Love, love, LOVE this. Didn’t grow up evangelical, but the rest of this is familiar ground to me, and I share the hatred of Dave Ramsey. I always say, “You cannot frugal yourself out of poverty.” If you could, I’d have done it!
I cannot relax about money because I frankly just don’t have enough. I aspire to have enough money to stop worrying constantly. It wouldn’t actually take that much more. I briefly reach that level sometimes and it’s an amazing and peaceful space to be in. I just can’t quite access it.
Understanding the structures that preserve economic inequality is the whole point of my work in Untrickled.
I think women have been trained for generations to turn anger into absolutely everything except anger.
We turn it into cleaning.
We turn it into “I’m fine.”
We turn it into baking something nobody asked for.
We turn it into reorganizing a cabinet at 11:47 p.m. while mentally prosecuting everyone who lives in the house. 😂
And heaven forbid a woman actually says, “I’m angry.”
Suddenly everyone acts like she has climbed onto the roof carrying a pitchfork.
Meanwhile, she has probably spent the previous seventeen years remembering birthdays, buying toilet paper, scheduling appointments, finding everyone’s missing belongings, noticing the dog needs food, knowing the milk is almost gone, and answering questions that could have been solved by OPENING A DRAWER.
Maybe anger isn’t the problem.
Maybe sometimes anger is simply your brain finally standing up in the meeting and saying, “I have several concerns.”
I love the idea of listening to it instead of immediately trying to make it prettier, quieter, sweeter, or more convenient.
At 65, I’m beginning to think women should come with a warning label:
May eventually stop saying “I’m fine.” Proceed accordingly. 😂
Our local newspaper has started publishing a Dave Ramsey column once a week and it makes me sad.
I was that spreadsheet person, tracking every expense and income no matter how silly small it was, for about 17 years. I found a penny on the sidewalk - to the spreadsheet! It was like an episode of Batman, but without the cool costumes, car, or cave.
The Ambition Penalty is in my stack of books to read.
Dave Ramsey has always given me the ick for the way he conflates wealth and religious character. And once I heard about how little he pays his staff and how badly they are treated, that only reinforced my thoughts.
So MANY relatable takeways from this article. 1. I grew up in the deep South around evangelicals and was heavily influenced by the "prosperity gospel" movement because that was all you could hear on Sundays. 2. The "cult-like" thinking of Americans that somehow they are about to be the next billionaire is so pervasive. It allows them to ignore the real systemic causes behind wealth inequality in this country. (I recently had this discussion with someone and no amount of data or rational logic could persuade him. He came from poverty, did everything "right" (college, wife, good jobs) and now he thinks it's just that easy for everyone. Not that he had a lot of help and caught a lot of breaks along the way. But, what he was able to accomplish as a Black kid from the inner city will be impossible in 5 years with the current decline of college access, increase of student loan debt and disappearing entry level roles. ) 3. Scarcity, scarcity, scarcity - I grew up with depression era grandparents and a single teen mom. I will say that because of three incomes we were comfortable but most people around us were not. Even when I have enough money, I can't relax. I have a fear of investing. I do have a 401k, by force not by choice. I would prefer a retirement but not too many of those around anymore. My mom's generation was the last. 4. I have seen people do all the right things and one bad car accident or serious health incident can quickly spiral to homelessness. I don't want to be the lonely old lady living in a van and eating cat food. 5. I made professional choices to not practice law so I could raise a family. I definitely did the bulk of the child rearing because I believed what society told me and I thought that I had to. My husband cooks and does laundry, but I was responsible for managing the household finances which stressed me the F out. 6. Lastly, FICO and credit scores should not be an indictment on character or integrity. But somehow our society makes them interchangeable. Somehow you are a "better" person if you have a high FICO score that lets you participate more aggressively in the "debt industrial complex."
Love, love, LOVE this. Didn’t grow up evangelical, but the rest of this is familiar ground to me, and I share the hatred of Dave Ramsey. I always say, “You cannot frugal yourself out of poverty.” If you could, I’d have done it!
I cannot relax about money because I frankly just don’t have enough. I aspire to have enough money to stop worrying constantly. It wouldn’t actually take that much more. I briefly reach that level sometimes and it’s an amazing and peaceful space to be in. I just can’t quite access it.
Understanding the structures that preserve economic inequality is the whole point of my work in Untrickled.
Very happy to read this piece today.
I think women have been trained for generations to turn anger into absolutely everything except anger.
We turn it into cleaning.
We turn it into “I’m fine.”
We turn it into baking something nobody asked for.
We turn it into reorganizing a cabinet at 11:47 p.m. while mentally prosecuting everyone who lives in the house. 😂
And heaven forbid a woman actually says, “I’m angry.”
Suddenly everyone acts like she has climbed onto the roof carrying a pitchfork.
Meanwhile, she has probably spent the previous seventeen years remembering birthdays, buying toilet paper, scheduling appointments, finding everyone’s missing belongings, noticing the dog needs food, knowing the milk is almost gone, and answering questions that could have been solved by OPENING A DRAWER.
Maybe anger isn’t the problem.
Maybe sometimes anger is simply your brain finally standing up in the meeting and saying, “I have several concerns.”
I love the idea of listening to it instead of immediately trying to make it prettier, quieter, sweeter, or more convenient.
At 65, I’m beginning to think women should come with a warning label:
May eventually stop saying “I’m fine.” Proceed accordingly. 😂
Our local newspaper has started publishing a Dave Ramsey column once a week and it makes me sad.
I was that spreadsheet person, tracking every expense and income no matter how silly small it was, for about 17 years. I found a penny on the sidewalk - to the spreadsheet! It was like an episode of Batman, but without the cool costumes, car, or cave.
The Ambition Penalty is in my stack of books to read.
Thank you so much for your perspectives!
“A penny on the sidewalk — to the spreadsheet!” is SO ACCURATE
Dave Ramsey has always given me the ick for the way he conflates wealth and religious character. And once I heard about how little he pays his staff and how badly they are treated, that only reinforced my thoughts.
So MANY relatable takeways from this article. 1. I grew up in the deep South around evangelicals and was heavily influenced by the "prosperity gospel" movement because that was all you could hear on Sundays. 2. The "cult-like" thinking of Americans that somehow they are about to be the next billionaire is so pervasive. It allows them to ignore the real systemic causes behind wealth inequality in this country. (I recently had this discussion with someone and no amount of data or rational logic could persuade him. He came from poverty, did everything "right" (college, wife, good jobs) and now he thinks it's just that easy for everyone. Not that he had a lot of help and caught a lot of breaks along the way. But, what he was able to accomplish as a Black kid from the inner city will be impossible in 5 years with the current decline of college access, increase of student loan debt and disappearing entry level roles. ) 3. Scarcity, scarcity, scarcity - I grew up with depression era grandparents and a single teen mom. I will say that because of three incomes we were comfortable but most people around us were not. Even when I have enough money, I can't relax. I have a fear of investing. I do have a 401k, by force not by choice. I would prefer a retirement but not too many of those around anymore. My mom's generation was the last. 4. I have seen people do all the right things and one bad car accident or serious health incident can quickly spiral to homelessness. I don't want to be the lonely old lady living in a van and eating cat food. 5. I made professional choices to not practice law so I could raise a family. I definitely did the bulk of the child rearing because I believed what society told me and I thought that I had to. My husband cooks and does laundry, but I was responsible for managing the household finances which stressed me the F out. 6. Lastly, FICO and credit scores should not be an indictment on character or integrity. But somehow our society makes them interchangeable. Somehow you are a "better" person if you have a high FICO score that lets you participate more aggressively in the "debt industrial complex."