Hello Swarm Single Moms
You have had some time to consider your 'feels' about money. What did you uncover?
I uncovered two distinct 'feels' about money that may still influence my money habits.
I uncovered the memories of loving to make money.
When I was a child I would go up and down the streets in my neighborhood to do chores so I could grow my savings. I was a workhorse. I would babysit regularly for couples on their date nights, I would cut grass, rake leaves, do the dishes of my neighbors just so I could add to my savings.
I was the kid in the neighborhood who organized carnivals, horror houses and lemonade stands. I had a neighbor, Mr. Klemowitz who would see me at my lemonade stand and would bring me a box of candy bars to sell, from one of his stores's inventory. It was a rush for me to wake up Saturday morning and go down to the bank to make my deposit. This was the seventies, a time when the bank teller actually wrote the new figures into your bank book and then initialed it. I would leave the bank thinking about where and how I would earn my next deposit. Happy Memories!!
I also uncovered unfair and unequal pay.
I worked very hard for my money always hustling to make more. And then one day I discovered that my neighbor, who paid me $1.50 to cut his grass, paid my brothers and the other boys in the neighborhood $2.00. Instead of demanding the same pay, I quit cutting his lawn. When it snowed I went to the other houses, but I would not go back to his.
The same sort of thing happened when I took a job as a pharmacy runner at a local hospital. One of the guys that I worked with was making 25 cents an hour more than me. We were doing the same job and our previous work experiences were similar. But I was a workhorse, always trying to better my times and my deliveries, while he spent time on long breaks, called in sick - (often) and wasn't interested in being there. He and I became great friends however, as did the whole team, so one night when we went to the bar after our shift, I was jolted to learn of the earnings discrepancy, and in retrospect, am remembering being humorously vocal at the fact that my my female co-workers were not!
This exercise in focusing on childhood (and young adulthood) memories of money made me realize a few things about my self:
In my youth I quit more than one promising job over wage discrepancy and unfair work practices. I am passionate about fairness. I can say this now as I recognize this characteristic in myself because I have a child with the same intense passion for fairness. Some people just don't care and others really do.
I also uncovered the fact that I do love to work. I love the physical aspects of some jobs and I love to create things, events including this Grassroots organization, 'Swarm for Single Moms'.
(I may have left jobs over pay inequality, but I have also left high paying jobs when I felt like the corporate values were too different from mine.)
At the very core of my self-discovery these past few weeks, was the reminder that I work best in a position where I feel valued and as such, am paid equally for like work (or better than equal if I go consistently above and beyond expectations). I also thought about the fact that your employer needs to understand your value - if they do not see it, help them see it. If they still don't see it, then you should begin looking for opportunities elsewhere.
This was a good exercise to help us think about money and memories of money, but it is also a good exercise to get you thinking about how you make your money. Are you happy in your job??? Carl Jung the psychoanalyst said (and yes, I am paraphrasing...) If you want to know what you should do with your life, think back on your childhood and what made you happy. What did you do when you were young that brought you joy. Very often you can translate a childhood happiness into an adult focus...within reason!
