Learning the True Value of Money
Jan. 5th, 2015 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semiotic_pirateThe other day, I bared a piece of my past and perhaps a bit of my soul. You ever notice how, after a long time remembering one thing or another that you assumed to have happened for one reason may have - upon further experience and better filters being installed - have happened for a completely different reason? Or, if not a reason, maybe the outside influences you assumed to be in play weren't. Enough babbling.
Today. You will learn the true value of money. Or at least the value of money as interpreted by a middle-school aged younger me.
Picture yourself in one of those tiny desks, the little wooden ones where the top levers open to store your books and stuff, with the attached seat... the kind that DOESN'T swivel out for easy seating.
Okay. Are you there yet? Good.
Your teacher - who has a crush on your Mum - is the math teacher. You've gotten to the point in your education where they shuffle you between about four different rooms during the day, with an emphasis on the maths and the writing/reading skills. Your math teacher has worked out a deal with one of the local banks of the city - one situated about ten miles from where you are currently living. As a way of teaching the kids the value of money, the value of saving for the future, each child in the class is encourage to open up a passbook savings account.
Of course, it likely at this point isn't the child's money, this is a group that is pretty much too young to cash in on the "chores for cash" deal that middle class parents use for their kids, and a few in the class are like you... and this isn't ever going to happen, you do your chores and get paid in hugs and smiles if you're lucky. For the latter group, instead of a couple hundred, or fifty, or twenty, or even ten dollars, you're going to maybe get a single, initial deposit of $5.00. You, you get to make that deposit with $2.00 that your Mum likely got from The Can. The passbook is blue and filled with interesting background pictures that would frame entries as they're printed into the book. You feel pride that you've saved "for a rainy day" of some sort.
Months go by. Halloween was great. At this point you have NO IDEA what your costume was, but you wandered all over the better neighborhoods, the ones with the great, spooky decorations. The ones that give out the GOOD candy. The neighborhoods with the wide sidewalks. This is the first year that you can remember hearing about the "razorblades in the apple" myth. Still. That $2.00 is still showing in your passbook.
More months go by. Thanksgiving is lean. You get school clothes from some of the relatives (the slightly better off aunt, uncles, and grandparents) on your mother's side. You do not hear much of anything most of the time from your father's side.
Over the winter (rumor says it's the slum lord, though some say it was bums lighting a fire in the basement) the building next door burns to the foundation. That's when you learn the smell of burnt flesh, the night you see the body of a child appearing to be melted onto the front of a firefighters turnout jacket, the night you see firefighters cry.
Spring arrives. The local hooligans have kicked in the back door at least three times since you made your initial deposit. The Can is gone. The table-top turntable is gone. The music is gone. The old Ford Pinto that your Mum'd been babying was vandalized. Someone had popped the hood and ripped and bashed and there was no way that money could be found to repair it. The chalk that you used to draw on the wallpaper, that too is gone. But at least it's warm again, and you still have your pretty, blue passbook.
Summer arrives. On one hand, you rejoice because freedom to roam the alleys and spend hours at library's children's room in the basement. On the other hand, though, you aren't going to get that one, guaranteed meal for the day. And the cupboards are nearly bare.
Maybe other people are having a hard time as well. The support check is late... again. Your Mum sits you down, to talk, and she's wearing the Face of Pain and Suffering. You know whatever she's going to say, it will cause you pain, it will cause you suffering. And then life will go on.
The support check is late.
There is NO food in the cupboards.
You have no idea when the check will arrive.
Mum had made the long walk over to the welfare office and there will be a week's delay to any funds that they'd be able to get to her so that the cupboards can get some stuff put in it. Because you might be dirt poor, but you're not quite so far as to be on welfare yet, because of pride, because of a series of circumstances that you still don't have a clue about.
Just a side note at this point in the story. Sorry for the mid-season break here, but it is necessary in order to understand what happens next. The place where you and Mum go to for food. It's a small grocery store, with jacked up prices. Prices are set at this amount because the people who can afford to go elsewhere DO and the people who cannot, MUST PAY in order to eat. Slums. The public housing complex, if you are really lucky and eventually work your way up to the top of the list, AND an opening actually comes up. All these people are limited to the only grocery within the five miles walking distance. Even buses are expensive, okay?
Okay. Back to the part where the support check is late. This has happened often, but never at such a time where there wasn't The Can, where there wasn't a tenner or so available as a rainy day fund. But we know what happened to The Can.
After getting told the Bare, Naked, Hungry Truth... you hesitate... you do not cry, but you can feel something crumble inside you yourself. This isn't the first time you've felt this, it isn't the last. You go to the place you've secreted your passbook and you bring it out. Your Mum has forgotten it even existed. You hold it out and offer it so that you can survive that week until the support from the welfare office can be sent.
But first, you need to go withdraw the money. Then go to the grocery store. Then make your way back home. And you can't do it today because by now the bank's about to close. So you have to wait until the morning. So you go to bed hungry, after having nothing but water for a day and a half.
Dawn breaks. You wait.
You've no phone, so it's not like you can call anyone to pass the time.
You've no television, so it's not like you can watch something to pass the time.
You've no books right now, because you had to use the return chute the last time you went to the library and didn't have time to go in and explore and pick up more books.
You're not feeling the gnawing, raw hunger that you felt yesterday.
You carefully wash, and dress in your Sunday mass clothing. You do this so you will appear as respectful as you can when you get to the bank.
You leave the apartment, holding your Mum's hand, your passbook in a pocket.
By the time you walk that ten miles into the Main Street downtown area the sun isn't quite high in the sky but it is a well-lit day and the shadows are not long.
You don't feel hungry any more.
This is when you stop outside the bank. Looking up at the fancy facade of the building. Then you walk into the lobby with your head held high, gripping your Mum's hand. It's a bit of a blur and you can't remember anymore whether there was sympathy, or plain pity, in the eyes of the teller. You don't remember the words that you used. If you explained, or if you just baldly asked for your money. Your Mum didn't have a bank account, but her parents had one, and maybe she had one before you really came down on your luck. Before she left the job with the government because she didn't want to be the one who typed up the orders to make the bullets and bombs.
You leave the bank with your $2.00 in the pocket that so recently held your blue passbook. Hand once again gripping what you always had assumed was the older, wiser hand of your Mum, you start walking again. You've got six or seven miles to go before you reach the grocery store and the sun is high in the sky, beating down upon the flesh that covers your bones.
When you get to the grocery store. You hand your Mum the $2.00. She and you go into the store and wander up, and down the aisles. Searching. Mum finally decides on what you'll both be eating for the next week.
One gallon of milk.
One loaf of Wonder Bread
I don't remember if there was any change. I do remember that this was the most food we could get, that it was all we could afford. My Mum holds the brown paper bag to her chest in one arm, her hand curled tightly against it; she held my hand with the spare. We started the remainder of our journey home, following our shadows.
That evening, after changing out of our Sunday best, after washing the clothing in the kitchen sink and hanging it on a cord in the bathroom above the tub, we sat for our meal. A 6 ounce glass of milk and a salt sandwich.
The next day, and the next, I had a number of meals that were near identical to that first. The only variety I could discover was in how to present myself with a salt sandwich. My favorite ended up being prepared as follows:
Take two pieces of Wonder Bread, lay them out side by side on the counter. Sprinkle salt on top of each piece of bread, then fold each piece of bread in half. Carefully, pinch and remove pieces of the crust and eat them, slowly. Make your way around each piece of bread in this way until the crusts are gone. Take what remains of one piece of bread, fold it over again (quartered) and then crush it in the palm in your hand using a fist until it appears to be a ball of dough. Do this again, with the remaining piece of bread. Proceed to slowly nibble each ball, savoring the flavor of the salt, as each nibbled bit seems to melt in your mouth. Chew it, slowly, into a paste, then swallow with a sip of milk. This is your first sip of that accompanying glass of milk. In this manner, you can extend the feast out so it seems like you are actually eating a lot of food.
What may not surprise you at this point is that I was malnourished and sickly as a child. The few times my Mum was able to convince someone to hire her for some small, not-well-paying job, she would end up getting canned because she wouldn't be able to come in for taking care of me through yet another upper respiratory infection.
This was not the worst series of events I've lived through. But I did have a lot of happy times mixed in with those bad times. Plenty of days filled with laughter. Plenty of books that took me away to somewhere golden, somewhere special and magical. Crocodiles with lollipops and a talking Phoenix. Tesseracts. Life got better for me.
I had teachers who saw my potential and wrote glowing remarks in my report cards, who took me under their wings and showed me the beauty of words and creating stories from my imagination.
I had a Tom Sawyer themed adventure with a friend, where I traipsed across the city, getting fed a bucket of fried chicken from a pair of cops, a pair of cops who ended up being the ones called to interview my Mum when she reported me missing (after my friend came back without me), who looked abashed but didn't say a word when a neighbor from our last neighborhood showed up and delivered me back to her.
I had nuns who once decided they wanted to teach me how to knit, who offered us a home within their halls (which was turned down by my proud Mum, thank you very much... I wish I knew more of the details on that story because it seemed like a damned good deal to me.
If you are having a shitty time, know that it can get better. That you can push through. That $2.00 (or whatever the inflation adjusted amount that number represents today) can go a long enough way to get you through until it gets better.
Today. You will learn the true value of money. Or at least the value of money as interpreted by a middle-school aged younger me.
Picture yourself in one of those tiny desks, the little wooden ones where the top levers open to store your books and stuff, with the attached seat... the kind that DOESN'T swivel out for easy seating.
Okay. Are you there yet? Good.
Your teacher - who has a crush on your Mum - is the math teacher. You've gotten to the point in your education where they shuffle you between about four different rooms during the day, with an emphasis on the maths and the writing/reading skills. Your math teacher has worked out a deal with one of the local banks of the city - one situated about ten miles from where you are currently living. As a way of teaching the kids the value of money, the value of saving for the future, each child in the class is encourage to open up a passbook savings account.
Of course, it likely at this point isn't the child's money, this is a group that is pretty much too young to cash in on the "chores for cash" deal that middle class parents use for their kids, and a few in the class are like you... and this isn't ever going to happen, you do your chores and get paid in hugs and smiles if you're lucky. For the latter group, instead of a couple hundred, or fifty, or twenty, or even ten dollars, you're going to maybe get a single, initial deposit of $5.00. You, you get to make that deposit with $2.00 that your Mum likely got from The Can. The passbook is blue and filled with interesting background pictures that would frame entries as they're printed into the book. You feel pride that you've saved "for a rainy day" of some sort.
Months go by. Halloween was great. At this point you have NO IDEA what your costume was, but you wandered all over the better neighborhoods, the ones with the great, spooky decorations. The ones that give out the GOOD candy. The neighborhoods with the wide sidewalks. This is the first year that you can remember hearing about the "razorblades in the apple" myth. Still. That $2.00 is still showing in your passbook.
More months go by. Thanksgiving is lean. You get school clothes from some of the relatives (the slightly better off aunt, uncles, and grandparents) on your mother's side. You do not hear much of anything most of the time from your father's side.
Over the winter (rumor says it's the slum lord, though some say it was bums lighting a fire in the basement) the building next door burns to the foundation. That's when you learn the smell of burnt flesh, the night you see the body of a child appearing to be melted onto the front of a firefighters turnout jacket, the night you see firefighters cry.
Spring arrives. The local hooligans have kicked in the back door at least three times since you made your initial deposit. The Can is gone. The table-top turntable is gone. The music is gone. The old Ford Pinto that your Mum'd been babying was vandalized. Someone had popped the hood and ripped and bashed and there was no way that money could be found to repair it. The chalk that you used to draw on the wallpaper, that too is gone. But at least it's warm again, and you still have your pretty, blue passbook.
Summer arrives. On one hand, you rejoice because freedom to roam the alleys and spend hours at library's children's room in the basement. On the other hand, though, you aren't going to get that one, guaranteed meal for the day. And the cupboards are nearly bare.
Maybe other people are having a hard time as well. The support check is late... again. Your Mum sits you down, to talk, and she's wearing the Face of Pain and Suffering. You know whatever she's going to say, it will cause you pain, it will cause you suffering. And then life will go on.
The support check is late.
There is NO food in the cupboards.
You have no idea when the check will arrive.
Mum had made the long walk over to the welfare office and there will be a week's delay to any funds that they'd be able to get to her so that the cupboards can get some stuff put in it. Because you might be dirt poor, but you're not quite so far as to be on welfare yet, because of pride, because of a series of circumstances that you still don't have a clue about.
Just a side note at this point in the story. Sorry for the mid-season break here, but it is necessary in order to understand what happens next. The place where you and Mum go to for food. It's a small grocery store, with jacked up prices. Prices are set at this amount because the people who can afford to go elsewhere DO and the people who cannot, MUST PAY in order to eat. Slums. The public housing complex, if you are really lucky and eventually work your way up to the top of the list, AND an opening actually comes up. All these people are limited to the only grocery within the five miles walking distance. Even buses are expensive, okay?
Okay. Back to the part where the support check is late. This has happened often, but never at such a time where there wasn't The Can, where there wasn't a tenner or so available as a rainy day fund. But we know what happened to The Can.
After getting told the Bare, Naked, Hungry Truth... you hesitate... you do not cry, but you can feel something crumble inside you yourself. This isn't the first time you've felt this, it isn't the last. You go to the place you've secreted your passbook and you bring it out. Your Mum has forgotten it even existed. You hold it out and offer it so that you can survive that week until the support from the welfare office can be sent.
But first, you need to go withdraw the money. Then go to the grocery store. Then make your way back home. And you can't do it today because by now the bank's about to close. So you have to wait until the morning. So you go to bed hungry, after having nothing but water for a day and a half.
Dawn breaks. You wait.
You've no phone, so it's not like you can call anyone to pass the time.
You've no television, so it's not like you can watch something to pass the time.
You've no books right now, because you had to use the return chute the last time you went to the library and didn't have time to go in and explore and pick up more books.
You're not feeling the gnawing, raw hunger that you felt yesterday.
You carefully wash, and dress in your Sunday mass clothing. You do this so you will appear as respectful as you can when you get to the bank.
You leave the apartment, holding your Mum's hand, your passbook in a pocket.
By the time you walk that ten miles into the Main Street downtown area the sun isn't quite high in the sky but it is a well-lit day and the shadows are not long.
You don't feel hungry any more.
This is when you stop outside the bank. Looking up at the fancy facade of the building. Then you walk into the lobby with your head held high, gripping your Mum's hand. It's a bit of a blur and you can't remember anymore whether there was sympathy, or plain pity, in the eyes of the teller. You don't remember the words that you used. If you explained, or if you just baldly asked for your money. Your Mum didn't have a bank account, but her parents had one, and maybe she had one before you really came down on your luck. Before she left the job with the government because she didn't want to be the one who typed up the orders to make the bullets and bombs.
You leave the bank with your $2.00 in the pocket that so recently held your blue passbook. Hand once again gripping what you always had assumed was the older, wiser hand of your Mum, you start walking again. You've got six or seven miles to go before you reach the grocery store and the sun is high in the sky, beating down upon the flesh that covers your bones.
When you get to the grocery store. You hand your Mum the $2.00. She and you go into the store and wander up, and down the aisles. Searching. Mum finally decides on what you'll both be eating for the next week.
One gallon of milk.
One loaf of Wonder Bread
I don't remember if there was any change. I do remember that this was the most food we could get, that it was all we could afford. My Mum holds the brown paper bag to her chest in one arm, her hand curled tightly against it; she held my hand with the spare. We started the remainder of our journey home, following our shadows.
That evening, after changing out of our Sunday best, after washing the clothing in the kitchen sink and hanging it on a cord in the bathroom above the tub, we sat for our meal. A 6 ounce glass of milk and a salt sandwich.
The next day, and the next, I had a number of meals that were near identical to that first. The only variety I could discover was in how to present myself with a salt sandwich. My favorite ended up being prepared as follows:
Take two pieces of Wonder Bread, lay them out side by side on the counter. Sprinkle salt on top of each piece of bread, then fold each piece of bread in half. Carefully, pinch and remove pieces of the crust and eat them, slowly. Make your way around each piece of bread in this way until the crusts are gone. Take what remains of one piece of bread, fold it over again (quartered) and then crush it in the palm in your hand using a fist until it appears to be a ball of dough. Do this again, with the remaining piece of bread. Proceed to slowly nibble each ball, savoring the flavor of the salt, as each nibbled bit seems to melt in your mouth. Chew it, slowly, into a paste, then swallow with a sip of milk. This is your first sip of that accompanying glass of milk. In this manner, you can extend the feast out so it seems like you are actually eating a lot of food.
What may not surprise you at this point is that I was malnourished and sickly as a child. The few times my Mum was able to convince someone to hire her for some small, not-well-paying job, she would end up getting canned because she wouldn't be able to come in for taking care of me through yet another upper respiratory infection.
This was not the worst series of events I've lived through. But I did have a lot of happy times mixed in with those bad times. Plenty of days filled with laughter. Plenty of books that took me away to somewhere golden, somewhere special and magical. Crocodiles with lollipops and a talking Phoenix. Tesseracts. Life got better for me.
I had teachers who saw my potential and wrote glowing remarks in my report cards, who took me under their wings and showed me the beauty of words and creating stories from my imagination.
I had a Tom Sawyer themed adventure with a friend, where I traipsed across the city, getting fed a bucket of fried chicken from a pair of cops, a pair of cops who ended up being the ones called to interview my Mum when she reported me missing (after my friend came back without me), who looked abashed but didn't say a word when a neighbor from our last neighborhood showed up and delivered me back to her.
I had nuns who once decided they wanted to teach me how to knit, who offered us a home within their halls (which was turned down by my proud Mum, thank you very much... I wish I knew more of the details on that story because it seemed like a damned good deal to me.
If you are having a shitty time, know that it can get better. That you can push through. That $2.00 (or whatever the inflation adjusted amount that number represents today) can go a long enough way to get you through until it gets better.
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 03:28 am (UTC)I remember searching the house for something to feed them during a school break and finding only a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and some mayonnaise. So I made it with just water and mayonnaise. I used my babysitting money (once my sibs were old enough to be alone and I could take jobs that paid) to buy school supplies--at least we qualified for free school lunch. Also at least once to turn the electricity back on.
It's better now: I don't live with a bunch of drug addicted adults in charge of me. I can support myself. There is always food in my house, and food enough to feed anyone I know who needs it--whether that's friends or family, including my grandchildren. I'm glad it's better for you too.
Yep
Date: 2015-01-07 10:15 pm (UTC)A friend of mine on Twitter - a teacher in a high risk area - told me that her school offers free breakfast and lunch, and keep the kitchens open for said meals during breaks (including summer). My inner, younger self felt a twinge of envy at that, and then I felt good that someone, somewhere, has that added support net.
Grandchildren! Wooooooo! I look forward to being a Great Aunt someday.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 02:37 am (UTC)All... Day?
Date: 2015-01-07 10:21 pm (UTC)Much of my life's history isn't something I can go waving about or refer to as an "extracurricular activity" or whatnot. However, I have gotten to the point where I can write about it, hoping that it helps someone else to get through whatever they've been dealt in life and by fickle Fortune.