(No) Money Changes Everything

I've written about abortion and depression and my relationship with my psychiatrist. I've written about perineal tears and my boobs and nursing another woman's child. I've written about pretty much every uncomfortable thing that there is to write about, and yet it is this post that I don't know how to begin. It is this post that I am reluctant to write. It is this post that will, I know, make me cringe in shame.

But I'm still going to write it. Because I need to say it - write it - out loud. I need to not be ashamed, and confessing shame is the only means I know to fighting shame. So.

We are - my family is - struggling financially. I know; who isn't? There's a recession going on. Everybody is feeling the pinch. Everybody is clucking about how tight things are, how precarious things seem, how challenging it all is. Everybody is worried. But that doesn't make it any less embarrassing for me to admit that I am worried. I am worried. And a little bit ashamed. Because aren't my husband and I supposed to be grown-ups? Aren't we supposed to ensure that everything is always okay? Aren't we supposed to be able to protect our family from the dark forces of fear and anxiety and indebtedness? Aren't we supposed to be able to always, and under any circumstances, provide?

The downturn in the economy has compromised my husband's industry, an industry in which he works freelance, and in which he has, historically, done very well. Historically. He hasn't worked in well over a month. I wring a modest living out of writing - more than I did teaching political philosophy as a sessional lecturer - but it's not enough to support us. Not nearly enough. And so we scramble, and we worry, and we fret about how to explain things to Emilia, who does not understand why we cannot go to her favorite restaurant for dinner, why we cannot take a trip across the country to visit Tanner, why we have begun to sell things. We tell her, dinner is nicer at home, we'll go visit Tanner soon, it's fun to sell things!

And then she asks, so will we sell more of our things tomorrow? And, will you sell my treehouse? Because I like my treehouse, and I don't want you to sell it. And my heart breaks. Because I don't want her to worry. I don't know how to talk about this without causing her to worry. I am ashamed that we have to worry. I ashamed that I don't know how to handle this.

I know that we'll be fine, in the long run. We will be fine. My husband is very good at what he does, and although his industry might need - does need - to evolve and adapt, it won't die. Even if it did - even if the work just ran out - there'd be something else to do. There's always something else to do. And I am - all evidence to the contrary aside - not without skills. We'll manage, whatever that looks like. And whatever that looks like will be good, because we'll always have each other. Even if we're living in a trailer in the woods - which, granted, is a lot less likely now that we've had to sell our trailer in the woods - we'll be fine, because we'll have each other. Which sounds unbearably trite, I know, but it's nonetheless true for its triteness. We'll have each other.

But that's still hard to explain to a three-year old. Why we can't, right now, have extras. Why we need to be content with 'each other.' Why we need to just make do, and to find some joy in that. Why we insist that this is good, this is fine, this is fun, when the worry is plainly written on our faces.

I see the confusion in her face, and I'm ashamed. Ashamed that I can't explain it better. Ashamed that I set her up for this, by not working hard enough to let her know that her world of plenty should never be taken for granted. Ashamed that I took that world of plenty for granted. Ashamed that I am ashamed.

Which is, as I said, why I needed to say it out loud. Because maybe, maybe, if I can fight the shame, I can fight the worry, and if I can fight the worry, I can fight the confusion. For her. For us. So that it will, it truly will, all be okay.



So that I can say that, and mean it. For her.

Here is where I say, I so need commiseration. We need commiseration. Will you share your stories, or your advice? I was part of a call with Katie Couric yesterday, via the Silicon Valley Moms Group - of which Canada Moms Blog is a part - on the topic of children and the recession, and all I could think, throughout the call, was how it was easy for me to think abstractly about the recession, and talk about how to help the less fortunate, etc, etc, but that I was unwilling - wholly and shamefacedly unwilling - to talk about my own experience, and my own fear. Which meant, of course, that I had to suck it up and blog it, and it was - is - every bit as painful as I thought it would be. Anyone care to throw in her voice with mine, make it feel a little less scary? Or just, you know, tell me that I should be grateful to have a roof over my head and stop whining?