ESPOSITO: Income does not determine worth
Column: Unapologetically
When I was in the seventh grade, I made a new friend, we can refer to her as Marielle. She was in my orchestra class. I played the violin and she played the cello. We sat next to each other while we played.
She was a year older than me, and she never failed to remind me how much cooler she was. Her blonde hair was always curled perfectly, her braces were Invisalign, not metal like mine, and her Abercrombie & Fitch jeans were clearly not from T.J. Maxx. To put it simply, she made me feel cool. She invited me to sleepovers at her house. After school her mom would pick us up and take us to Starbucks for frappuccinos and Target to read magazines in the aisle.
She made me feel cool, but sometimes, she made me feel small. There were snide, particularly crude comments the 13 year old would make about my new sneakers, my off-brand UGGs or my Aéropostale tees. I was a typical middle class kid, it was not like I was dressed poorly, it was the fact that she wanted me to know she dressed better. Or, could afford to dress better.
At 13, I did not know exactly the income my parents made, but I was able to gauge a general idea. My mother is a teacher and my father is a civil servant. I knew the tax brackets in which we fell into. And while to me, a yearly income of six figures seemed impressive, I still felt uncomfortable when Marielle pressed me one day during class, asking me over and over how much money my father made.
I knew my parents would find it distasteful if I went around talking about our finances, and I could not understand why she wanted to know so badly. After much pressing, I finally gave in and told her. A part of me expected her to be impressed. But instead, she widened her eyes and said, “That’s IT? My dad makes three times that! Is that why you have to wear knock-off UGGs?”
This is the first time I made the distinction between middle class and wealthy. Knowing my parents income, as opposed to some of the people around me, did not make me feel small compared to Marielle and her family, but it actually helped me understand a bit more about finances and costs.
We are lucky enough to have never struggled, but we also know where and when to cut costs. We cut out coupons and we look at sales, and we get two new pairs of shoes once a year, not whenever we feel like it. And it made sense to me why we did that, because this was our annual income and this is how we afford things.
I am now 21 years old and a senior at college, and money has now become a much more taboo subject than it once was. Ever since my parents have been open with me about our finances, I find myself being open about mine with other people.
“My parents took out loans for my tuition, but other expenses are up to me,” is something that I have never had a problem with saying. “I can’t afford to do that, I have a few hundred dollars left in my bank account until my next paycheck,” is a go to excuse of mine when there is an expensive social plan on the horizon.
But a few weeks ago, I was drinking a beer and eating pizza with my two friends and my boyfriend at Olive Branch (located right behind the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus). And as we all fought over who was going to put the bill on their credit card, somehow personal finances came up.
“It’s rude to tell someone how much money you make,” my friend interjected to my boyfriend, when he was talking about his starting base salary after graduation next year.
“Really?” I asked.
He was not bragging, we were all talking about starting fresh as first-years in life next year, and how we would all have to cut costs, like the pizza and beer we had just devoured.
“That’s what my parents always taught me,” she replied. There’s a lot of differing opinions out there. I am surrounded by people who take out loans to pay for their tuition, and I am also surrounded by people whose parents pay for every expense. I have friends who make thousands of dollars in a night bartending, and friends stuck interning for minimum wage.
The point is, everyone has an extremely different financial situation, especially in college. And why does that have to be so taboo? Knowing how much my parents made, I understood what we could and could not do. It is embarrassing to me sometimes to admit to my friends that I cannot afford something the rest of them can, but their immediate reaction is understanding, not the awkward wondering of why I will not make plans with them.
I think the problem is that so many of us see wealth as defining us. When at this age, nothing defines us. We have barely begun our lives, whatever we have saved up now, or pay off later, will be a distant memory when we have real jobs with benefits in the future. So is transparency such a bad thing? If we’re all honest about the money we have and what we use it for, maybe our relationships and our understanding of each other would be better.
Laura Esposito is in the School of Arts and Sciences sophomore majoring in journalism and political science. Her column, "Unapologetically," runs on alternate Fridays.
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