Enough is enough. All we needed to learn to solve this problem in Madison we learned in our childhood in the sanctity of the homes we sit in at night; the homes we are all trying desperately to stay in, maintain, decorate, relax in, entertain in, raise our families in, pay our taxes on, and prevent from going into foreclosure.
Let me share with you a scene from the living room of a Wisconsin home: Mine.
I sit looking at a pile of bills I cannot pay. I managed to get the land taxes paid, including the late water bill which was tacked on. I’m only a month behind on the mortgage. The next largest bill is the cell phone, which supports 5 lines, mine and my four oldest children, who are 18, 16, 15, and 14. My youngest is 12, but Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy has rendered him a quadriplegic for all intents and purposes, so he doesn’t have one. I own a small business on the verge of closing, because I have to be at home 24/7 to care for my son and it cannot support more than one employee. To supplement, I sell stuff on eBay. We have a serious budget deficit here. So I call a family meeting.
I text them all the time and place. One kid is a no-show. I call him up to find he is at a friend’s house and does not want to talk about this now. I tell him to get his ass home NOW, that he has a responsibility here, as he is part of the family, one of the consumers, part of the problem and needs to be involved in the solution. If he does not show up now, he will lose his cell phone, and a few other privileges.
He complies. We sit down and I show the kids the ledger I am figuring things on. I explain that $200, the balance left in my account, will not pay the $3500 worth of bills that I have in my hand. They stare at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look. And so I proceed to tell them some of the possible solutions to this. One of their phones goes off, and I confiscate it. We will not be interrupted.
Solution #1: Martial law. Forget this. I need a phone – you guys don’t. If I simply disconnect, and get a plan for me with everything I want and need, I will still be a lot of dollars ahead. You guys, on the other hand are screwed. One reason that you have the social lives you have is because I can contact you at any time, and I know where you are. If I can’t get a hold of you, your activities will all be severely curtailed, especially the new teenage driver. I pay for it – I get the benefits from it. Done.
Solution #2: We all contribute. The first question from the floor is legitimate, “How can we get money to pay you?” asks the 15-year-old. “There are no jobs for teenagers in this town.” And he is correct. Other than an odd babysitting job or two, there are more teens than there are jobs in this small village. So I ask back, “If there was a job for you to do, would you be willing to do it and pay your portion of the bill?” They all very sincerely agree.
“Then let me offer you this solution. Clearly, you cannot all work. However, I can. I am highly employable, and even have a little retail store. The problem is, I can’t be in two places at once, and I am the only one who can tend to your younger brothers medical needs. So what I am proposing is that I work for you. You, however, will have to work for me…you will have to cover the tasks that I have to do, so that I can make the money you cannot. Right now, I have only 6 hours a day when your brother is in school to work. During those hours, I keep the house clean, do the laundry, run for groceries and to the bank and on miscellaneous errands. I prepare dinner and feed the dogs and clean up their mess. I pack and ship eBay packages, and shoot photos and sort inventory and list things. When your brother gets home, I have to be immediately available should he have to go to the bathroom, drop his game controller or want to play a different game, or his hand should fall off his tray, or he needs his feet readjusted. He will need to be fed his dinner, and helped to do everything from opening his computer to scratching his nose.
All of that takes time. Would you be willing to step in and be me, do my work, so that I can list more items per day? Because more items per day means more sales per day, which means more money in the bank, and more money to pay these bills.
They look at me, and each other and agree, but want to know how this pans out for each one of them individually.
Well, I address the 18-year-old, the only member of the household that currently has a W-2 type job at a grocery store. He agrees to get a cell phone plan of his own. He already pays his own insurance, car payments and dental bills, and this will tax his part-time paycheck, but he looks at the pile of bills and sees that he needs to do something to help. He also agrees to keep the garbage under control so I don’t have to. He further agrees to keep his grades up so that we can maintain the good student discount on the insurance.
The 16-year-old is next. She is in enrolled in a virtual school. This has given her the opportunity to go pretty much anywhere, anytime, with her friends. However, it would also give her the opportunity to work at the store, so that I don’t have to pay as much out in wages. When she is home, there is no reason in between her online classes that she cannot cook dinner on a daily basis. She agrees to continue to look for a part-time job in the area, but her social life will have to take a back seat to the needs of the family at this time.
The 15-year-old has plenty of time on his hands once he gets home from basketball practice. Many of the needs his brother has are things he can do – in fact, when it comes to the video games and electronics, he’s my main man, already. He agrees, there is no reason why I could not be in the basement listing things while he stays in the living room with his brother, tending to those little needs. We do not need ME hearing the need and delegating it – he can deal directly with his brother. He further reluctantly agrees that even though we all enjoy our canine companions, he can take up the responsibility of feeding the dogs and picking up the poop.
The 14-year-old comes to the forefront. Having the most active social life and the most motivation to keep the house clean is a bad combination for her. She agrees to take up the responsibility of the bulk of the cleaning. Least happy with this concession, my straight-A daughter is vehemently protesting having to clean up everyone elses messes. And she has a valid point: We all mess up the common areas with our dishes and muddy shoes and toothpaste residue. Why should she have to clean it all up? I tell her because if they don’t, then I will have to do it, and that’s time I could be earning money to pay her bill. At the same time, I insist that each one must clean up their own personal mess by rinsing their own dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, wiping down the sink and toilet, getting their garbage INTO the can, and cleaning up any serious snow and mud that may get tracked in. Things like vacuuming the stairs or mopping the floor will fall to her. She reluctantly agrees. She doesn’t like it, but she sees the wisdom of it.
We make further group concessions. No more iTunes downloads. No internet over the phone. No more spontaneous plans with friends – they will have to be cleared with the responsibilities of the house. No more convenience foods – from now on the refrigerator and cupboards have only ingredients that can be converted into a meal. The only microwavable snack in the house is a baked potato. After some debate, we all agree to keep frozen pizza on the menu.
We nipped and tucked our family budget for the better part of an hour. We argued and debated, and I had to shut down more than a few personal insults that were slung around. But in the final analysis, the point was driven home: This is our family. This is our home. This was our communication system. The benefits of having cell phone contact with each other were deemed important enough to work for keeping. The Hotpockets, not so much. The benefit of having a roof over our head was self evident. But the bottom line: We are in this together. Everyone has to contribute something, and everyone has to give a little. Everyone has to tighten their belt a bit for the good of our family.
Is this such a hard concept to grasp? These are hard times – and as much as we may want to escape them or deny them, they are here and they are now. We will either pull together as a family, or we will divide and fall. As much as the older kids think they deserve more, or have earned a greater privilege, I remind them that money is only one standard of measure. Just because we have not placed a monetary value on scrubbing the kitchen sink does not make the job worth nothing. Somebody has to do it, or it will not get done, and we run the risk of living in complete squalor if we wait for someone who has to get paid to do it.
We lament the families who are so dysfunctional – where it’s every person for themselves, and who cares about anyone else? In the end, that is the reason we have prisons. What is the message we are sending to the kids? Fussing and fighting because the recession has hit you, too? We are all in this together. Let’s figure out the solution together. If we all step back and take a look at the bigger picture, objectively, it becomes rather obvious where things need to get trimmed for the good of the whole. If we no longer see ourselves as a whole – a unit, a family, a team – we are no more than a mass of anarchists, destined for war and failure.
I am neither a republican nor a democrat. I have no political affiliation whatsoever. I have enough on my plate just to keep the politics of my family in line. I enjoy a Facebook friends list that has a fairly balanced amount of people, from screaming liberals to rabid conservatives, and I thoroughly enjoy reading each side from their own point of view. I like to see where everybody in that “family” stands on issues. I don’t make political statements, and rarely engage in political debate or commentary.
But this is embarrassing. Take a lesson from home – from your mother. Knock this shit off and get it together before it all falls apart. Put on your grown-up pants and take some responsibility for the way things are, and do your part to rectify it. Stop whining and playing the victim, here. This is a democracy, and you have a say in the matter. It may not work out just the way you want it to, but be prepared to negotiate a point with something other than your personal issues.
If I can get a room full of teenagers to agree to come together to solve a financial dilemma, how the hell can the people trusted to run this state not do the same? As in the case of the family – we either have to pull this together, or we will pull it apart. The choice is ours – for the good of us ALL.
