For a number of years right after college, I had very little money. My apartments were dumps; I usually had no car. I worked odd jobs (e.g., highway crew flagman, Kelly girl, library desk clerk, backpacking store employee). For two reasons, I never looked upon it as a problem. One, it felt normal, as most of my friends were in the same situation. Two, I didn’t have a real job partly because I didn’t want a real job. I felt that my relative poverty was self-imposed and temporary.
I look back at those years not only as a happy time, but as a period of personal growth. So why am I reluctant to let my daughter have similar experiences?
Last week I was in Madison for other business, but I was able to see Clare for about an hour in the late afternoon. Before leaving town, I drove her to an auto repair shop to pick up her car. As I hugged her to say goodbye, I said, “I don’t want you stressing about money. If this brake job is going to wipe you out, let me know.”
Even as I said those words, I realized that they contradicted my belief that Clare should be entirely on her own. Since Clare’s birth, my plan had been to help Clare pay for college and then financially cut her loose. Clare is now three years out of school, doing fine, yet I stepped in the moment she had an unexpected expense. Why did I do this?
The answer to that question is that the urge to help my daughter is stronger than my belief that I shouldn’t. Clare is my first priority, I have discretionary income, so it is easy for me to intercede whenever her finances get tight. I want Clare’s early adult life to be easier than mine, even if mine wasn’t difficult. Maybe more significantly, I am not optimistic about the future, and I justify my continued financial support by telling myself that the turning points in my daughter’s life will not be about money.
Clare is an independent woman, and she and I have an unspoken agreement. I offer to pay some of her bills, and she declines my offers. It’s all good.
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