This is my attempt to make sense of the double worlds I inhabit: the faculty lounge and the foodstamp office.
Only a few of my co-workers know that my family is on foodstamps, that my children are on medical coupons, and that because my husband has been unemployed for the last year, we are going to have to find a cheaper place to live by the end of the year. Our landlords can no longer float us the first half of the month, waiting for my adjunct professor pay to add up to a month's rent. We haven't told our kids about the impending move. We plan on framing it as a good thing, a fun opportunity, and a practical step since our oldest child just started college, and we no longer need to have a dedicated room for her.
Yesterday, a co-worker and I commisserated about entering the world of being parents with college-aged children. There was the usual back and forth about what we miss about our children now that they are off to college, what we don't miss, and then the conversation switched to how expensive it is to send a kid to college. I didn't tell my co-worker that my daughter qualified for a state-funded program for low-income students, and I won't be paying anything for my daughter's education. The truth is I can't even afford to buy my daughter laundry soap and new towels to wash. When people complain to me about how expensive it is to send a kid to college, I don't say anything. When my daughter moved into the dorms two weeks ago, I was relieved that I would have one less person to feed. Thank the gods we no longer need that fourth bedroom.
When I move through the world, I look and act like a well-educated middle-class lady. I know how to play the role, too. I know the right way to greet an aquaintance on the street on a sunny afternoon: be general in your discussion, appear happy, don't talk about anything too serious (unless it has to do with a political campaign), say good bye and move along. Whatever you do, do not tell your aquaintaince that you happen to be on your way to beg the utilitiy company to keep your water on a few more weeks. When your aquaintance says they will forward you a link to the latest big deal about the latest political campaign, do not tell them that you will have to wait until you get to work the following day to check the link because you have not had internet for several months now.
How to keep up the pretense of a middle class lifestyle:
--Avoid grocery shopping at places where, and times when, people you know from work or other middle-class worlds shop. You don't want them to see you pay for your groceries with a foodstamp card that has lost its magnetic strip, so the cashier has to manually enter your card number and will often, loudly, ask you to "push the foodstamp button again."
--Avoid having to give folks rides. Your car is clearly a piece of shit. Plus, you stopped paying for insurance a year ago. Electricity for your home? Car insurance? Electricity wins everytime.
Before my husband lost his job completely, he went from full-time work to part-time work. Then less part-time work. Then nothing. The first two years, when we had some income trickling in from his employment (and unemployment benefits--before they dried up), I thought of us a broke. I referred to us as broke.
Some time in the last year, I started to think of us as poor. That was when the shame really kicked in. It is one thing to be broke for awhile in the midst of a major national financial crisis, but when your family budget continually shrinks, and you have cut out about everything unnecessary and lots of necessary things, too, it is hard to pretend you are just broke. We are poor. Middle-class, educated and poor.
Last week, my husband and I managed to feed four people on $55.00. I am grateful for the potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and zuchinni in our garden. My children are not so much. They want Cheez-Its and microwave popcorn. Which reminds me that a month or so ago our microwave died, but our friend who is not broke (or poor) gave us his old one that is much nicer than our dead one. Amen for good friends.
Yesterday, after teaching my last class of the day, my husband picked me up, and we went grocery shopping. It was the first of the month. Our foodstamps were available. My husband bought 20 bucks worth of steak. We also got some Cheez-Its and microwave popcorn. Our twelve-year-old was so exited about the steak. I'm a vegetarian, can't stand the smell of steak, and I was excited. I've overheard people at our local food co-op judging the food folks by with their foodstamps. Apparently, even some progressives think the poor should be told what they can and cannot eat. As we bought our groceries yesterday, I was painfully aware of the stereotype about foodstamps and steak (or other expensive items reserved for the pantries of people who don't pay with government hand-outs). My response is that I if I can make a fifty dollar food budget stretch for a week, I am allowed the occasional luxury of feeding my family steak (and potatoes from the garden). And steak and eggs (from a co-worker's chickens) the next morning for breakfast. My point is that poor people are resourceful. We know how to make our foodstamps stretch, but we shouldn't always have to.
I teach English 101. The theme for my course is poverty. We read essays by the working poor. We read essays by middle-class folks pretending to be poor so other middle-class folks will give a shit about the plight of the poor. We read texts by academics about privilege and power and who holds power in our society and why (hint--it isn't the poor). I spend hours a week thinking about poverty and class, talking about poverty and class, and I am still confused about my own place in this fucked-up world I inhabit that lies somewhere on the intersection between the middle class and poverty.
Lately, I haven't been so middle-class in my responses to aquaintances. I refer to the truth. I am oblique in my references, but clear enough that I can see the desire to escape on their faces. Like grief, being poor is not something people want to hear about. Especially when my family doesn't fit any clearcut catagories. My husband has a year of law school under his belt. I have a masters degree. We are articulate, and we were raised middle class (with all the values around work and education that come with a middle-class background). We followed the prescribed path for reaching the American Dream. Maybe that is the reason I see the look of fear on people's faces when I let my mask down. If someone like me can be poor, so can they.
The problem with pretending to be happily middle class when my world is falling down all around me is that the issue stays hidden. Being poor can look alot like being middle class if you know how to pretend, and I have decided I don't want to pretend anymore. I am not a victim, but I do feel shame and fault for my family's financial predicament. Pretending only makes my shame and guilt worse.
How to keep up the pretense of a middle-class lifestyle (revised):
--Don't do it.
--Don't tell people you can't go out for drinks because you are kinda broke right now. Tell them truth. Even if they look at you like your face just melted off or you told them you have a terminal disease (being poor doesn't have to be terminal, and it doesn't have to be permanent if you carry some of the privileges that come with being raised middle-class.)
--Shop wherever and whenever you want.
--Don't pretend anymore.
