More thoughts when I should be showering
May 22, 2005 Feminism/Politics
I agree that economic diversity is as important as racial diversity but I tell you, in my world it’s a lot easier to come by so I don’t think about it much. We are not the poorest in my social group; we are not the richest. Our neighborhood is working class on the edge of white collar (literally on the wrong side of the tracks). The homeschooling community is also surprisingly economically diverse (although most people have at least one parent home to homeschool so there is some measure of “choice” involved). I’m not sure that this will be as easy to maintain as my kids grow though. I’ll have to see.
Both Chicagomama and Meagan touched on age, too. These things definitely feel different when you’re economically mobile. I’m in my mid-thirties and Brett’s in his late-thirties so we’re pretty stagnant. I’ve got more room to grow in my career than he does but frankly, I don’t know if I could make more money than I do right now. Part of this whole thing — for me — has been realizing that this is my income bracket (more or less) and so I better get ok with it.
The other thing is that it’s clear that people with money aren’t always comfortable with their money — especially around people without money. There’s certainly a lot of “survivor’s guilt” about it. Even my trust-fund friend much walks around feeling terrible about having so much when people have so little. (I mention her because generally this seems more common in people who grew up without money and now have enough or even a lot.)
I especially liked what Lisa said about the person in her family, “The thing is what she wants is what you and I want. A decent life for her kids, a good night’s sleep, for the 2 year old to be potty trained.” Exactly. I have yet to meet a rich person who does nothing but want to sit around and talk about cleaning her diamonds.
I’ve found that talking about class is harder than talking about race. Why is this?
At shelter, we all decided that class was a greater issue than race for our clients when it came to getting through the system. Simply showing up on the other side of the desk put them in a category that seemed inescapable. Classism is more pervasive, more insidious, and most of us participate in some measure. We internalize these things: If she worked harder, she would get ahead; Rich people are snobs; People get what they deserve; Money is the root of all evil. I think this is why it’s so hard.
I’ve certainly internalized a lot of classism, thus my amusing mix of shame and pride that helped keep my therapist’s kids in college.
Like I said, it’s all easier if we talk about it.
May 22nd, 2005 at 11:42 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/index.html?8dpc
Thought you might like that URL. Series of articles (including articles on cross-class marriage) that sound a lot like what you’re talking about.
Sorry if you’ve already read ‘em.