LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Throw off the mask.
Like Allessandra, we confuse who we are with the labels we give ourselves, or allow others to stick on us. We identify with attributes that really do not define us or deepen our essences. Allessandra was both blessed and cursed with more masks than the typical person. She was black, she was white. She was a student, a wife, the mother of an adopted autistic boy. Running around trying to be the best of all those things brought Allessandra further away from her truth. It wasn’t until she got to a place of security and experience that she found the courage to put her confidence to use, hear her mother’s words in her ear, and put into practice all the lessons she had learned through her journey.
For Allessandra, a key lesson was that we cannot and should not fight our true nature. We all need to cling to something, but what are we clinging to, and—more important—is it helping or hindering? Do you wear your masks to keep you safe, keep you on a path to what you think you need or want? What would happen if your titles—of race, or singledom, or executive status—were lifted? Then who are you and what do you do to build a life that is meaningful?
We put on masks to protect ourselves from judgment. But we have to come to a point where we just don’t care, where we have the courage to just say, “If you love me and you’re in my inner pride, you won’t care who I am without the label.” In fact, the truth and beauty of it all is that those who love you and are in that pride you have built probably see the authentic you before you do. Not only is it critical to do this for ourselves, but it sets an example for our children to pursue their best selves and their best lives.
Start peeking out from the confines of your mask, even the mask of strength, by remembering something author Susan Ann Darley wrote for InnerSelf.com. The next time you are about to cast a quick judgment, ask yourself the following questions: Is it true? Is it useful? Is it necessary? This could work when casting judgment on ourselves. Further, she says that the key to removing labels is to begin by valuing yourself. How do we even begin to find the courage to do that, especially if so many things have gone wrong and so many mistakes have been made? By repeating to ourselves that we are not our experiences and we are not our mistakes.
“That very truth,” Darley writes, “when deeply felt, will prevent you from devaluing yourself or others. People you might have walked away from in the past because of hasty judgments might even become wonderful new friends. And never again will you be intimidated or influenced by the judgments of others. What people think of you will become none of your business.
“You will be too busy designing the life you truly want. The power of constructive love will then be yours to build with as you wish.”
Presence of Resources:
The ability to recognize and manage resources, financial or otherwise, while teaching children the wisdom and rewards of delayed gratification, innovation, self-regulation, and wise planning.
V
Presence of Resources
Introduction
A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.
—Suze Orman
When I was growing up, finances were the business of adults. While I certainly had a sense of where my parents stood on the income scale, I never was told how much we had, and I dared not ask. My “job” was to go to school and do well; the job of my parents was to take care of me, and how much money they earned was none of my beeswax.
While the stories within this section from my own experiences, and those of many others, showcase some of the ways we manage to balance finances and come to terms with our financial lives, it is my observation that there are two opposing ways of handling money that can create problems: We either overshare and overburden our children, creating money neurotics who become fearful about their security, regardless of whether they happen to be secure; or we spoil our kids out of guilt, trying to overcompensate for whatever it is we think is a void in their lives, trying to “buy” their love or distract them from their circumstances. The problem here, aside from the ludicrous idea that love can be bought, is we usually don’t have the money but charge away anyway, burying ourselves in credit card debt and missing out on the opportunities to give our children what they really are craving: emotional security through presence and connection. As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our children need our presence, not our presents.”
Therefore, having Presence of Resources becomes less about fiscal security and more about emotional well-being as we rise to the challenge of providing for our families.
Ninety percent of single-parent families are headed by women, and not surprisingly, single mothers whose children still live with them have the highest poverty rate, no matter the demographic. According to a paper by Jacqueline Kirby, MS, at The Ohio State University, mother-only families are more likely to be poor “because of the lower earning capacity of women, inadequate public assistance and childcare subsidies, and lack of enforced child support from nonresidential families.” Kirby goes on to write, “The median annual income for female-headed households with children under six years old is roughly one-fourth that of two-parent families. However, the number of children per family unit is generally comparable, approximately two per household.”
So why wouldn’t we be losing sleep?
Finances are so complex because how we deal with and relate to money is dependent on so many emotional and social components. Just as the relationship we might have with food, with phobia, with animals, and so on, is somewhat shaped on our past experiences and personal lens, so is our money personality. I was often worried—no, panicked—about how I would make ends meet and sustain the life my husband Wes and I had plotted for our children. The thing that helped me stay focused was asking myself what kind of money personality I wanted my children to have when they grew up. I didn’t want them to see me struggling to the point where they would choose careers motivated by salary scales or penny-pinch to the point of annoyance, but I also didn’t want to shelter them from the realities of money, or lean away from teaching them how to be responsible with it. Achieving middle ground in this sense offers financial freedom, in my opinion, because you and your children are neither tethered to the evil money nor blind to its bounty.
I have my practical reasons why Presence of Resources remains one of the steadfast values of my life, like being able to buy a home or a car, or being able to send my kids to the schools and colleges best suited to their needs and talents, or not having to worry about where the next meal will come from, but being present in this value also is super critical to ward against mental and emotional distress. According to Kirby, income loss affects the well-being of children indirectly through the negative impact on family relations and parenting. Many studies have reported the link between economic stress and mental health. But as Kirby writes, “Financial strain is one of the strongest predictors of depression in single parents. Higher levels of depression is predictive of more punitive disciplinary practices and decreased parental nurturance, support, and satisfaction with the parenting role. The chronic strains of poverty combined with task overload significantly increases vulnerability to new life stressors. Poor single mothers often experience a cycle of hopelessness and despair, which is detrimental to both themselves and their children.”
No doubt you have been there, as have I. And no doubt you are rolling your eyes at the findings of Kirby, thinking, Yeah, no kidding, I could’ve told you that, but I reiterate her study here because being mindful about all of the resources available to you can alleviate the insidious effects that money (too much without a value system or none at all) has on all of us.
I’m no Suze Orman, but I want you empowered, not depressed; fiscally conservative and creative with solving money issues, not ripped off by con artists who want to “loan” you money or provide a can’t-miss scheme to some quick pie-in-the-sky money windfall. Presence of Resources allows you to prioritize basic needs, get ahead even w
hen you think you don’t have the means, set monetary goals that you can attain, spend your time being happy instead of depressed, learn to find the resources you are entitled to in order to get ahead, create precious moments with your children, and enjoy a functional relationship with money. Your books will be balanced, so you can cash in on life!
A Blank Canvas
Coming out of your comfort zone is tough in the beginning, chaotic in the middle, and awesome in the end… because in the end it shows you a whole new world!
—Manoj Arora
After I left my first marriage to Bill and moved into the basement of the house Rae Carole and her mother, Barbara, shared, I poked out my chest, thinking I had finally shed the cloak of dependency and become my own woman. I had found the courage to leave my unsatisfying marriage in search of happiness and more stability for Nikki and me. And even though I had moved miles away from the childcare conveniently located in the same apartment building we lived in with Bill, my new regular work hours enabled me to keep the woman who had cared for Nikki during the weekdays since she was six weeks old, thus maintaining a sense of continuity for Nikki. My promotion from a news assistant who had to come in at 6 AM to a public affairs researcher not only gave me a nine-to-five shift but also provided a pay increase that was extremely helpful as I set out on my own. My salary allowed me to pay the babysitter, buy groceries, and give rent to Rae Carole, which she had significantly reduced. At the end of the day, I still had a little something left over to keep my hair done and Nikki in clean diapers.
But as comfortable as it was, in the six months I lived there I had to admit to myself that despite physically moving from one location to another, I still hadn’t transitioned from the financial comfort zones I had known for years. I grew up in my parents’ home, left for college on their dime, moved into a dorm with two other roommates, got married to a business major who took care of all the bills and literally gave me an “allowance” every week. Other than a car payment, which I paid monthly with money orders, I hadn’t established a credit history and I didn’t have a savings or checking account. Hell, I didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook! I’d never had to fend for myself before and now, with a child dependent solely on me, it was time for me to toss the crutches and stand on my own.
The dilemma I faced, like most single mothers, was my willingness to trade my physical and emotional dependence on Rae Carole for the financial independence that I needed in the long term. I had never really tested my own resourcefulness and stamina, and I wasn’t sure I had the wherewithal to venture out of the limits I had boxed myself into. Left to my own devices, I didn’t know what I was capable of doing on my own. I instinctively knew that if I was to authentically achieve the maturity and presence Nikki would need me to have down the road, moving had to be my next step.
That spring I found a beautiful first-floor, two-bedroom garden apartment in Rockville, Maryland. Rockville’s close enough to be considered a suburb of Washington, DC, but far away enough that you could get more space for the money. Fortunately, with the history of my car payments and a steady paycheck in hand, I had enough credit to sign a lease with my own name on the bottom line for the first time in my twenty-five years of life. It was substantially more than the $200 a month I was paying Rae Carole and I wasn’t getting child support yet, but I was determined to figure out a way to make my dollars match my needs.
Moving from the basement and out on my own was actually terrifying, even more so than when I left Bill. What was I thinking, taking on this responsibility all by myself? What if I fell behind in the rent and we were kicked out? Where would we go? How embarrassed would I be? Safety was an issue too. I never really worried about that when I lived with someone else, but now I had to be the lone sentinel and protector. I was more than a little leery of being on the first floor, but that was the only unit available. The rental agent assured me that the security bar at the bottom of the patio doors would prevent any burglary, so at this point I had no alternative but to send up a little prayer for reassurance and believe her.
I had left my husband with only a suitcase for me, one for Nikki, a portable crib, and no furniture. During my time at Rae Carole’s, I did go back for our clothes and some of Nikki’s toys. Once I knew I had the apartment, Nikki and I went shopping together to purchase a queen bed, a bed frame, and a youth bed with bars, which Nikki loved because it made her three-year-old self feel so grown up. That’s all we had. The rest was a blank canvas.
That first night, looking around, instead of feeling pathetic because I couldn’t afford anything else, I realized that a blank canvas was exactly what I needed. In the words of author Shannon L. Alder, “All great beginnings start in the dark, when the moon greets you to a new day at midnight.” A new day was beginning for us and I needed not to fear it, but to embrace it.
In the months that followed, I relied on my ingenuity and worked out a budget based on my new position at WMAL Radio as a public affairs researcher. At work I was a super-sleuth researcher, efficient and effective. At home I was a novice, teaching myself how to balance a budget and a checkbook simultaneously, things I had never done before. I knew you couldn’t spend more than you brought in, but determining priorities proved to be my immediate challenge. So I made a list of priorities. Nikki proved to be my partner in this too, weighing in on which piece of furniture we needed to buy first. Kitchen table or living room sofa? Never a shrinking violet, she had definite opinions and actually some solid reasons why! Although she wasn’t the deciding factor, I certainly kept her opinions in mind as I started pinning my furniture shopping to all the holiday sales days—Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. By the new year I had all my essential furniture pieces.
I limited my credit cards to two—one had to be paid off monthly, and the other allowed me to extend payments for larger items if I needed that flexibility. I will admit that over the years the number of credit cards ballooned as I had more children and they started needing more and more, but at least in the beginning I was very disciplined—I had to be. If I didn’t factor my credit card payments into my monthly budget, I knew I would run the risk of a late or missed payment—and those are the first steps to lowering my credit score. I didn’t realize it then, but being a single mother made me more responsible financially.
I was by no means wealthy. It was paycheck-to-paycheck most of the time, but I was able to successfully manage the money I did bring into the household. That gave me the confidence in my ability to make it on my own and stop fearing the unknown. It meant a newfound respect for myself and my ability to grow in a way I could never be sure of before. It meant freedom from the belief that I had to find another man to “rescue me” from single motherhood. It meant that if and when this blossoming relationship with Wes developed into something else, I would be going into it based on our love, our compatibility, our joint aspirations, his love of Nikki, and our desire to spend the rest of our lives together.
I became very grateful for those days of watching every penny, sticking to a budget, planning every major purchase, and embracing deferred gratification as a gift rather than a failure to get what I wanted, when I wanted to get it. By learning these skills, then I was much more prepared, understanding, and hands-on with our finances when Wes and I eventually got married. We even ended up making a ritual around our finances, and in doing so we could find some pleasure in what usually is a stressful, mundane task.
Every payday, after we put the kids to bed, we would pop open a bottle of wine, put all the current bills in front of us, and decide what got paid and maybe what needed to wait until the next payday. But one thing we were absolutely committed to was “paying ourselves first,” by putting at least $25 each pay period into our savings account. This was an idea that Wes picked up from a story he was working on about stabilizing family finances. Adapting the idea of paying yourself first to what we could afford, we got through paying our bills on time (well, most of the time), a
nd we took turns as to who would update our monthly ledger and who would balance the checkbook. It became a bonding experience that we had fun doing, even as we went about the serious business of controlling the money we brought into our household. I never imagined that within five years this ritual would make it possible for me to pay for Wes’s funeral with our accumulated savings, or that I would confidently revert to the role of managing the family finances alone.
I was able to teach my kids the importance of learning these skills sooner rather than later in their lives. Just as Nikki shadowed me on our early apartment decorating schemes, after their dad died I knew I had to be even more diligent with the children about sticking to a budget, especially since I wasn’t working full-time and instead relied on Social Security and freelance and part-time writing assignments. I talked to the three of them about budgeting, and made it clear that much of our money was going into their education so other things might have to wait. Did they love the idea? No, but eventually, as they grew out of the typical me, myself, and I stage, they understood. I also tried to get a jump on common financial traps for young people.
Before cell phones became ubiquitous, I delayed getting phones for the kids until they learned to drive with the intent that it would be used only to communicate in case of an emergency. I also gave them a credit card that was linked to mine for them to use, again, in an emergency. That way I could monitor their spending. I could let them know right away that emergencies did not include “starving” on the way home from school, or not being able to pass up an incredible deal on a dress, blouse, or basketball sneakers. I found that their earlier introduction to how to use a credit card lessened the lure and novelty of the credit card offers that flood college campuses. It also allowed me to interact with them about interest rates and late fees in real time as opposed to conversations during school breaks and holidays. Today I am thrilled that my now grown children are much more financially savvy than I ever was at their age, and I could not be more pleased that they didn’t have to start learning these financial survival skills at the age that I did.
The Power of Presence Page 16