Motherhood & Financial Security
If you’re looking to cry in the mornings, I highly recommend “Maid.” It’s a Netflix show about a single mom who has to make ends meet when she decides to leave her abusive partner, without financial security, a support network, or shelter. There are many things that hit close to home about “Maid,” not the least of which is the concept of financial security and how it’s often capitalized by men, or – to be fair – how it’s stereotypically pushed on men.
Growing up in Cuba, an insidiously patriarchal place, I knew from a very early age financial security meant freedom for women. I think it’s finally now that I’m beginning to realize I’ve carried the weight of that lesson from as early as I can recollect. I guess the first instance I ever acted out in a way that reflected that notion was maybe when I was 10 or 11 years old?
At that age, I went out with my friend José Something — in Cuba, everyone has a middle name akin to how Sarah Jessica Parker doesn’t call herself Sarah, but Sarah Jessica, although in Cuba it doesn’t sound as rich. Anyhow, José S and I went to the Zoo at 26th, very close to my house in Havana. At the ticket booth, I stopped him before he was to pay for both of us; he certainly had enough money and looking back, I suspect he was likely coached into being a gentleman and paying for his date by his family. “I’d like to pay for myself,” I exorcised the words out of me. And I did!
José S tried three times to pay for me to no avail, consistently bringing up something about his abuela and the amount he was supposed to bring back. I can’t remember. There is no such thing as awkward moments in Cuba; we call them comfortable silences or conversation lulls. But that would have definitely count as one uncomfortable silence. After our date, when I told my mom I had paid for myself, she shared my ticket tiff with my dad in — pleasant — shock: “Mi niña is so funny!” But they were both puzzled and pitied José S like I had robbed him.
A few years later, when we moved to Canada, my dad became the sole bread winner, and my mom decided not to pursue her Civil Engineering career in our new home. Like curing asphalt, these changes solidified the need for financial independence in my head. I always paid for my share in dates, sometimes paying for the whole thing, even if it meant I was spending beyond my means — the opposite of financial freedom. This inception became a source of conflict in my relationships, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that it isn’t a source of conflict today.
When my partner and I first moved into our home, I was still a grad student, staying afloat in a sea of OSAP loans, and not ready for that big mortgage milestone. He was; he had been working for a really good company for years since he graduated and he was also better at managing his money. He had a right to settle down, so I went with the flow, but that little voice in my head never quieted. “This isn’t your home,” it told me.
Back in undergrad, my dad did teach me how to set up a budget, something for which I’ll forever be grateful. I still use his spreadsheet. Anything regarding structure is definitely thanks to both my parents who happen to be structural engineers. But, living in Cuba, a poor Caribbean country, doesn’t teach you how to manage your money despite people earning higher education degrees. I think both of my parents would agree. You live day to day there.
I suspect that’s how it is with most poor people because I’ve also witnessed it in Canada and the US. When I worked in retail, and in the food service industry, I noticed the government workers, university professors, and people of white collar professions often would spend less than the other mall staff, or my coworkers on break. Only the homeless people spent as much as the government workers, but that’s because they were pinching pennies. Studies back up my observations: people in developed countries with higher education and income are more prudent with their money.
This is partly because for those who live paycheck to paycheck, money is not an investment; it’s an experience, a feeling. It means the happy jolt of the morning coffee, or the sweet respite of a donut, or the glimpse of a new life that buying clothes online offers. Poor folk juggle between scraping for the essentials and not understanding that the little joys in life come with a prize, and so the money goes like water cupped in hands. And that’s certainly the case for folks that come from poor backgrounds or that have not been taught about financial security. People from lower incomes generally lack financial literacy.
I was confronted with that realization yet again at 32, when I wrote about NFTs and how they help women in lower income countries. It was the first time I heard the word fungible! And funnily enough, though money is hard to come by to poor people, it is very much the latter definition: a fungible asset. Having become a mother, and now that my parents are getting older, my brain is finally starting to see that the replaceability and exchangeability of currency does not translate to ease, but rather to years of work, and other irreplaceable things like shelter, safety, a future, help. I hear people talk about nannies and grandparents who can afford to just drop their jobs to help for months at a time, which remains a strange concept to our family. To people who are better at finances, money means a very rigid type of fungible.
The irony is not lost on me that despite working hard my entire life to be financially independent, my partner is still our bread winner, and though we love each other a lot, that nagging voice in my head is always there to remind me of that. What if we fell out? Where would I go? How would I support my son? Would I lose custody of my son for a few days until I find a place? And let me tell you, a few days is a lifetime when you’re a parent, especially when they’re young. I left for a conference for a week, and when I came back my toddler…things were just different. It took a few days before we were back to cuddles and trust. I’m no longer a grad student with constantly accumulating debts, so I know that nagging in my head is my amygdala talking. I would likely be OK; I’d take the time to learn my rights and research. But, that’s what’s interesting about poor upbringings. You’re always playing catchup and thinking of plan B.
The conference I went to was in Philadelphia. Sitting next to me during lunch break at Reading Market one day, teen parents shared one smart phone as they ate some Caribbean food. They made me remember my young parents when we had just immigrated to Ottawa, Canada. The teen parents mostly used the phone for candy crush with the market’s WiFi. The mom was gulfing down everything, the dad was fixated on candy points, and their child eyed the plantains with envy. “Mamma will share with you soon enough,” I heard the teen mom say.
Our family had better opportunities than the teen family I met at Philly clearly had, but we both had something in common: we treated food as an essential. This commonality was at the root of one of the biggest arguments during wedding planning. My partner wanted to showcase a black bean Korean dish, something that ingredient-wise is similar to a Cuban staple. For him, it was cuisine, culture; for me it was merely nourishing, the only thing you could put on the table. I’m sad to admit this, but presenting wedding guests with beans made me feel ashamed.
Cuban food is delicious, but the country has only really began diversifying its culinary prowess as social media continues to infiltrate the island. Cuban cuisine like most other Cuban things – the restored 1950s cars, the old art deco buildings – is inextricably linked to scarcity and necessity. It always amazed me how tourists got to taste our food and admire it as something new or complain about its blandness in much the same way that Ivan Orkin reinvented ramen for the Japanese, or was awestruck by the taste of egg on a bed of rice.
Yolk and warm rice is one of the most delicious comforting things – that a poor person prizes and that’s just what it is. In the capitalist world, we can see the business idea and call it homey if we want to, but it will always be homely. We will still fail to imagine people who are well off having eggs on rice; if anything, it’s the type of dish people on vacation will be raving about when they get home because it was so yummy but so… simple. Anyway, Brazil saved us. We ended up having our wedding at a Brazilian steakhouse.
My partner has a hard time understanding my feelings. Though his family and ours share humble origins, he never really has experienced spaghetti and hotdogs for most meals, or coffee and milk and bread for dinner because there is no other food. The truth is poverty never really leaves you. Even if you escape it. It’s sticky. It’s learned behaviours and muscle memory. It means bad diet choices, mistrust in dentists, doctors, banks, and whole institutions. It means fear (of masks, of vaccines, of anything). I’m not making excuses for poorer demographics or blaming them for lack of social progress. I’m talking from experience.
My dad’s mistrust of banks is very much part of the nagging voice in my head. My mom’s wish to send financial aid to my ailing grandma in Cuba but being fearful of asking my dad — the provider — for money significantly contributes to my monetary insecurities. People with lower incomes often experience more conflict, have less tools at their disposal, and in the increasingly digitized world, may be less aware about how to access such tools. Where would you even look when you don’t know what you’re looking for? A great real-life experiment is the whole country of Sweden, which has shifted its social and economical infrastructure online, leaving the elderly, people living with disabilities, and lower income populations to fend for themselves. How could we possibly trust institutions when they don’t take us into consideration?
My partner may also never understand my financial ruminations because men aren’t taught to depend on people. Of course, that comes with its own issues. However, knowing that you can only depend on yourself can be liberating, albeit scary. Because it will always give you a sense of agency and control that women simply aren’t taught. And that translates to how we ask for a raise, how much we expect to get paid, etc. This might also explain the violence and confusion when by claiming space, women take a bit of that construct of independence that is gifted to men. Yet, the disparity remains; women have to earn that lesson of financial freedom through lived experiences. And I say earn, not learn, because we have to work to learn it. Thankfully, my partner and I fight very hard to keep our finances apart, and share the financial responsibilities in fair ways according to each of our incomes. I’m proud of both of us for that.
Episode 4 in “Maid” is called “Cashmere” and it shows the divide between men and women, and what money means to poor and rich people alike. It does the world a great service to show how work, but really, its profit, liberates women. Thank you, Stephanie Land — the author who inspired this series, for personifying that nagging voice in my head.
