An Investment in the Future

"For sale! Hand-crafted wood! For free! Made by kids!"

It's quite the marketing jingle, isn't it? It makes a mother proud, to hear such banter coming from the mouths of her babes. I had suggested to my kids that they make a sign rather than accost each confused passerby, but I do have to admire their efforts. They are chanting together as a group and have managed to "sell" one or two of their glued together wooden sculptures to cooperative strangers wandering by our front yard.

Their voices are loud enough to attract the attention of a neighbor across the road and down the block. I watch as the mom with daughter and dog walk down the alley to join us at our roadside stand.

It's the typical get-to-know-you conversation. I try to be welcoming and chatty. (I know - this is a stretch for me...) And not comment on the rudeness of her dog who is tramping through my long ago harvested strawberry plants, but gross! Isn't this like letting your dog wander through someones empty refrigerator? And I find that I am interested in this women, because she is different from most people that I encounter in my daily life living on the fringe of middle America.

She is poor.

I judge this in a split second by her clothes, carriage, energy, demeanor, and the home she has just exited.

I wonder of her story before she wandered onto my porch.

Is she really a Harvard graduate that pursued too many diplomas at the expense of a career? Is she looking to cause a lawsuit like the freak that wandered into my cousin's rummage sale years ago, tripped over her sidewalk, and sued her? Or is she simply what she appears - a just-moved-to-the-neighborhood, down-on-her-luck woman looking for companionship?

We supposedly live in a classless society. But as my economic class has dwindled, I find that classes most certainly do exist, and the definition of poor, white trash has become more important to me.

Does poor, white trash exist, and what qualifies one for this honor?

When I think of the cliche "poor, white trash" I think of a tired, mean, straggly-haired woman with too many children to feed, supported by an alcoholic husband who is seldom home. She spends her time hanging gray clothes out to dry on the broken car in her yard. She yells a lot using poor grammar, watches a lot of TV and could loose a few pounds without missing them. Her dog barks at everything and her hobby is smoking cigarettes. She feel trapped in her bathrobe, and in life.

I must admit, sometimes I wonder if I'm toeing the line. Those are the days when I use the vintage postal jeep perpetually parked in our yard as a hose holder, and yell at the kids for - nothing much - just because I am tired, and serve hot dogs and beans for dinner, and there are toys scattered all over the backyard, and Geoff is working late again, so I am alone trapped in my bathrobe, and in life.

I tend to compare myself in life with my Mom. At forty years of age she had a great job and career, had just built a new house, had a daughter (me) in college and she was just about to become a grandmother. She started her family when she was twenty.

If I really want to be accurate in my comparison, I need to look at my Mom when she had a three-year-old child to raise. She was home with her kids, babysitting to help pay the bills. Our vacations were by car, my bike was a recycled work of art, and neither she nor my Dad had yet to get a college degree (though they both would a few years later). Their lifestyle was not so different from mine today. But my life is proceeding in a non-linear fashion. It has not been building economically for a while. It has taken a detour while I invest in the future of my children.

I wonder now more about other people and their economic state. The collapse of our economy has blown open the lives of many people as foreclosure and unemployment become more common. I think about how I lived ten years ago versus how I live now - the luxuries I took for granted as necessities and the peace of mind of a steady paycheck. The age old question: How can a few people on this planet live so well while some are literally dying for lack of food and medicine?

Ten years ago I went to a J. Crew outlet with my cousin visiting from the Czech Republic. I spent about $100 on new clothes for the season - clothes I considered a bargain and a necessity. My cousin cried on the way home because it wasn't in her budget to purchase any new clothes. Her boyfriend wisely thought their money should be invested in an English dictionary. I think I felt so bad about the situation that I gave her one of my old sweaters when we got home, and I think this actually made her feel better.

But the inequity of it all that was so apparent to my cousin at the time, barely glanced off me. Now when I go out to dinner, it is infrequent enough that I am astounded by the portion sizes and the casualness of the waste. And new clothes? Let's just say they are few and far between.

There is a mom at my son's school who - if rumor is correct - is a welfare mom. Her husband died of a drug overdose two years ago, and she lives in public housing raising her three children on food stamps and hand outs. Back before I was a mother, I had a lot of contempt for welfare moms. But there are several things interesting to me about this mom. I think she does a great job masking her lifestyle - she has a cell phone and a family dog, and does not look hungry. And when I place myself in her shoes, I find she has made a choice. She is choosing to stay home and raise her kids rather than find a job as a single Mom and place her children in child care. I see this mom and her kids at all the community events: the school's Bike Rodeo, Back To School Night, soccer games, etc. She is there for her kids. When I think about it, I would probably do the same in her position, because this is how the cycle is broken.

Poor, white trash.

It is the absence of education. It is the absence of power over destiny. It is the absence of hope.

A few weeks later I see my neighbor again. She is clearly on her way to pick her daughter up from school. She has a new purchase; one of those fancy bikes that sit low to the ground. She is towing behind her bike another bike for her daughter to ride home. I laugh at her cleverness and applaud her taking a step forward in terms of environment, exercise, and example. I look at her and I see hope.

We have a class system here in the U.S., but we also can choose to move within it.

I pick up the toys scattered all over the backyard, bake some bread, change out of my sweat pants, and I feel better. I believe that wherever I am at, it is going to get better, because I will make it better.