Money Matters
I've been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with money. In the past few years due to a family tragedy, my life circumstances have changed dramatically. I went from living a life where I had some support and lived a pretty stable life to struggling to exist between paychecks with no backup whatsoever. Basically, I'm on my own now, and adjusting to that has been both difficult and traumatic. Being on my own is not something I wanted at this stage in my life, and the financial issues are really just the icing on the cake of this whole train wreck.
Because of all of that, I've been doing a far amount of ruminating on the topic of money and my relationship to it. And I've been amazed at how many memories that have surfaced that were related to me being mocked/humiliated/harassed for not having money, for being "poor," or for not having the things that others have. As I type it all out, it sounds kind of stupid. But when you're in college, and your professors are dramatically "calling you out" in front of the entire class for checking your books out of the library instead of buying them, it really does something to your psyche.
And this was more than one professor, because I never had money to spare on books if there was another way to get them. And I was an English major and figured, "Hey what's the difference between reading Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' from the university library and buying it full price from the bookstore?" Of course, to my professors, it was a travesty. They told me that I would never be a "real" scholar if I didn't purchase my books, that I was doing a disservice to the author by not paying for their work, and that I was essentially a scumbag of the lowest order and a total pleb/general blight on academic discourse. A few of them even told me that I couldn't come back to their class until I purchased the book! Now mind you, I HAD the book. And I HAD the correct edition that they wished for me to use. The only difference was the library stamp on the cover.
I honestly didn't understand their attitude, and I found it truly mortifying to be yelled at in front of the entire class, by professor after professor, year after year. I mean, what was their stake in all this? Were they getting kickbacks from the bookstore by harassing me? As a freshman, I hadn't thought much of it when I arrived at school. Because my family always patronized our local library, and we were there on a nearly daily basis. And we never had extra money for books, so when it came time for me to enroll in college, it just made sense to get them from the university library instead of going to the bookstore.
And I had it all set to go the first day, with proper titles, authors, editions, etc. I thought I was golden, and that I was making a savvy and economically intelligent choice. But then I was utterly blindsided by an attack over my copy of Walt Whitman's phenomenal work "Leaves of Grass" in my honors seminar, a small class of the top twenty or so students, all of us on full or half scholarships for academic achievement. And when the professor started to berate me, and then descended into outright making fun of me, I was shocked that I didn't defend myself. I just said, "Isn't that what the library is for?" and cringed as he scoffed and dismissed me, waving his hands around dramatically as if I was totally beneath his notice.
Red-faced, I avoided the stares and snickers of my classmates, feeling sickened. I had hoped that college would be a respite from such snobbish attitudes, but I was quickly getting a "real" education in what college was going to be about. Because having the money to purchase your books outright meant that you "deserved" to be there, and that you were the "right" kind of person to receive such an education. And if you couldn't afford it, then you shouldn't be there. This attitude about purchasing your own books extended then to possessing the right clothes with the appropriate labels attached, and even slid right into having the "correct" moral stances on social issues and politics. It was a pretty neat filter, all the way down to the core of it, and any person who stood out in any way got brutally hammered down (to borrow a popular Japanese saying).
And I wish that I could say that this was an isolated incident. But it wasn't. It happened again, and again, and again, with various professors throughout my tenure at university. By the time I was a senior, I was infamous enough that a professor teaching a course on Shakespeare paused in his roll call and looked at me and went, "Oh, so you're that girl who borrows her books from the library. Are you still doing that then? I feel the need to remind you that you need the correct edition for citations, and you'll need it ALL SEMESTER long." And then he leaned over and glared at me sternly, as if I was four years old, and not at the top of my class in terms of GPA and academic achievements. But my standout grades never seemed to appease my professors on the score of my right to be at their institution. If anything, it only seemed to make them angrier.
I didn't say anything to that professor either, except to ignore him altogether. But what I wanted to say to him, and all the professors who predated him was something along these lines:
"How dare you stand up in front of this room, full of people who I don't even know yet, and single me out! It's quite ironic that an older man with all the authority and privilege that comes with being a tenured professor at a prestigious university wants to stand up there and belittle a teenage girl just trying her best to make it in the world. I hope it makes you sleep better at night knowing how you bullied me in front of everyone, and I hope it makes you fill like a 'bigger' man since that's likely important to you.
I'm truly sorry I can't purchase my books, I wish I could. It's only that I had to decide between eating my pop tarts this morning and my macaroni or ramen dinner, and buying this precious book that you say is part of the 'literary canon.' Perhaps you should stop berating me in a class that is full of students on half and full scholarships, because there's likely more people like me in here, only they're too ashamed to borrow a book from the library because of people like you who are going to think less of them for being 'poor.' They don't want to be called out like I am, so they're going to be sleeping on someone else's couch or going without food or basic health necessities to try and look the part of a 'proper' university student.
So bully on you, 'big' man. I can't wait to get an A on every assignment and then shove it right in your stupid face and do a little dance on your desk. Then when I get my degree and a job somewhere, perhaps I will be able to afford books. Or perhaps I'll borrow from the library, and donate all that money to charity, so that I can help someone else like me get a good university education.
'Ta, loser!"
All of that is something I would never say, but it's something that I cared deeply about. My parents worked hard all of their lives so that I would never feel like I was "poor." They scrimped on things other paid for so that we could achieve that, such as not paying for cable and driving crappy cars that broke down all the time, sometimes stranding us far from home. And all of that just so that we could go to private religious schools and get a good education.
While attending these schools, I was often mocked for not having the right labels on my clothes, just as my professors would mock me years later for not having the right books (purchased not loaned). My mother tried to put the right labels on me at times, but it never really did any good. It was like the other students could smell that I was different, like they could sense that I didn't belong there. They zeroed in on me as a target, and went about trying to decimate me so that I would remove myself once I realized how unworthy I was of the space I was occupying. I experienced everything, from cutting remarks about my father's occupation (he was neither a doctor nor a lawyer, so there was no place for him in their society), to being locked in closets by classmates and even having my sweaters cut up while I was in gym class.
So now that I'm an adult, I take all of these experiences, and I fold them into my relationship with money. I spend more than I have in an effort to feel like, "I'm here, I made it! I'm not poor anymore! Who's poor.... not me!" All while pulling out my credit card and swiping it for purchase after purchase. And for awhile that worked while I had more support. And now... now I've slipped back down the ladder rungs. And all that struggle and sacrifice, both on my part and the part of my parent's just feels futile and stupid.
Because while I do have a good job and a master's degree, I'm still not living the lifestyle that they imagined I would. I still can't afford a house, or kids, or a nice vacation when I get some time off. And while I know that there are millions of Americans out there in this very same boat, this struggle is so much more painful up close than witnessed far away. And I wish that I had the right words to properly express it, but all it feels like is a cry of rage and anguish, issued up towards the heavens and an unforgiving deity who may or may not be listening, but who most certainly does not care and is not going to respond.
So that's my relationship with money: messy, complicated, and painful. Thank you professor, for all that you taught me. I'll certainly never forget it.
~astrapoetica