Priorities

As parents, my husband and I are extremely active in the lives of our children. We coach ball, attend games, run a scout den and the list goes on. There are a lot of people, who don't know us, in the community who look down upon us when we first arrive. Pulling up in our 1993 Nissan Sentra, with its rusted out hood, trunk that doesn't latch and beat up door panels. No, its not a nice car but it runs and does what we need it to do. I cant help but smile and remember what I left to get here.
Growing up, my maternal grandmother had a butler and a cook. Needless to say she never wanted for a thing and was accustomed to a certain way of life. I remember her saying "It's just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one." My Grandfather was not rich but he made enough to keep her comfortable. She had a set of standards and expectations for her life and my grandfather worked well through his 70's ensuring that she had it. By the time he retired he received 5 retirement checks. Grandma was comfortable.
My mother received the ideas of life passed down from my grandmother. She has always said "I only date a man who can afford me." Mom didn't do yard work, she didn't like to clean and she surely didn't work. "That's what we pay people for." is what she would say when I was growing up. We had a maid who came in twice a week.
My fathers childhood was a little different. His family is where I get my Native American heritage from. He grew up very poor. He never owned a piece of clothing that wasn't hand made by my grandmother or passed down from the reservation until he was a grown man and could buy it himself. His father was a fisherman by trade and in the winter months when there wasn't very much work they went to the reservation for food. I remember this. I also remember my dad putting himself through college. I remember him working as a bartender to pay his tuition. When he finished with his degree he decided to further his education. After many years of part time college, supporting a new family and paying child support on me; he succeeded. My father is very financially comfortable now. He averages 4 trips a year around the world, just because.
My mother remarried a man "who could afford her" when I was 4 1/2. Growing up we never lived in a house under 3000 square feet and that was "beneath us". We had nice cars, expensive jewelry, nice clothes. We didn't have get-togethers, we "entertained". We kept up with the Jones's. In return, we had no self esteem, no sense of reality, and an altered sense of how the world worked. You were judged by what you had and someone always had more.
Growing up, I hob-nobbed with senators and dined with billionaires. "Entertained" the rich and partied with the poor. I have been offered "sanctuary" by one of the richest families in this country. I have vacationed in Martha's Vineyard. I have been to foreign countries on shopping sprees. I slept with a rich man and made passionate love to a poor man.
I saw the people from that life and it isn't one I want for myself or my family. I want my children strong because of who they are not what they have. We have a nice home, a car that runs, food on the table and more love than I ever witnessed growing up. We aren't perfect but we are happier than I ever knew existed. Everything we have, we earned and to be honest...I wouldn't care if we didn't have it anymore.

When our daughter died my grandparents couldn't buy her back. My dad couldn't buy her back. There was only one thing that mattered, only one single importance and it had absolutely nothing to do with money and everything to do with eachother.