I was roughly the age Philip is today. I was home from school when my mother came home early from work. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said. “I’ve lost my job.”
We were a single parent family: Just me and my mother. We lived in a small apartment in an upscale East Coast town. The recession at the beginning of the Reagan administration had begun and the economic fallout had forced my mother’s employer to cut staff. We had fixed financial support from my father and his family, but our income had just been cut in half. Savings? Yeah, right. And with the market being down, things looked grim.
I’m certain my mother felt all kinds of pressure in that down economy. Who wouldn’t? But somehow I never felt it. As a child and as an adolescent, my happiness did not depend upon how big the paycheck was. When I speak with peers who had bad experiences as a result of their parents' finances, it was never about the lack of money. The bad experiences were the anger and rage and/or the withdrawal and depression.
Today there is a new recession looming. I'm giving myself a fifty percent chance I'll be among the unemployed before the week is out. With that, our family will take a 75% hit to our income. And we're still recovering financially from the post 9-11 recession. We're hardly alone. The parents of Chloe's friend Samantha were over the other evening. We'd always considered them wealthier than us, given their vehicles and their clothes. But all of it was at least four years old. We learned Samantha's father's business had earned close to nothing these past four years. Their savings were completely drained. Their recent move from an upscale development in Hermes was not to a bigger home, but instead to the home of an elderly relative where they are now renting space. Samantha's father was particularly demoralized that evening. And her mom was feeling the weight too. We told them about our looming situation — which truly doesn't come close to theirs. We talked about our concern for the kids. And that is when Samantha's mom and dad set us straight.
Samantha and her siblings have been fine. It is just the parents who are suffering. They are suffering quietly. When they left the upscale home for shared space in an older, smaller home away from neighbors with whom the kids could play, all the kids could say was, "Mom! This house has a tire swing!" When the elderly relative got sick, their high-school-age daughter spent several hours a week taking care of him. Not only did that save the family the cost of a home health aid, but it also allowed the teenage daughter more quality time with the elderly man than the rest of her life beforehand. The kids — Samantha's parents report — are just as happy as they were before the finances collapsed. Their grades in school are just as good as they had been. And they enjoy their friends just as much as ever.
At the time of this writing, I do not know what this week will bring. But Samantha's parents have helped me to be ready for the worst. Back during Reagan's presidency, my mother quickly found a better job. And admittedly, there is one company with which I have already been interviewing that may have a better job for me. But nothing is certain. I could find myself employed at the end of the week, or I could be among the unemployed. The company with the better job might extend me an offer. Or it might not. This recession could prove uneventful for us. Or it could be a long difficult road. Like Samantha's family, we have options. Houses don't sell in this recession, but they do rent. We could rent out our spare room. Or we could rent out our whole house and move into a small apartment. My wife could increase her hours at her part time job, and I've had some success before getting short term consulting assignments while between jobs.
I'm choosing to be optimistic. It keeps me at my best with the kids. And as long as I stay that way, the kids will never care whether or not I'm gainfully employed. Either way, I plan to spend a lot more time with Samantha's dad. Some day his business will recover. And some day (hopefully for the rest of 2009 or at least most of it) I’ll be gainfully employed.
As for the kids, my goal is they won’t need to recover from anything. I didn’t when I was that age.
No comments:
Post a Comment