It's bizarre being back in suburban America. I consider myself a working class girl, and in many ways I am, but I have so much privilege. My mother and grandparents are now proud members of the middle class and I feel like I got lost along the way. Growing up my mother and I struggled together to meet our needs and it's hurtful for me to watch her embrace consumer culture so fully. I can't help feeling like she is denying her past and me. Of course I understand her happiness at being able to feed herself and her kids and provide them with the luxuries that she could never afford when she was younger, but it seems like some of her fighting spirit, her sass, her honesty died when she got her new bank account. The things I used to admire about her are smothered by this whole new person she created. I mourn the loss of the woman I grew up with. And I can't help but wonder if she is happy like this.
So much of my thinking is a product of middle class America, but I still feel like a working class girl. Class is a weird thing. The house I live in is fancier than most of my friends here, we have 4 tv sets, 3 computers (4 if you count my grandpa's laptop), a dvd changer that holds 200 discs, a laser disk player and a million other little gadgets...but it took decades for my grandparents to work themselves up to this. Neither of my grandparents grew up in privilege. My Grandpa is going to be 70 this year and he is still working. My Grandma lived on a farm in South Dakota before she moved to Southern California with her 6 siblings and her single mother. She has worked hard her entire life and has just retired. Still they have alot to show for their hard work. Both of my Grandparents own a Rolls Royce but my Grandpa got them for insanely cheap because he works as a mechanic converting Rolls Royce engines, neither of them work they are both sitting in my Grandpa's shop in various states of disrepair. This is pretty much a metaphor for my family's class standing.
And what does it mean for me to live among this? I can still remember driving downtown to pick up our welfare check and the shame of paying with food stamps at the local grocery store. I remember the days when the choice for dinner was mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese, neither made with milk. The church I went to used to drop a basket on my front step every Thanksgiving. I still feel a great deal of shame when it comes to money. My friends in New York rarely understood what it was like to live without (beyond being a college student who decided to buy beer instead of food) and I think class had alot to do with my decision to leave. It's hard to feel like a burden, especially when I have been raised all my life to be proud and self sufficient.
This new job is going to pay me more money than I have ever made before. For the first time I am going to be able to pay all my bills without borrowing money and that feels pretty good. But I am also worried that I am going to cross over to the dark side. Afraid that I am going to be lured in by capitalism. Please dear friends, I am looking to you to kick my ass if I ever shop more than I read.
Love To You All
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