“We have nothing!” I was seventeen, beside my mother in the front seats of her CRV with tears running down both our cheeks, and suddenly I was no longer ignorant to the heinous grip a mere dollar or two held on my family and our futures. The assumed given of a college fund sitting in a bank somewhere had just been disrupted- we had nothing. A few thousand here and there, she explained, shame coursing through her voice, but there was no college fund. No retirement fund. Nothing. Suddenly things began to make sense. This explained the man in a suit who sat at our kitchen table weeks prior, mulling over past bills and payments. The receipts taped up on the fridge with meticulous pen marks and highlighter stains had a perceived purpose now. Even with two working parents, three cars in the driveway, and a sizable property, high-middle class just wasn’t our reality. I don’t know if it ever really was. Maybe that was why my mother, coming from a higher social class, insisted upon an immaculate family room and our Sunday best on the rare occasion that company came over. In the words of Philip Chaffin and Tommy Krasker, maybe chaos never actually happens if it’s never seen.

When I asked my roommate how she perceived the economy nowadays, she was not hesitant in her response. “It’s shit.” Personally, I could not agree more. Race, gender, and sexuality among other things affect social class more than we are often willing to accept or believe. A friend of mine comes from both a background of racial minority and financial instability simply because her parents were both “poor immigrants from poor countries with poor governments.” Being the oldest of a myriad of siblings, she has seen first-hand the countless hours her mother has put in at multiple jobs simultaneously and has no doubt these circumstances fall hand-in-hand with the upbringing of her parents and her racial background. Sometimes you can’t outrun the cards you were dealt. 

While there are certainly steps that can be taken to improve one’s economic standing, there is an undeniable aspect of classism and upbringing that affect such a thing. It is only in the recent years that I have come to understand the depth to which money and the economy control most choices nowadays. I am constantly evaluating the necessity of my purchases, and get nervous when an unexpected expense presents itself to my family. How many shopping trips does a windshield replacement cost? What about that new winter coat? I have begun to exert a suffocating pressure upon myself to get a job so I can help my parents and afford college. I don’t know where I will be come August. I don’t know if the money will be there. And I wonder, were my parents really protecting me by keeping this all a secret?