When I was dating my husband, I asked him, “Did you grow up rich or poor?” He was taken aback by the question, but after a beat, he answered. He said, “It depends on what you define as rich. Do you mean money-rich?” And I said, “Of course, what other kind of rich is there?” I don’t think he elaborated, but when I think of it now, I’m amazed he kept dating me.
I was obsessed with money, because my parents were obsessed with money. Their only arguments were over the gas bill, the electric bill, the phone bill, all the bills that were fit to print.
As a kid, I wanted drama lessons. I remember the pain in my mother’s eyes when she said, “Honey, if anyone deserves drama lessons it’s you, but we just can’t afford it.”
“We just can’t afford it” was the mantra, the soundtrack of the Broadway show that was my life.
Both my parents worked. I was a latchkey kid before there was such a term.
In high school, I worked at Lord & Taylor on weekends, and my friends would come in with their moms. I’d wait on them, and watch them struggle trying to decide which color of the cashmere sweater sets they would choose. One mom after another would say the same thing: “Oh, honey, let’s just get them all.”
My only color those years was a forest-green envy.
I’ve written about one of my teachers, Jack Kornfield, who talks about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves that no longer serve us. I’ve dealt with many of mine, but I’m still working on this money thing.
For some odd reason, I continue to maintain that I grew up poor. At least I don’t actually tell people we were poor anymore. But there’s a part of me who still feels that lack.
The fact is, we were not poor. I have seen poor. In Mexico City, on the steps of every church, children begging for money. That was poor. In Santa Monica and New York City, blocks of homeless wondering where their next meal will come from. That is poor. Here on the Vineyard, the food pantry needs more and more donations. People not having enough to eat. That is poor.
One of my first jobs after college was as a welfare worker in Hartford, Conn. And one of the assignments I had was to visit clients in their homes, to decide whether their requests for a new whatever should be granted. I cannot forget this young mom who had asked for a new crib. In order to prove that her request was legit, she pulled the crib away from the wall where it had been propped with its three legs, sending it and the baby crashing to the floor, as a shower of roaches scurried everywhere looking for new digs. I left the screaming baby and the humiliated mother, and went back to my office to beg my supervisor to approve the new piece of furniture. That was poor. So, no, I wasn’t poor.
The same husband who didn’t lecture me when I said the only definition of rich had to do with money often says, when we sit down to eat, “You know how lucky we are that when we’re hungry, we get to eat?” He actually says that. And these days, I actually get that.
So now ask me if I’m rich or poor. My answer? Finally: I’m loaded.
