The Ladder

When I was a young kid, movies and teachers instilled in me the importance of hard work and saving money. The piggy bank was a symbol etched into my mind and so when I somehow convinced my Arab parents that an allowance could be a part of my life, I bought a plastic red piggy bank. I can still recall its cheaply shaped features as it was entirely plastic mold with no additional paint, it looked like they had sold it after cutting it free from its primordial ooze. 

I remember the first dime I dropped into the top, which gave quite the unsatisfying thud in comparison to the “plink” the ceramic ones in movies made. I quickly discovered that the slit in the top was built for coins only and so the fresh dollar bill from my recent visit with the “tooth fairy” was quite difficult to shove into the top. I don’t quite remember if I used a butter knife or scissors, but I do remember cutting the top open further so that it would be easier to put my money in. 

I don’t recall being a needy kid. I remember my sister or my mom wanting to buy me the things I wanted and the pained tension from our situation was laid plain. My parents fought about it every week. Despite the economic boom and my mothers seamstress business, we were struggling to make ends meet in our 2 bedroom townhouse. So when I saw things in the store I wanted, my memory tells me that I often told myself no rather than having to hear it from someone else. 

Thus, it became very easy to save any of the money I received. A dollar from my Tata, money from my mom for the scholastic book fair that I decided to hold onto, money for completing tasks. It did not take long, in my mind, to store up over 100 dollars. A big task for a kid in the 90s. 

I am not even sure I ever dreamed of what I could buy with the money. There was something about having the money itself that felt good. There was a security in having money tucked away, especially as the number grew higher. I remember thinking about buying all the candy I could want at the store, but it never translated out of my daydreams.

I remember one day my mom asked about the piggy bank and made a comment at my saving tendencies. I felt a stroke of fear. I believed that money was mine, hard earned, and it was difficult to let it go. My mom asked me to borrow some money out of it and I let her. It is strange to think back on now, knowing that so many adults would never think of that money as mine at all, but as a kid without her own room, her own space, the things I didn’t have to share felt precious few. The money I tucked away was not just about safety, it was also about having something of my own.

Afterward, I remember moving my piggy bank hiding spot to another closet. I thought it would be clever if it was no longer in the room I slept in. I tucked it away in the downstairs closet, behind a pair of shoes I had never seen my dad wear. I wonder how long the note from my dad sat inside before I went back to check, but one day all the money was gone and all that was left was a note from my dad. 

Did it say “sorry?” “Thank you?” “IOU?” I honestly can’t remember now though at the time it seemed seared into my brain. No one thought it was as big of a deal as I did, but they didn’t seem to understand its effect. With a Disney Channel level “hmph!” I set my jaw and decided never to save money in that house again. It would take a long time for me to break free of that feeling. 

If you save money, someone or something is just going to take it away. This is a common sentiment amongst the “lower class.” Socioeconomic status is a term that has come to encompass not only financial resources, but also social and intellectual resources that people can be stratified across. This can be measured from your parents' education level to the number of people they have connections to at Yale. There is no one agreed upon measure and still many also discuss a subjective socioeconomic status (Adler et al., 2000), which describes where a person may place themselves on the ladder of their society in terms of all resources. 

So where are you on the ladder? Think about all of the people in your country - now think about those who are the best off, they have the most money, the most resources, the best schooling, and the jobs with the most respect.

Now think about the people who are the worst off in your country - they have the least money and resources, little or no education, and no job or jobs with the least respect.

When you think of yourself (or the family you grew up with) - where would you place yourself on this ladder?

Pay attention to the ways in which this might be different or the same across your life. Think about the ways in which some people might live very differently from you and try to think outside of your direct experience. What do you think growing up this way meant for you in the ways you think, act, what you believe in, and how you make choices? Consider also how the higher up you are the most you might perceive risk, but the more you have to fall back on. Falling down a couple of rungs on the ladder is different from the upper half than the lower half when you think about who is at the very bottom.

Growing up with lower socioeconomic status has a significant impact across outcomes (e.g., academic success, education level, mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing), but people don’t always grasp that there are cultural implications as well. For example, people in higher socioeconomic strata tend to provide more structure in their children’s day (e.g., piano lessons, soccer, tutoring) in comparison to people in lower statuses. I remember wandering around a lot, just finding ways to entertain myself. The first time I read Stephens, Markus, and Phillips’ (2014) paper I was shocked to find a lot of my childhood described so clearly. As one of my students noted recently, “I thought this was just a thing I experienced because of my family or my race, I didn’t realize it was also because of my class.”

It becomes a cultural norm that by forced scarcity you either fully defend your possessions or they will be redistributed for you. So people spend their money quickly, because if they don’t someone else will. For children, that might be the adults in their life, but for adults that is often bill collectors, insurance, and emergencies. And when you are poor, emergencies almost seem to come more often (e.g., unexpected vet bill, stomach pumping for your child after they swallowed Tata’s pills). Alas, Terry Pritchett, among others, have written much more succinctly regarding what some don the “poor tax,” or as he called it “boots theory.” 

I also find it surprising that I am both still impacted by my childhood socioeconomic status and also have changed based on my current one. Many immigrant children talk about how their parents never threw things away, their homes full of items collected over a lifetime that often serve little purpose than for their children to dust them as a part of their daily tasks. My partner and I both grew up with grandparents who survived financial hardship and did things like re-use paper towels. So it is often surprising to us to find that other people don’t necessarily do that. However, we have both also had to unlearn to eat every bit of food that was on our plate just because it was there. In a world where food is much more abundant, especially in our part of the world, we are less likely to encounter famine or starvation and although we try not to waste food, eating every bit of food even after we are full is also not healthy for our bodies. 

Our society, particularly in the western world, has evolved such that we are supposed to think we all live on the same or a similar playing field. That, other than people with no shelter or job, everyone can have “luxuries” like cell phones and TVs, even though both of those items have become significantly cheaper and cell phones have basically become a necessity to get by in this world. Talking about class reminds us of the ways we are similar in a world that wants us to feel so different, but also reminds us that we live in a stratified society despite a different baseline. 

People are collectively reaching a shared perspective, but not always realizing that is what is happening. The majority of us will never see 500 million dollars in our lifetimes, much less spend that amount on a wedding. Recognize what you see in one another and try to avoid gatekeeping (e.g., “the ignorance of the lower class”) or admiration (e.g., “without the shareholders we would not have retirement or jobs”). Trust in the possibility of an abundant world where the crumbs from the table are a lie. What is the point of having a cake if you can’t also eat it, and more importantly, share it with others? 

I don’t keep a piggy bank anymore and my partner is the one who wisely saves the money, but if someone comes to our table, we are always willing to share.

References

Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women. Health Psychology, 19(6), 586-592.

Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., & Phillips, L. T. (2014). Social class culture cycles: How three gateway contexts shape selves and fuel inequality. Annual review of psychology, 65(1), 611-634.