The first time I flew on a plane was the year I turned 30. We saved up for years, and also accumulated many thousands of airmiles rewards points, and took a family trip to the Riviera Maya in Mexico. Our daughter was one and a half, so she was free, and our son was five. Since that time, we’ve always maintained valid passports for the kids and us, but the kids have never been anywhere. This has been a huge weight of guilt for me, as I have felt bad for them that they have friends, and I have friends, who travel and have the kind of money that allows their kids to experience those kinds of things. We have not and it has always felt like some sort of shortcoming or like we’ve let them down in some way.
Before we had kids (and were more young and more stupid) we decided that kids young was the plan for us(!) and despite the desire to hopefully travel, we would obviously just do that with our kids (I mean obviously!) and be the family that did that kind of thing, because, well, we were young and stupid and didn’t yet comprehend that although we (or me for sure) would never regret having kids young, we would not realize the kind of income and careers that were conducive to expensive travel, or basically any travel, beyond some camping trips or visiting Grandpa out in British Columbia for a few days a year.
When I was younger I don’t recall feeling left out for not having gone on overseas vacations or having flown on a plane. We traveled by car and saw much of our country and some of the upper United States. I felt like road trips and moves, and places we went, were fine. We drove to Vancouver when I was a teen and I went again with a friend in my late teens and I never felt like I was lacking some social experience that everyone else was having.
Once I had my own children, I was more immersed in a life where I knew more people with more money and life experiences, and I began to realize that the idea of us doing that annually was not a real prospect. My kids knew kids from various socioeconomic backgrounds, so as much as they had friends who went to places every spring break, they also knew kids whose parents didn’t even have cars. But that didn’t prevent me from feeling badly and like I was somehow making their life “less”.
I had to remember that I personally had not been on a plane until age 30, and that still didn’t alleviate my guilt of somehow not being enough, or providing enough, for my own children. They were in programs, like martial arts and gymnastics and dance and swimming and summer camps. These things were expensive and stressful but high priority. Piano lessons and kid yoga and whatever ten week program for personal growth and exposure, were important to me. And honestly, I was glad they never really cared or excelled or had some desire to get really into some activity because I don’t know if we could have afforded it. I volunteered and fundraised and applied for any financial assistance I could garner for my son’s hip hop dance, once he was in high school, because it was hugely expensive, but important to him, and he was great at it, but I can’t say I was sad, financially, once he aged out and decided to not continue (plus Covid happened and secured that decision).
Recently I’ve found myself only interested in biographies and nonfiction books and in the past few weeks I’ve read “Maid” and “Nickel and Dimed” (prior much better than the later). These books (mostly Maid) made me feel a whole new appreciation for my level of “poor”. That is to say that I am totally not! I mean we have always gotten into debt over the standard: car repair, vet bill, dental expense. We have never had “excess”, but we’ve always had food and clothes and swimming lessons and a toy filled home that we had a mortgage on. The comparison has been with those who linger above our middleclass (lower middle class?) station, and it has made me jaded and unaware of the other side. I guess not totally unaware, but definitely somewhere off the radar.
One time my son said (as teens tend to do) that we were “So poor!” because he didn’t have some certain hoodie or some number of hoodies or something to that effect. Recently, as my daughter is dating a sweet kid who comes from much more affluence, (“They have a microwave that is a drawer!”) said that she is a bit embarrassed for him to come over because she looks so poor in comparison (thinking of her dated, and not fancy, house). But as much as these kids are lovely and not greedy, they are not blind to the culture we live in, and the pull of things and stuff and wants, I mean, I get it, I wanted stuff too, and was way more embarrassed than they have ever let on, when I was their age, as I came from even more meager beginnings (and perhaps that’s why I have wanted more for them).
I took my daughter to Edmonton for a weekend trip when she was around 8 or 9 years old. On the way home I thought I’d stop at West Edmonton mall and we could spend a few hours in the amazing water park they have there. We waited in a long line and once we got closer to the front, I discovered the prices and realized that an afternoon for the two of us at this pool would ring in at around $100 and it was out of the question. I had to explain to my daughter that it was too much money and that we couldn’t go. (Obviously I should have checked out prices beforehand to avoid that situation, but I didn’t and there we were). She was fine and loving and sweet, as generally, but I felt like a failure and had to hold back the tears and embarrassment as we slinked back through the line to exit. I doubt she even remembers, but it was a hard moment for me.
When reading books about complete (real!) poverty, I feel ashamed of this memory being a moment where I felt poor and unable to provide some special thing for my child (as we literally had just spent a night in a nice hotel and went to a major concert and had a fun girl’s trip). I feel badly that I have felt this underlying envy or lack of, knowing that my kids never got to ski and do expensive sports, or have never been to France or Jamaica; but yet, I would make sure they had whatever cool shoes they wanted and fun birthday parties and things on their Christmas lists. It feels so gross and misguided to be concerned that my kids have, truly, everything, while also having “nothing” in the messed up story that I have sometimes told myself.
Last fall my son took what was, for him, his first plane trip in memory, at 19. This month I’m taking my daughter on her first plane ride, in memory, at 15. I feel so happy and excited about this! I feel this wealth and excitement to have them experience these things finally. But it means even more to me to now understand, on a different level, that these things aren’t “normal”. That there are many many people who never get to even leave their home town, or struggle to take any time off work at all! How lucky, yet blind it makes me feel to reconcile that my envy has been misplaced and that we did perfectly alright.
Having my eyes opened to other ways and the concept of “real” poverty makes me feel ashamed of myself for wanting even more than we had for our kids. I don’t know that I personally have felt envy (on my end) but maybe. Not for houses and things, but maybe for peace of mind and not having to feel like I would throw up when the dentist told me the total, or if some unforeseen expense came up; I have felt envious of that kind of wealth, for myself.
The experience and “stuff” envy has always been for my kids’ sake. But no more! I know that they are fine and I know that they have learned some lessons that were unintentionally taught through lack (or some sense of it). I know that flying on a plane when you’re 19 or 15 is a fucking gift and not a prerequisite to a fulfilling life. Getting to travel and do stuff with your own hard earned money when you’re 30, is amazing and wonderful; not sad. I hadn’t realized that my inner feelings of not really caring about keeping up with the Jones’ was a white lie because I DID care, for the sake of the kids; but it never really mattered at all because they had enough! And someday they may look back and know that, while they use their own money to go and do (with excitement!) in having somehow made it, and hopefully they can see that it’s a privilege to feel grateful for, not just what people do.
Periscopecake 