Recession blues
Last Thursday night, I saw a U-Haul truck parked outside my next-door neighbors' home. I assumed that someone was unloading a couch or something and, thinking nothing of it, went inside to get dinner. It was only much later that someone told me that the truck was loading, not unloading. The family had lost the home they'd bought years before, and were moving out -- very quickly, without any announcements and in a way that would attract minimal attention to themselves. The last few times I'd seen them, we waved or said a quick hello. Nothing was said about having to leave.
They're nice people, a multi-generational family I have known for a few years. We weren't close but I had been welcomed to their home and they were always welcome in mine. The women & children in the family once volunteered to help me with a church project involving preparing and serving a hearty breakfast at a homeless women's shelter.
The children who lived at the home are polite, kind, and doing well in school. They like animals and are very gentle with them. I sometimes wondered if one of them might be interested in a veterinary career, and hoped that I might be able to suggest scholarship information when the time came; I fully expected them to continue living next door until the kids came of age.
There were never any loud parties, arguments, or any troublesome noises coming from their home. They drove modest, small, efficient, older cars. They valued education. I never saw anyone prancing around in expensive designer clothing or accessories. All the adults in the home worked hard and the children of appropriate age worked as babysitting on the weekends. They were good neighbors. I wish that I had been a better neighbor in return; maybe then I would have realized that something was wrong. Could I have helped? I don't know.
Of course, losing one's home or job involves tremendous stress, worry, and even in a time when you can watch TV news stories every week about home foreclosures and homelessness, shame. Americans like to win. I was raised in a frugal environment in which education was valued and certain ways of life -- eating out, recreational mall shopping, conspicuous consumption, wasting food, throwing things away instead of fixing them -- were considered unacceptable, foolish, even somewhat morally suspect. I suspect that this attitude will be familiar if you've got religious parents, parents from the rural South, or immigrant parents; you probably know just what I'm talking about.
However, the reality is that sometimes it doesn't matter how many coupons you clip, pieces of clothing you mend, or additional part-time jobs you squeeze into your schedule. The recession/depression is affecting everyone. That Thursday night I lay awake trying to think of how I could contact the family and what I would say to them. I don't want to offend them, but would like to let them know that I wish them well and that I do not think they should be ashamed.
I've been mildly obsessed with frugality for years, learning how to make and fix things, and reading perhaps a few too many news stories and frugality blogs about money management and the social experience of poverty. lately I've been reading more articles about the shift from middle class to working class to being over 30 (like me) and realizing that those job interviews are going to be a whole lot harder to get because you are older, no matter your experience and desire to work.
During my childhood I listened to older family members and friends talk about living through the Great Depression of the 1930s. I also read books containing oral histories of people who lived through the Great Depression (I was a very serious-minded child). As I look and listen to what's happening around me in 2010, I'm remembering those stories of how people creatively survived. I work more than one job, have been everything from a night janitor to a contract manager, have degrees and certificates, pursue continuous professional development in my field, take public transportation (or just walk), try to save $, am great at making clean-out-the-fridge pasta dishes and stir-fries, and wouldn't know a Prada logo if some fashionista pulled me into a store and showed it to me. However, I don't think that all of this frugal behavior makes me one bit "safer" than anyone else in the current economic climate. How I can apply what I learned from those stories of the 30s remains to be seen.
Now I need to decide how to talk to my neighbors in a way that puts both of us at ease.
Terkel, Studs. 1970. Hard times; an oral history of the great depression. New York: Pantheon Books.
Watkins, T. H. 1999. The hungry years: a narrative history of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Westin, Jeane Eddy. 1976. Making do: how women survived the '30s. Chicago: Follett.
This entry was originally posted at http://zizi-west.dreamwidth.org/1287.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
They're nice people, a multi-generational family I have known for a few years. We weren't close but I had been welcomed to their home and they were always welcome in mine. The women & children in the family once volunteered to help me with a church project involving preparing and serving a hearty breakfast at a homeless women's shelter.
The children who lived at the home are polite, kind, and doing well in school. They like animals and are very gentle with them. I sometimes wondered if one of them might be interested in a veterinary career, and hoped that I might be able to suggest scholarship information when the time came; I fully expected them to continue living next door until the kids came of age.
There were never any loud parties, arguments, or any troublesome noises coming from their home. They drove modest, small, efficient, older cars. They valued education. I never saw anyone prancing around in expensive designer clothing or accessories. All the adults in the home worked hard and the children of appropriate age worked as babysitting on the weekends. They were good neighbors. I wish that I had been a better neighbor in return; maybe then I would have realized that something was wrong. Could I have helped? I don't know.
Of course, losing one's home or job involves tremendous stress, worry, and even in a time when you can watch TV news stories every week about home foreclosures and homelessness, shame. Americans like to win. I was raised in a frugal environment in which education was valued and certain ways of life -- eating out, recreational mall shopping, conspicuous consumption, wasting food, throwing things away instead of fixing them -- were considered unacceptable, foolish, even somewhat morally suspect. I suspect that this attitude will be familiar if you've got religious parents, parents from the rural South, or immigrant parents; you probably know just what I'm talking about.
However, the reality is that sometimes it doesn't matter how many coupons you clip, pieces of clothing you mend, or additional part-time jobs you squeeze into your schedule. The recession/depression is affecting everyone. That Thursday night I lay awake trying to think of how I could contact the family and what I would say to them. I don't want to offend them, but would like to let them know that I wish them well and that I do not think they should be ashamed.
I've been mildly obsessed with frugality for years, learning how to make and fix things, and reading perhaps a few too many news stories and frugality blogs about money management and the social experience of poverty. lately I've been reading more articles about the shift from middle class to working class to being over 30 (like me) and realizing that those job interviews are going to be a whole lot harder to get because you are older, no matter your experience and desire to work.
During my childhood I listened to older family members and friends talk about living through the Great Depression of the 1930s. I also read books containing oral histories of people who lived through the Great Depression (I was a very serious-minded child). As I look and listen to what's happening around me in 2010, I'm remembering those stories of how people creatively survived. I work more than one job, have been everything from a night janitor to a contract manager, have degrees and certificates, pursue continuous professional development in my field, take public transportation (or just walk), try to save $, am great at making clean-out-the-fridge pasta dishes and stir-fries, and wouldn't know a Prada logo if some fashionista pulled me into a store and showed it to me. However, I don't think that all of this frugal behavior makes me one bit "safer" than anyone else in the current economic climate. How I can apply what I learned from those stories of the 30s remains to be seen.
Now I need to decide how to talk to my neighbors in a way that puts both of us at ease.
Terkel, Studs. 1970. Hard times; an oral history of the great depression. New York: Pantheon Books.
Watkins, T. H. 1999. The hungry years: a narrative history of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Westin, Jeane Eddy. 1976. Making do: how women survived the '30s. Chicago: Follett.
This entry was originally posted at http://zizi-west.dreamwidth.org/1287.html. Please comment there using OpenID.