DAILY TOL: Tree of Liberty

I took my daughter to the American Girl Doll (AGD) store a few days ago for lunch. The lunch was good, but expensive. The bill was $35 and change for the two of us. I will just rack it up to stimulating the economy. After lunch we took a cruise through the store. My daughter is on the cusp of out growing playing with her dolls, but to any female alive, the lure of the AGD store is mighty powerful. The clothes and accessories are all so beautiful and nicely made. I noticed a few other moms, with their daughters, in the store and they had big AGD bags filled to the brim with AGD stuff. Let me tell you, right now, if you don’t already know, that AGD stuff is not cheap. All I wanted to do, in that moment, was to buy my daughter what ever she wanted. But I couldn’t. I am too responsible for that. I did, however, buy her a nightgown that was $39…choke…cough…sputter. She loves the old fashioned nightgowns from the AGD movie Samantha and had been asking for one for awhile. Since the only things one finds in Target, Wal-Mart or even dept stores, for girls pjs, are cheesy Hannah Montana or Jonas Bros motifs, I figured I would splurge and get her this beautiful nightgown. It was on sale, and it’s roomy enough for her to get a year or more’s wear out of it. It’s just plain white, goes to about her ankles, has long pooffy sleeves, and a pretty ribbon running through the collar. She loves it, so I guess it was money well spent. Still though, a few days later, I am still feeling tremendous guilt over blowing $85 in this store.

However, what really irked me was where and who are these people dropping hundreds of dollars on dolls, in this economy? Why do I want to know? Because many people would look at my house and assume I have plenty of money. Heck, if someone showed me, when I was 16, what kind of house I would be living in, when I was in my 40′s, I would have assumed I must become wealthy in my future. Guess what? I am not. I am married with three kids. We have a dog and 3 cats. I try to keep a monthly budget of less than 1,200 hundred dollars. I shop at Aldi, with an occaisonal pit stop at Trader Joe’s and/or regular supermarkets (to fill out my groceries), because it is so inexpensive there. I buy my and my kids’ clothes at Target or TJMax.  I have my kids so freaked out about money that I argue more with them about it, than I do my husband. Can I tell you how much I hate this? ALOT!  I am a mom at home. My husband and I are living in a house we can afford, and before the housing bust, looked like a fabulous investment. Thank God, the house is not underwater in it’s value, yet. We have 2 cars, both of which are paid off.  We have a son in private school for special needs students because public school did not serve this particular childs special needs, so private school became our only option.  It costs a lot, but would be manageable if not for our overall tax burdens which are in no way diminished by what we must pay for his tuition.  Our daughter is homeschooled and goes to an academic co-op  4 days a week, which costs a fraction of what her tax payer allocation would be per year.  Our oldest son is in college on full scholarship. He lives at home, in lieu of living on campus (which is 30 minutes away), because to live on campus is an extra 7k and it’s just not something we can swing. Our college sophmore has been working for over a year and we have told him that if he really wants to live on campus, he can, but he is going to have to cough up that cash. My husband worked 3 jobs to put himself through college and pay rent, and so can our son, if he is so inclined. We bought him a used car, for his high school graduation present, in lieu of paying for a dorm. He gets alot of use out of that car; more use than living with a bunch of drunk college idiots, me thinks.

Why on earth am I telling you all this? Because I am the perfect example of the family who is being and will continue to be taxed at a high rate because, on paper, the powers that be assume we are rich. I am the woman who is married to a man who has done everthying right. We bought our house and put a significant portion of money down on it rather than buy new cars or other fun toys.  We made sure we had the money saved, along with the value of previous cars owned, to cover the entire cost of buying a new minivan, but that was five years ago.  In other words, we have been responsible. We received no bailout, but my husband’s hard earned paycheck has already been divided to redistribute wealth to others who were irresponsible. Our tax dollars have been used to create a stimulus package, bail out banks, the automobile industry, and soon may be used to enact healthcare reform so riddled with special interest candy that it should be criminal. We have healthcare through my husband’s work. We have to pay the premiums. It’s not cheap, but it’s better than COBRA. Our special needs son needs medicine which costs, without our insurance, about 1k per month. How much more will it cost when the insurance companies are hit with the burden of helping to maintain a government run healthcare system and pass the higher costs on to us, those who actually make sure we have, and keep, health insurance?

Where is the incentive for my husband to work as hard as he does to take care of his own? If almost half of what he makes flies out the door to others who are not ‘making it’ so that we are scrimping and saving to continue to get by, why are we continuing to be responsible?  Maybe I should just go back to the AGD store with my daughter and tell her to pick out whatever she wants. I will just put it on a credit card and teach her  the lesson of ‘why save for tomorrow when you can get what you want today on a credit card’. I can teach her that we can  just hope we have the cash at the end of the month to pay for it? And, hey, if we don’t we can pay the minimum or end up defaulting on our credit altogher, when the going gets too rough. Isn’t that what everyone else is doing? Isn’t that what the government is telling us is okay to do? Go ahead, act recklessly, spend with abandon, we will be here to bail you out, to clean up your mess, to insure you. They can only tell us they will fix everything for us when there are responsible people, like my family, out there to take money from. What happens when we can no longer bear the burden of responsibility for the rest of everyone else. What will the government do then? You know, my husband and I aren’t the only ones being robbed here. Our children are being robbed. They are being robbed of the ability to become successes themselves. They are being told repeatedly through popular culture that people who are financially successful and responsible are hard hearted and greedy and that those who don’t expend the energy, effort and sacrifice to make their way in this world deserve to be taken care of by the greedy heartless successful people. I am trying hard to stem the flow of the ‘entitlement’ mentality which has taken root in my children. But it is hard. What happens when all these kids are grown. When they all have their hands out, not to help, but for help. What will become of this great nation then?

There was a song, popular when I was a teenager, called ‘The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”. Well, that was the 1980′s when the future was bright. The future is dark and scary now. I would love for someone, anyone, to turn on the lights. The problem is, no one can see the switch.

Abigail Adams.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Responsibility