I really can't remember when I started knowing about class differences, but by the time I was in high school it was clear to me that I was lower class, and I had absorbed the idea that I deserved it somehow...that my family had been in poverty for generations and it would likely continue and that I should try to hide it from my peers.
My dad was, and still is a minister. He went to college, lived a poor student's life, graduated. I always had the idea that his degree was kind of fake. I mean, compared to other people who studied real things, his was not as valid. So he chose the best thing he could and went for it, whatever.
Recently though, I have started to see my parents in a different light.
I'm not a part of the church anymore, I think the whole thing is mostly half-truths based on the myths of several different religions and somehow fascinatingly still stuck in 1958.
However, my dad has worked for 30 years now as a counselor, preacher, the man everyone calls whenever anyone they love is in the hospital or psych ward, building construction worker, mechanic, the list goes on.
His salary has stayed steadily at about half of the people he serves.
Which meant that when my friends who went to that church were deciding which college to go to, I was realizing that I couldn't afford to go. I had a good and very well-meaning friend who told me that I should go to the expensive private school she was attending when we were about 20. She said the Lord had provided for her and He would do the same for me. In truth, General Motors had provided for her and the "Lord" really was providing for me, via my father's oh-so-godly service position. And it wasn't enough.
I learned recently that while my dad was in college he was offered a job making (in 1975) twice as much as he does now. The first thing I said was " I could've gone to any college I wanted."
All of a sudden I realized that none of those people were better than me. I could've had as much as any of them, but my dad believed he was doing a noble thing which he thought would make his life richer or something. I don't know. Somehow it makes a difference to know we were poor by choice.
He has a chance now to change that. To put away nobility and to have a retirement fund.
I hope he does. He deserves it. And it is inspiring.
My dad was, and still is a minister. He went to college, lived a poor student's life, graduated. I always had the idea that his degree was kind of fake. I mean, compared to other people who studied real things, his was not as valid. So he chose the best thing he could and went for it, whatever.
Recently though, I have started to see my parents in a different light.
I'm not a part of the church anymore, I think the whole thing is mostly half-truths based on the myths of several different religions and somehow fascinatingly still stuck in 1958.
However, my dad has worked for 30 years now as a counselor, preacher, the man everyone calls whenever anyone they love is in the hospital or psych ward, building construction worker, mechanic, the list goes on.
His salary has stayed steadily at about half of the people he serves.
Which meant that when my friends who went to that church were deciding which college to go to, I was realizing that I couldn't afford to go. I had a good and very well-meaning friend who told me that I should go to the expensive private school she was attending when we were about 20. She said the Lord had provided for her and He would do the same for me. In truth, General Motors had provided for her and the "Lord" really was providing for me, via my father's oh-so-godly service position. And it wasn't enough.
I learned recently that while my dad was in college he was offered a job making (in 1975) twice as much as he does now. The first thing I said was " I could've gone to any college I wanted."
All of a sudden I realized that none of those people were better than me. I could've had as much as any of them, but my dad believed he was doing a noble thing which he thought would make his life richer or something. I don't know. Somehow it makes a difference to know we were poor by choice.
He has a chance now to change that. To put away nobility and to have a retirement fund.
I hope he does. He deserves it. And it is inspiring.
posted by hymenoptera's honey at 10:45 PM
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