Paycheck to Paycheck Parenting

Some reflection, some ideas

But First, Some Reflections on Reagan

I think it might be safe to say that many of us are living paycheck to paycheck.

There is a wide and constantly growing gap between the haves and have-nots in this nation. Recent studies tell us what we already know: most of us could not handle, could not manage, would not be able to deal with an emergency costing over $400.

Millenials are worth about an average of $8000, — that’s their net worth, all of it. And me, a Gen X’er born in 1980, well, every study on my people reports we are doing worse than most of Gen X and worse than most Millenials.

We are a truly special group. Thanks, 1980. Thanks the beginning of Neoliberalism.

When I teach my Sociology courses I do indeed spend a long time talking about 1980. So many problems that were maybe almost solved, or on their way to being addressed, were made instantly worse and in many cases deeply entrenched, starting in 1980.

The Reagan Era was all about policy changes that took from the poor and the public and gave to the rich and the private. The 80’s was a cultural movement that focused on greed is good and selfishness as spiritual calling. Every avenue of life in the 1980’s combined to frame our habits and trends in consuming and shopping as our only value as people, as our only worth as citizens. And those who could not well, the argument of personal responsibility was always there to blame and shame, even as social welfare programs were cut and ketchup was allowed to be considered a school lunch vegetable.

The 1980s were literally the beginning of the end of being able to actually achieve some meaningful goals in terms of equity, justice, and even yes, staving off climate change a bit. It is not an accident that Reagan ripped the solar panels installed under the previous administration off of the White House roof as a symbolic statement. The forces of neoliberal corporate capitalism and neoliberal governance meant big business for Big Business.

Paycheck to Paycheck Parenting

Oh but I digress, fast forward to now when most of us live paycheck to paycheck. When we do not have health care. When we do not have a plan to retire, let alone a retirement plan. When we do not have a savings account.

And we have to parent.

Do I have tips or advice? Honestly, short of full scale revolution I do not know what to tell anyone, what to tell myself most days. We make do. We get by. We have plans. We are working hard. But oh wow does it get tiresome.

My daughter currently wants a pet. And all I can think of is the cost of this creature. So, we are putting if off a bit longer. Waiting a bit longer.

She does not lack for anything, let me be clear. We eat well, she has clothing, we meet the basic needs. She has too many toys and apps.

But it’s the worries and dealing with what she knows that other kids have, other kids can do, places other kids get to go. I was never one to get to go on vacations much as a kid. But I always wanted to be able to take my kid on one every summer. And we just are not there yet. And she is ten.

Most of all, I suppose it is this feeling of time passing. Of time passing and of wanting and longing to give her this magical childhood and of having to wait on things. Meanwhile she is growing up, growing older.

I try to make it fun, obviously. It is not like we are in a dirt floor shack. Although sometimes I do wish we were. I wish society as a whole would stop it, halt it, let us all go back.

Longing for Simpler Times

We are reading Little House on the Prairie together before bed. Racism aside, and oh, there’s a lot to put aside with these classics, the idea that a family built a house from scratch, provides for their daily needs with whatever they have around them or with major trips to a general store, and that kids are happy, nae, thrilled with the gift of an orange for Christmas, is something I wish we could all enjoy today.

It is not that I care about keeping up with any Jones’s. It is not that I want to consume and consume. It is that I want to give her experiences and a lot of experiences cost money. I made do. I am fine. I mean, I had it a bit worse with the drunken dad situation, I know.

But parenting paycheck to paycheck is a reality for so many of us and I think the best we can do is be real about it, with ourselves, with each other.

I think using this as an opportunity to focus on what we actually need and how to reframe things might also help. We are making an effort as a family to use less, buy less, go plastic free in areas that we can. It’s not that I Mary Poppins everything, but that book and movie well, they were actually fairly Socialist in message, so maybe I do.

I just want my daughter to know that we can have experiences right here at home, and that we can find ways to create and entertain and learn and grow without having to be enrolled in activities or groups. We can do arts, crafts, read, write and we can go on walks to the library or park. We can understand our situation as our situation in context of a structure were many if not most people are facing the things we are facing.

Sociological Insights Help

I have yet to find the language to speak to her about how to deal with her friends that have, — her friends that have giant homes, horses, trips to Hawaii, are in every after school program from gymnastics to ballet to pottery.

All I keep coming back to with her, and with me, is that we do what we can and we can make it all work. The process is the thing. The process of how we grow and how we shape our lives is internal, not external.

We are shaped by the experiences we have, and our experiences are shaped by the resources we have, yes. But kids who grow up with everything do not automatically become amazing, wonderful, perfect, etc. people. And kids who grow up with less and less don’t become bad or sad people. It is about appreciating what is now, and it is also about, for me, for my kid, connecting it all to the structures that are fundamentally set up to be unfair at the roots (please enjoy my article on this, if you are scratching your head about what I am saying, and thank you!)

And this knowledge is valuable. This insight is important. It takes it all off of the individual people and individual friends and helps to see the system as it is, as it works. And this I suppose is the best advice I can give to anyone at any age, — our lives are in context and we can find community and solidarity in this context in ways that lead to positive social and structural change.

Jenny Justice is a mom, Sociology instructor, and writer. You can follow her on Medium and at Jenny Justice, Writer. She has been recognized as a Top Writer on Medium in Poetry, Parenting, Reading, Education, Racism, and Climate Change, so far.