There was this moment a few years ago when my daughter’s team required each player to buy a t-shirt. This was above and beyond the uniform provided by the school. The shirt cost nearly $20, and, to be honest, I didn’t have it.
The forms were sent home a few days before the money was due but not with enough time for my next paycheck to drop. Every morning we had the same conversation. The chick would say, “Mama, I need that money for the shirt.” I would respond that I didn’t have the money for the shirt and that I would call the coach to make arrangements to pay for it on payday. My daughter would become so upset over the fact that I was going to call the coach. She would say things like, “Oh sure, and then she’ll know I’m the poor kid. I’ll just get in trouble again for telling her I forgot.”
With that, she would stop talking to me.
I got it. I mean, there have been several times in my own life when I have taken a hit because I didn’t have something due to lack of money those with financial resources deemed necessary. There was a time I didn’t have the money to buy another pair of socks for a sport when the first pair was lost and my kid was benched and not allowed to play at all. That was one of the most awful moments in my life.
She was punished because of something that was completely out of her control, so I talked her into leaving. We left because of my shame and the need to escape it, but it translated to me having a bad attitude. I didn’t feel it necessary to leave her there on the bench, humiliated and sad, because we couldn’t afford socks. No amount of punishment in the world would change the circumstance. We were already different because only a couple of kids from our community participated in that sports league in the first place, so we didn’t even have a friend who could loan us a pair of socks.
I believe it’s human nature for us to operate from our norm. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that it’s normal and expected that we think and feel based upon our lived experience. If I have never had to worry about being too broke to afford socks, my reflex thought would be that everyone can afford socks on any given day of the week. But, because my lived experience is a little different, I would probably have a couple of extra pairs stashed away in case of an emergency.
Last week, we ran into a situation where my daughter wanted to attend a school sporting event. She was sad because she had to buy the tickets online. Thankfully, I do have a credit card now and we were able to get them. And I wasn’t the one who brought up the inequities in that setup.
My kid picked right up on it. She knows what it’s like to not have a credit card, and my head went to the fact we are now required to pay more by way of a service fee. $1.50 might not seem like a lot to some folks, but when you’re dead broke, $1.50 might as well be $1,000.
We arrived at the game at the same time as a couple we knew. They didn’t have a credit card and were quite worried they wouldn’t be able to get into the game. I had nothing to offer to reassure them because our previous experience with the digital tickets was a mess when my kid’s phone died as she walked up to the gate. Sometimes money causes stress simply because it prevents people from doing what they want to do with their kids.
Some of you might think I’m asking for free stuff, but I’m not. The word “entitlement” has been floating around a lot lately from West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin. I didn’t want someone to buy socks for my kid, but I wish someone would have shown her some grace and loaned her a pair. I didn’t want her to not have the t-shirt, but I would have appreciated it if time would have been given so I could have covered it on payday rather than my kiddo carrying that anxiety with her about being the “poor kid.”
Much like the Build Back Better package, sometimes the difference between having and not having is huge, and people need support. They need grace. They need to be allowed to keep their dignity. Shouldn’t we all be entitled to a little grace?
Onward,
Amy Jo
