Copyright 2014            Aleasa M. Word           All  Rights Reserved                     
              Re-posted from 2011 Wordallogic "It's Not All  Money"

Rush hour hit and I walked out of the office glad to see the end to another busy day. As I joined the hustle and bustle of people on the street I began to hear a woman’s voice yelling towards my right side. I glanced over and see a woman screaming at someone on the telephone. It was obvious after a few minutes the person on the other end is a significant other of sorts. She continued on the same path as me; however, trying  not to listen, I still pieced together the conversation. It appears her child’s father is stringing her along in an effort to avoid her taking him to family court for a formal child support order. Eventually he hung up on her in disgust because of her ranting.

As she walked silent, obviously embarrassed  as her eyes darted to and from my direction.  I stopped,  looked her straight in the eye and said “It will be ok, I’ve been there and it’s not an easy place to be.” She looked into my eyes first as if to say mind your own business and then saw I was speaking from the heart. At that point tears began to fall and she said “it’s just not fair, it’s just not right.” I told her it would be fine but for right now I knew it was tough and eventually she wouldn’t even need the money. She said it was about more than that and I looked at her in realization that I really had been where she was.

We continued down the same street and she called him back over and over. Each time she called she would scream into what seemed like voicemail only to call right back and complete her message because it had cut her off.  How I wish had $100 in my purse at that very moment; because, I literally would have given it to this stranger who was obviously in a desperate situation.

I thought about a friend of mine in New Jersey who is a great father.  He is young, still enjoys life to the fullest, but when it comes to his son the world stops. He didn’t come from a great home life but wanted to make sure his son learned right from wrong and didn’t have to live like he did. He even turned around his life in a way that he took what he knew and turned it into a business to make sure he had the income he needed to not only survive for himself, but provide for his son no matter what.

Many often ask what the difference is between the parent who provides and the one who doesn’t. Or the parent who creates drama and the one who doesn’t. Could it be their personality make up, their God given drive? Could it be the support system they do or don’t’ have? Or could it be survival based fear?

Either way one thing rings true in both stories. The one person who is affected most by this is the child. If that mother or father can’t pay her electric bill the child suffers. If she or he can’t pay for childcare, they  can’t work and the child suffers.

The male on the other end of that phone call probably tuned her out because many of us women (not all) go on endlessly until our voice just becomes noise and the males in our life lose site of what we are trying to say. The young man I spoke of ignored the noise of which he still has to hear from time to time.  He focuses on his child instead, giving everything he has for the benefit of his son because he knows it’s not about him.

The lesson here, is that the parent’s cry becomes the child’s cry. If the parent isn’t ok, the child isn’t ok. If the child grows up messed up the jury is out on what effect he or she will have on the next generation until that time comes. Whether or not we are talking about child support, emotional support of some other dynamic the key word is support! Everyone needs a base to rely on.  One thing that rings true, is as a people we need to support one another in every way possible and see through the noise. It is when we step outside of our own frame of reference that we see the entire picture and hopefully human compassion wins over selfishness or pride.

*Thanks to my friend Jae for inspiration from a great young father!

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Copyright 2014         Aleasa M. Word      All Rights Reserved

First let me say I love some football! Each season my family has been trained to leave me the heck alone on Sundays.  And when championship games are on, it’s like a federal offense to call or text me unless it’s halftime and even then I might not contact you back. Up until this year I was the proud planner of a super bowl hangout party at my place and people looked at it as if it was my job to make it happen.  Because I wasn’t near my family and friends this year, I now realize the loss of the party left a big hole in super bowl Sunday. But hey, life changes!  

What I do find interesting is the number of people I saw at WalMart and the grocery store going for broke buying things for their own parties. People were rushing around as if it was black Friday. Something I noticed this year that I hadn’t paid much attention to before is the ridiculous amount of money spent of foods and alcohol for these go all out parties. Some of the people in the store looked stressed out like when they couldn’t afford that toy for their kid at Christmas in December.  I could hear those saying things like “I don’t have money for this or it’s too expensive for me to have this party.”  I felt like asking them, why they’d go broke for a party to watch a game of millionaires who would not do the same for them. What happened to the days when you asked people to contribute financially or by bringing some food item to the party? Are we so prideful we have to act as though we can afford something that is clearly outside of our current budget?  Are our friendships so superficial that they can’t withstand the expectation of working collectively to have fun with our friends by sharing the burden of food and drink?

When I grew up every celebration included some aunt, uncle or friends coming in with their special dish or store bought contribution.  No one ever mentioned money and they just put all of their items together for everyone to enjoy.  We had a great time and there was usually enough left over for people to take home at least a plate full of goodies. I never remembered hearing them complain about the expense because everyone pitched in.  Today we are very caught up in the appearance that we “have it all.”   People who truly have it all even have a budget they won’t go over when they put things together because they intend to maintain what they have. 

It’s time to stop scraping to get by only to pretend we have so much going on.  We don’t have to cry poor mouth but each of us would do well to live within our means.  By doing this, we could relieve a lot of stress for ourselves and focus on things that make sense.  People who maintain their wealth know when to budget and have no problem appearing frugal to others.  Learn from those who have so you don’t continue to be one of the have nots.