pasts that should have been delayed or foregone altogether. We’re not entirely blameless in our money woes.

Nonetheless, Gen-Xers don’t feel the need to hang our heads in shame when we come to realize our money has gotten away from us. Instead we see it as yet another way to compete with our friends…even if in reality, the “winner” of this argument is the one who’s the worst off. Maybe we just have a strange way of empathizing. We were always taught it’s not nice to brag, so we take it to the other extreme and try to assure each other that we are far worse off than they are. Trust me, you don’t want to see my savings account.