So there's this beautiful working class young Viennese girl, I'll call her Heidi, (my mum), who runs away from her dysfunctional family at 21, ending up in London working as an au pair. It is the sixties. She goes to the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park where they released all those white butterflies. One of the butterflies lands on my dad's (I'll call him Jaspar) shoulder. Eyes meet, cosmic forces collide. He is an upper class twit, she is well, an Austrian. They make beautiful music. Someone doesn't know how to use a condom or the pill. Whatever. The result is, I am conceived.
Jaspar tries to avoid the situation by hiding under the bed at his Nash house by Regent's Park (I'm serious) where he still lives with mummy and daddy (he is 21).
Jaspar's dad goes and visits Heidi and offers her a bunch of wilted flowers and a few bob to get the situation 'sorted out'. Heidi tells him where to stuff his ten bob note and the flowers and ends up having the baby (me) and living in a tiny flat with no bathroom, a bit like this one:
Meanwhile, she asks Jaspar for a bit of money, but he is not very interested in this idea, believing that babies are self-sustaining. Getting a bit desperate, she asks his parents if maybe we could live on one of the six floors of the mansion? This gets short shrift from them. She is, after all, a bloody foreigner! Also, the basement flat is occupied by a family of bloody foreigners who clean the house (Spaniards).
So basically, we live in a bit of a shit hole, waiting ten years for a council flat. Hurrah, it arrives! Now we have a BATHROOM. Crack open the champagne. Unbelievable. Then, if some of you are wondering how it is I speaks posh, it's because I got a free place at a nob's school, aged eleven (explanatory note for Americans: 'nob' means: a person of wealth and high social standing, a member of the upper-classes, it can also mean idiot and penis). So there I is, poor as a church mouse, yet talking posh. Then, when I am fourteen, I throw a party at my council flat, with lots of cider, hoping to get laid etc. Now, naturally, all the girls at school have the manors in Hampstead and the lads from the local public (note for Americans: this means a private school) school have the mansions in Highgate. So one posh bloke says to me, when he comes to the party: "Wow, nice of your dad to buy you a little flat of your own to hang out in." "No," says I, "I actually live here!" He laughs his head off. Somehow I don't think he believes me.
All of which is a bit of a background for my surprise when my six year old, Scarlett says to me yesterday, "Mummy, we're poor, aren't we?"
I almost fainted!
Three bed house, yard the size of a football pitch, two fucking bathrooms, two cars and she asks if we are poor? This is America. Oh God. She is six and doesn't know that this isn't poverty.
When I think of what I had as a kid, and she thinks we are living in poverty, just because we don't have an SUV. Oh boy. I supppose she simply doesn't know the value of money. Makes me laugh. In England one's accent defines what class you are. Here it about how big your house is.
I guess at some point, when she starts getting pocket money at seven for doing chores, she will realise that money doesn't grow on trees, that it is quite hard to come by and maybe learn that it has a value. Right now she gets angry when I say she can't have the hot lunch at school because $1.50 for a slice of pizza seems a bit steep and that she should just take sandwiches instead.
How did your parents teach you the value of money? Or how do you teach your kids the value of money?
Posts
.PNG)
34 comments:
My parents both cam from working class backgrounds, so when I was young it was a fairly similar story (although you get a lot more for your money up here than in London).
Some of my family are still 'poor' so I see how lucky I am with my 'reasonably well off' lifestyle and although I aspire to greater things, I don't need to be affluent to have fun. I think that is the one lesson that my parents instilled in me. They made sure we had quality time and lots of fun, which is more important than SUVs and mansions.
Wonderful post Emmak!
My parents (both working class) taught me the value of money by resolutely never ever buying the sugar coated, fun-toy-inside cereals, insisting only on the prosaic CornFlakes. (Which btw is my one and only favourite cereal - thanks to them).
I would beg and plead and attempt to cry but they were resolute. 'They cost too much money' they said, as the trolley moved inexorably onwards.
Now, I do jest, but it did sort of hit home. I despair as to how I can teach my two the value of money - the presents at party time are so overwhelming that I actually hide them and parcel them out one by one throughout the year - otherwise special treats seem to become meaningless.
Do you know what? The uber-rich don't even bother, and look at how their kids turn out. Paris Hilton anyone?
"We're poor, aren't we?"???
OH THAT'S RICH! no punn intended. Some punn intended. Sorry...
My parents lived in Brazil for 3 years and I was continually reminded how lucky we were. Then, when I went to Nepal and India, it slapped me clean across the face. And I've been better for it ever since.
Money has a value?
are you sure?
Wow... That's a big concern of mine when I have kids and they grow up in the U.S. It's such a materialistic society... Scary.
I grew up in Mexico, a country where 50% of the population lives below the poverty level. We were wealthy by any standard, but my mother and father never allowed us to forget the situation most of our country lives in. I suggest travel as a great way to open your child's eyes to the haves and have-nots in this world.
- Girl and Dog
I come from a middle class family. My Father is a structual engineer and my mother a teacher. Since I am the only child money did not seem to be a problem.
The only problem is, I'm not so sure I was really taught to appreciate the value of money.
We were quite poor when I was a kid, although we did get to live in a house so I feel quite middle class compared to your upbringing! When I see kids today having TV's, VCR's and DVD players in their bedrooms (ahem, my 2 year old has a TV/VCR but it is only because I have nowhere else to put it!) and we didn't have a colour telly until I was 5 and then we didn't have a VCR until I was 16, it just makes me larf how easy some people have it. It seems to me that the poorer you are, the more the kids appreciate anything that they have, but the more money you have, the more spoiled and demanding the kids are. Well, when you find the answers to teaching kids the value of money will you let me know as Ned seems to think it grows on trees, but it is a bit hard explaining the cost of things to a 2 year old!
I never thought we were poor as kids. But then, there were six of us children, Dad was in the army on an average wage, we always lived in small cramped military base houses (moving every 2 years).
We usually got our clothes from op shops (i.e. second hand stores) but Mum somehow turned this into a treat - no-one else had such COOL FUNKY ORIGINAL clothing! LOL! Seriously, this was in the era of grunge so we WERE cool.
My 4 year old often asks me to buy a new house. But we don't want to. We could afford it... just. But we're living comfortably in our small unit in a bad part of town, so I'd rather spend extra $ on having a good life rather than putting it towards a humungous mortgage in some godawful sterile subdivision.
Really liked this post, Emma. My parents brought us up comfortably, but always very sensibly. Limited pocket money and the firm requirement that we had to account for it. Also, living in India exposes one a wide spectrum of wealth, from the seriously rich to the painfully poor, and just by virtue of living around people less fortunate than us, we realized how much we had and how lucky we were. We had plenty of domestic help around the house, so doing one's own chores wasn't necessary really, but I had absolutely no trouble transitioning to vacuuming, mopping and dishwashing once I moved to the United States. Now that I'm back here, I occasionally take great pleasure in looking at my comforter and telling it "Hah! Don't have to fold you anymore!" but I know that if I had to again someday, I wouldn't be complaining. There's no shame in looking after one's self and respecting one's parents' efforts to give one a decent life alongside a sensible upbringing.
I am having a running battle with some friends and colleagues over whether poverty exists in the UK. It all depends on your definition of poverty, doesn't it? I have lived in Africa, and that's real poverty. My Polish friends laugh at how the English waste their money on rubbish and expensive ready meals. If there is poverty in developed countries, one has to ask the question: why are they poor?
Linzi and I have some arguments about this. The way I see it, the kids have absolutely everything they could ever need (and then some), and so it sometimes annoys me that they are going to grow up not realising how fortunate they are. I think unless you can experience something like that yourself (as you and I did growing up), it can be very difficult to force an appreciation of their position onto someone. We do it by setting them limits, so even though they have almost anything they could want, they only get it in moderation. It's an awkward thing to do, when your instinct is to spoil them.
I was taught the value of money by working out how much booze I can buy with it.
Right now I could walk into any bar in the world and order at least 3,500,000 pints of Stella. Which is lucky because I have shit loads of mates.
I'm not sure I ever really learnt the value of money, despite my parents being povs when I was a kid. I know they were because I read one of my brother's old diaries from when we were kids:
March 4th, 1984
Today is Annie's birthday and she is 4 so as a special treat mum bought some jam for us to have with our bread.
Unfortunately, this never stopped me spending £40 on a face cream later in life.
Oh, and you are blonk of the week by the way.
Great post, but what's money?
Great post emma - and I am afraid I have no answer about teaching my kids the value of money (although I have thought about sending them out to work a few times).
When I opened your post, I thought that Julie Andrews was meant to be singing "The long road from Bastard to Nob". I thought I must have missed that number in the Sound Of Music!
midnight...I'm with you there, one doesn't need to spend loads to have fun. Having a humble background is good I guess, only if you are surrounded by rich kids (at school like i was) it makes you feel inadequate while growing up.
spymum....oh, I can relate, my mum was one of those health food nuts who bought indegestible muesli in bulk from Health Food Shops.
Also, a lot of the rich friends I had growing up did end up totally fucked up in one way or another due to feeling entitled to everything money can buy. At least Paris is now getting her come uppance in jail!
Kevin....It is definately good to travel to get a perspective on things. Most Americans do not know how good they have it and whine about the price of gas. Makes me mad.
freddy....money only doesn't have a value when it is rolled up and you are snorting coke through it ;)
Pilar....It is wierd. It is not like Scarlett has not seen poverty right here. She has seen homeless people living in cardboard boxes but I don't think she connects them to us somehow, they are like an alien race to her. Eventually as she gets older maybe it will make more sense.
Hurry Up
I didn't have much when I was a kid, and like you I got a free place at a posh school (posh for Jersey anyway).
So I mixed with people who were much better off than we were.
Now, my kids are always saying "oh it's broken, never mind, we can buy another one."
I'm good at saying no, their father isn't.
I posted about a related topic here:
www.cathykeir.co.uk/blog/disposable-pets/
Just a Toy....I was taught to appreciate the value of money (because it was scarce) but honestly it has had the opposite effect on my spending. I am not frugal with money and will spend it on all kind of luxuries until it runs out, no self control whatsoever I'm afraid. That's why i've handed over my credit cards to my husband for safe keeping.
beta mum....i know my mum meant well but i'm not so sure it was wise of her to mix me in with girls whose income was about 40 times ours was. Still, it was a very interesting view through the keyhole into how the other half lives. I will check out your post.
molly....I wonder if in a way it is easier in the USA because you become middle class here at a much lower level of income and can spend your whole life (head in sand) surrounded by middle class people if you wish...and no one in your circle earns more or less than you. I always found the differences between people's status much more evident in the UK - people rub their 'class' and 'breeding' in your face - and I don't know why I should have felt the differences between rich and poor more there because there is obviously more poverty in the USA.
cesca....My six year old also asks when are we buying a new house. I say, sure, if you have the $250,000 I will be happy to get you one. She doesn't know the answer to that ;)
a liquid blue....I don't think I could ever get used to someone cleaning my house etc. I even feel quite bad when someone is doing something subservient like giving me a pedicure. I always think, "I bet you wish you weren't doing this." But I suppose in India, if you are used to it and they are well paid, there is no harm to it?
daphne...this is an interesting question, why are there poor in developing countries? In the USA I always argue that it is because there is no real 'safety net' for the poor, whereas in the UK there is the welfare state, but even this is probably thinly stretched by now.
kav....i understand your attitude but disagree..even if i had tons of money I personally would not buy them everything that money can buy because they will get such a shock in the real world when they realise how hard you have to work to earn money. I suppose one could say, they are kids, those hard lessons of life are years away, but i would say, better start them off young.
troika....it's a good way to calculate your wealth. It's just a shame that Stella ends up as piss and that you are basically pissing your money down the drain ;)
annie....Can relate to the jam being a treat thing. For instance, I don't think I ever had any fast food with my mum...McDonalds was a fantasy for years. Hasn't done me any harm. Ooh, and thanks for making me blonk of the week!
peach....money is the root of all evil, as we all know. Apart from when we are buying a round at the pub, then it is the root of all good ;)
drunk mummy...you are too funny!
Julie Andrews singing:
"The long road from Bastard to Nob"
LMFAO!!!! Now that i would love to see!
beta mum....I know my mum meant well but I don't think it was a good idea to mix me up as an impressionable teenager with girls who had swimming pools and whose dads were CEOs of banks. Still, it was interesting to see how miserable most of those girls were even with all the material wealth, still I was jealous of their clothes etc. I will check out your post.
Emma, my pedicurist would be most alarmed if I told her I was stopping her services because I felt badly about her doing subservient things :0) Firstly, she'd be out of a job and secondly, because she doesn't do much else better, she wouldn't be able to find any substitute to earning an income. Domestic help in India may not have the luxury of loving their jobs, but it feeds them and their families and that is crucial to them. To NOT employ them because one feels bad for them would be to do a disservice to them because there is little else they are qualified to do and would consequently starve. They don't resent us as long as they're not treated badly and our family has had the same domestics for years and they really are like family to us in many ways. We help pay for their children's education so they have better options and certainly try to help them help themselves. Some of them respond positively while others are simply not interested. But I assure you we do try. :0)
Well, it's better than pissing it up someone's chuff
Love the story of your conception - how cool. I'm not sure what the details of mine were (and I'm definitely not asking) but I fear it was probably on nylon sheets, eyes shut, lights off, in deepest suburbia. Ewww. Wish I hadn't thought about that now.
I'm with SpyMum on the presents thing - I'm from a big family with lots of aunts and uncles who all (very generously) give out heaps of presents to my kids at Christmas which is lovely of them, but it does make me feel a bit sick. I also stash a load in the loft to distribute later on in the year - although this does lead to problems with the old Thank You letters, of course...
PS Someone has got to persuade Julie Andrews into recording that song. It must be done!!
My parents were comfortable, and so I was "taught" the value of money, but not "shown." As a result, I have never been good with the stuff. My own children have had to live through the rise and fall of my income, as I work in an industry where money comes in waves, but the tide is often out.
that is hilarious! oh dear...
it's just going to get worse i suspect. she will want all the designer clothes they wear at her posh public school... must be worse at all the private schools around here, too!
how to teach the value of money? hmmm. i was never spoiled until i was in my twenties. that helped. don't cave in to every demand and don't buy her top of the line stuff all the time. That usually helps.
SF is still too young. She thinks it all just falls from the frickin' sky. But that won't last much longer.
I was a spoiled, rotten little brat. No, not a brat. Just spoiled rotten. But I was told where it all came from and how to handle it mostly.
My dad (love him to pieces) still likes to show his love with objects. Therapy. Works wonders.
We started out fairly middle class, but then my pops just HAD to move and we sold everything to live in a frickin travel trailer. (yes a Recreational Vehicle, NOT a mobile home). For 4 years, my sis, mom and pops lived in a RV where my sis and I slept on the sofa bed, and then later when we got too lazy to make the sofa bed, we just slept on the floor. Moved again, this time to a one-bed condo where, again, sis and I slept on the floor in the living room. Then pops divorced mom, married someone else and mom struggled from apt to apt trying to provide for me and sis.
Now, on my own, Hubby quit his 2-hour-commute-one-way-job to take a lower paying but closer job, only to have them let him go 2 weeks later, "Oops, we over-hired, sorry!" Gahh!!! We lived off our savings for awhile and my kids dont get everything they ask for. BUT we shop at thrift shops and they can pick out what they want. They dont know any better, NEW vs USED, and the thrift shops I go to stock all the cutesy brand-name clothing for cheap, so who would know unless I told 'em?? We weren't poor before Hubby quit, but we might have well been, for all we owed on the fucking credit cards.
We barely have our heads above water, but there is light in sight at the end of this dark, dreary tunnel and I hope the kids have picked up on our habits of NEW doesnt always translate into BETTER.
I must add, though, pops did leave me some words of advice: "Dont borrow money, cuz then you have to pay it back and you're left in the same position you were before."
On a slightly different matter, my dad tried to teach me not to gamble by playing cards for money. I won.
Most Excellent post, my friend.
Kids see things so differently, don't they?...
My son got really upset the other day because he complained that when he gets cash for Birthdays he hates having to put it in his account (He's almost 9)... but I said the people who give this $$$ to you have said "It's for your bank account"... knowing how it grows and of course him thinking in the here and now wants to go out and buy toys which HE DOES NOT NEED his room, the garage, the basement are overflowing.
I explained to him that he gets the odd toy here and there (which happens to be quite often between me and some friends that he see's almost weekly and usually a toy comes with the visit~this is another issue, I DON'T agree with that!)
Hey, my parents told me their first home(apartment at that stage) consisted of HOME MADE furniture... bricks and lumber for shelves... and even milk crates as end tables with cloth covering them... hello!!! Not that it lasted long, but still... thats making do!
My first home is brand new full of new furniture 4 bedrooms, 4 baths.
The kids these days are spoiled, plain and simple. It's disturbing.
Again, wonderful post Emma... as usual.
Now come check out my dickstick. lol
Before I was 7 we had no money cos my dad drank it all before coming home to beat my mother up.
After I was 7 I was taught to be grateful that my step-dad put meat on our dinner plates and his childless sister brought us jumble sale clothes.
When I was 37 and finally taking my sexually abusive step-dad to court my mother gave him £5000. She's never given me a penny.
I'm now a single parent and roughly £15k in debt so, yeah, my kids know money doesn't grow on trees and that trainers are for feet rather than impressing friends but they learned this without having to miss out on school trips and occasional frivolities just so that I could plead poverty and/or play the victim. Their dad likes to play Mr Generous but I stamped on it hard and screamed at him not to be a walking wallet, not just because I couldn't compete but because I want them to respect him and chucking money about doesn't engender respect at the end of the day.
Great post, Em. Sorry if I rambled here, it touches a major nerve in me :o/
Children today just don't know! I had to walk ten miles to school every day, barefoot, in the snow, even in summer. And I was glad to do so. Kids today think that poverty is only having a back and white TV in your bedorrom.
I've been from comfortably well-off (petit bourgeois) as a little kid to dirt poor when our Dad fucked off to pretty well-off again. The suddenly being poor part came as a huge shock and has definitely affected me but not how I imagined it would. Rather than turning me into a miser, I now spend far too freely. It is as if I was ashamed of having nothing and am frightened that if I don;t always get the first round in or pay for dinner people will feel my shame.
I have fond memories of the council (dept of housing commission homes in Sydney) flat in my childhood, it wasn't fabulous but it was a ten minute walk to the city so me and my fellow kiddie friends would walk to the movies (when it was sooooo much cheaper to see a movie). The fringe suburb is now yuppie central, the council flats are still there, and even though the old houses are over a million dollars to buy, the burb is rife with theft, and an eyesore.
I don't know what I did with my son, I'm hopeless with money, I don't scrimp, and he clutches a five dollar note for weeks or months on end, and if I'm stuck for coins for the bus to work, and ask him for a loan of two dollars, he goes ape, a real tightwad at 12.
Back agane - hem-hem. Just found this post from the 'childhood' link in the 'Trip Into Darkness' post and was suitably moved.
My own upbringing was rather more "ever so 'umble...", but I too ended up at a school that out-poshed my home life, tho' p'raps more in attitude than income (i.e. parents not on uppers, school not that posh). It is an experience that is, as you describe, somewhat illuminating...
Two points...
First, "nob"= short for "Nobility"
"knob"= antonym for 'dickhead', 'twat', 'arsehole', 'wanker' etc. etc. (e.g. 'Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tonto posing as a door, had his knob shot off...')
Second, "Public School" - open to any member of the public, if you can afford the fees, as opposed to a private school i.e. for the clergy, or sons of Guild Members (eg 'Merchant Taylors' etc.). I'm sorry, I know the yanks here might find this a touch esoteric.
Anyhoo, many years later I find myself as a struggling, dole-bothering single-parent of no.1 son (no.1 daughter decide to terrorise ex in Spain with Mammy's dope-dealing poser). Muddle thro', as you do, working when I can, not beating myself up when I can't, best as can etc etc. (Carrot, lentil 'n'onion curry for tea again, OK? Hold the bhajis...) but all is not lost. No.1 son exits school with clutch of GCSE's (2 A*'s [hurrah])and boy now big, brave, mighty and at college for A-levels (remember them, Em ?) and in own flat at 16, screwing the Housing Benefit for all he can... hem-hem.
He knows the cost of most things, but also understands the value of them too.
If you run fast enuff, you can take-off from any runway.
More power to your elbow, Em, you sound like a real diamond.
Post a Comment