<p>I recently read a book by Donald Trump that talked about how he suffered a horrendous financial setback, something like $3 million or billion dollars in debt, owed everyone, and how he walked past a homeless person and thought “That person is worth $3 million more than me right now”. That’s very funny, but here’s the thing-- Donald Trump’s parents are extremely wealthy and love their children. Donald was sent to a very expensive college, left with no debt, and went into real estate, like his father, with all of the connections that go along with it. So even if the Donald lost $3 billion dollars in his business and could not get a job, Donald would never, ever starve or be homeless because he’s got his family and his family has money that they will share. </p>
<p>My family is in debt. So in theory, my family probably “has no right” to take our 2 camping trips to state parks that we take each year. These 2 trips probably cost us between $800-1500 per year, depending on the price of gas and the location.</p>
<p>But let me share another perspective. Because of my terrible childhood circumstances, I did not have proper guidance and support, and so I did not go about things the right way when I left my parents home at age 17. I was a 3.35 an hour cashier with no medical, living in a dump without even a phone, heat, a stove, fridge, or bed. I was lonely and felt like garbage, and so when a young man told me that he loved me, I grabbed onto that. I had a child at 20 out-of-wedlock with an abusive person. I was well on my way to following in the footsteps of every woman in the family before me (poverty and abuse), but I turned things around. I booted the abuser and enrolled in college with my 10 month old baby at community college. 2 years later, I had 5 scholarships to a university. 2 years later, I had more scholarships to grad school, and I could breath a little because my child was eligible for public education. </p>
<p>Even though I was on scholarship for tuition, I had to live on student loans those years to pay for rent, utilities, childcare, and food. This translated into huge debt when I graduated, but I didn’t worry much, I figured that I could work it off.</p>
<p>So when I graduated from college, I got engaged to my now husband, and planned to go to work. Because of my high blood pressure and allergies, traditional birth control would not work and the gyno would not give me an IUD. My gyno told me that I might (I emphasize might) need a fertility drug to get pregnant anyhow due to PCOS. My now husband took this to mean that he didn’t have to pull out any more (dumb assumption, I laid there in shock after he did this), and of course I got knocked me up from that session. </p>
<p>We didn’t have a honeymoon, but we had a nice wedding that we paid for ourselves.</p>
<p>So when it came time for me to take my licensing exams, I had just had a c-section 2 weeks before and was breastfeeding a 2 week old baby. I failed the exams, which compromised my ability to earn that year. I also started a business to make ends meet. </p>
<p>So when boards came around the next year, I told my family that there’d be no summer for me with them, I’d be studying. And after I passed my boards, I told my family that I didn’t have time because I was running a business with a baby still hanging off of my boob with no staff. When my husband complained that I didn’t come to bed with him, it was because I had to work late hours, and didn’t he appreciate that I care for the baby and work? </p>
<p>And what really hurts is remembering my 9 year old girl saying “Mom, wouldn’t you go to the mall with me”? and me telling her that I didn’t have time. Or that she had me for 8 years until her brother came along and how she kind of just fell by the wayside, quietly, while I wrapped myself up with her brother’s and my business’ needs. </p>
<p>I used to justify my lack of sleep, lack of time by saying “Things will get better when we have more time and money. This is how it is when you are young”. However, I counted on time.</p>
<p>Then in 2003 my husband got cancer. My husband was the breadwinner with good credit, insurance, and the steady paycheck. I found myself faced with the prospect that I could be left alone with my “failing to thrive” 3 year old who couldn’t stay in daycare, a 12 year old, no staff and no steady income from self-employment. </p>
<p>I had achieved a lot despite really bad odds, and I had faith in my intelligence and perseverance. But I realized that maybe when the money came, the people that I loved would be gone. My husband would die, and my kids would be grown. Can anyone imagine what that felt like, to have a crappy childhood, to have a kid with an abusive man, work hard to get through college, and then when I marry a man who actually was decent, I realize that I was now facing losing him and being a single parent again because of cancer?</p>
<p>And so do you know what I did? I stopped taking any work that I could get, and forced myself to find a niche that would enable me to continue working for myself from home. When my husband finished his treatment that March, and in July, I left the pile of bills on the table and we took our first camping trip. I didn’t give a crap at that point if we lost our house, car, or anything else. My sister actually called me before the trip to say “I take it that you will not be going on the trip because your van is about to be repossessed?”, and I said “No, we are going”. </p>
<p>Some people may think this was wrong. But you know what, the bills are not going to go away. My husband came from a single mother with nothing, I came from parents with nothing. When my husband was in cancer surgery, my mother watched the kids while I drove crying by myself to the hospital and sat alone in the waiting room. I am someone who needed and wanted a family to love and support me, but I’ve had nobody. Just my kids, my mother, my husband, and myself. </p>
<p>5 years later, we’ve been through a plant shutdown, I’ve been through my own health scare, and now this outrageous state of economy. I’ve seen a huge slump in my work, and maybe we’ll be in dire straits at this time next year. I’ll probably be paying student loans when I die. </p>
<p>But you know what? My husband is alive. We never broke that camping trip tradition that was started in 2003 and we take 2 of them each summer now, free of work. I’ve never missed one special occasion with my kids and when someone gets sick, I am always there. They get good homecooked food. My daughter made it into a top school and is a wonderful human being. I am close to my mother. We still have our house and we managed to replace our van with a nice older model this past year. Could we lose all of this in a year? Maybe. Do I feel bad that I can’t afford to give my kids all that I want them to have, and do I feel bad that my daughter has to take out some student loans? Yes. But today we are ok, we can hope, and that’s all we can do. </p>
<p>I was thinking yesterday that it probably takes many generations to turn around poverty due to lack of education and abuse. My grandmother had a 4th grade education and lost her children to foster care due to the death of a child. Hence, my own mother lived in foster care, and was thrust out with nothing. She was vulnerable and married and had kids with no education, like many young women in the 70’s, but my father was abusive and she had to leave her marriage with nothing. Hence, I also had to leave home young after living with abuse. I also fell into the trap of seeking to feel better with a man who ended up abusive. But my mother did a few things right. She never abused me herself, she took me to the library, and she took care of my daily needs. But unlike the women before me, I am no doormat and I have the brains to turn things around. Now my daughter has grown up in a home with financial problems, again because I started with nothing, but I’ve done alot to insulate her from that while still being honest with her. I’ve apologized and told her how bad I feel for what I feel was emotional neglect of her when her brother was born. She will go to college with our love and financial help and hopefully she will have learned something from our family history and not be stupid when it comes to men (hasn’t been yet), but hopefully she will not be so tainted by the history that she becomes tightfisted and anti-children. I have hope that as the generations go on, eventually there will be someone in my line that actually can be educated without debt and have a family. This is just how it is, because I don’t play the lottery.</p>
<p>I suppose that I could have done a few things differently. I could have given my daughter up for adoption or aborted her, but that is not attractive. In fact, it was my daughter and my care of her (because I didn’t care about myself) that spurred me to educate myself. I could have not spent money on college, but I’d still be uneducated and have no hope of things getting better financially. I could have picked a “better model” in my husband, but then again, would any “decent” family want their sons to marry me, with my family history? Sad, but probably true.</p>