This whole "White Trash Mom" Thing, it's an art.

When I say I'm broke, I mean broke. As in, the kind State steps in and gives me a couple hundred embarrassing dollars a month to feed my irresponsibly large family as a consolation prize for my unfettered reproduction topped off with Daddy walking out the door, unemployed.
It's an art, to be this poor, really. Dollars are like rubber bands, they only stretch too far. And when your resources are more pathetic than a swollen-bellied little Indian baby, well....you gotta make it work. There's no choice involved.
And trust me, I do.
Where do I start? Hmm, groceries.
Every week before I go grocery shopping, the first thing I do is look at a calendar. Monday through Friday all my kids are in daycare, and bundled neatly in that price are breakfast, two snacks, and lunch. Check check and check. So, I write up a list, that looks something like this:

Monday: Dinner - Blue cheese chicken, wild rice, green beans

Tuesday: Dinner - Macaroni and cheese, broccoli

Wednesday: Dinner- Beef stroganoff, egg noodles, glazed carrots

Thursday: Dinner - Chicken stir fry, rice

Friday: Dinner - English muffin pizzas, tossed salad

Saturday: Breakfast - Pancakes, sausage, fruit 

A.M. Snack: Ants on a log

Lunch - Chicken salad on croissants, grapes, salad

P.M. Snack: Carrots and dip

Dinner: Roasted chicken, roasted vegetables, rice pilaf

Get the basic idea? Then I write out my list, based on my meal plan for the week. I cook only from scratch - believe it or not, it's cheaper that way. When I make, say, macaroni and cheese, I can buy enough for two batches, cook them both, and freeze one. Bam. One extra meal for the week.

We always have enough food. Hell, on any given day, I feed my family, a couple families down the hall, the family down the street. There's two things that are fundamental to my family: church and food.

As for bills, I have to be just as meticulous. I get a paycheck, I sit down with a pen and my handy-dandy notebook (get the reference?) And I plan out every single penny. I put cash into envelopes - I tend to stumble with a bank account because debit cards are my Nemesis. But hey, my rent is rarely late or delinquent. So it works for me. 

And we don't do extravagant in my house. I have mostly boys, close together, so clothes go down the line until they are no longer wearable. Fashion, I tell my oldest daughter, is a flash in the pan. She wanted twinkle toes, these God-awful sneakers made by Sketchers that look like Michael's craft stores threw up all over them. Sorry, if I'm going to splurge, it's going to be on something more than a stupid preschool fad. "We," I told her, "Are far too fabulous for Twinkle Toes." Still, she persisted. So for her birthday, I decided to make her her own, and they are just as fabulously gaudy and personalized, for a fraction of the cost. That's right. 

Being poor is exhausting. It adds more tasks to my already overwhelming life. But were we in a better financial situation, I would've just caved and bought the stupid Twinkle Toes. Then the world would be robbed of my personalized shoe project, as would my daughter. I can't say it enough, less is more.

Eff all those mean five year old girls. They're going to be so jealous. 

I often think about my life if I had made different decisions. If, at seventeen years old, I had taken my dad's advice and gotten in the car with him, driven to the clinic, never had my daughter. I'd be home from my last year at a real school, leaving my dormitory behind, my childhood bedroom covered with pictures of parties, summer vacations, smiling young faces. I'd have closets full of shoes and clothes, a part time job that was not my livelihood, but beer money until I moved on to my meticulously planned career. In a few years, I'd meet another college-educated young man, probably with the same upper-middle class yuppie roots, we'd fall in love, have a beautiful wedding, live in our well-maintained Cape with our two point five kids and a golden retriever named Ronald. Beautiful, perfect, exactly what my dad saw for me the day he first held me in his arms and looked into my eyes, I'd bet. But I'd be missing so much.

I bet my hypothetical husband would've sprung for the Twinkle Toes. But what's regret?

I wasn't raised here, where I'm living. My cousins and uncles and parents don't live down the street. I don't even know what the High School here looks like. But this city and I, are soul-mates. I've found something so beautiful and real and fulfilling in this struggle. Something that's made me so much stronger and smarter and resourceful than the hypothetical Me could've ever been. My lights get turned off, yeah. I know a million and one ways to get them turned back on, quick. I can pass this on to other people struggling. The hypothetical me knows nothing of struggle, of heartache. The hypothetical me would be too responsible to procreate like a caged hamster. So she would never know the exhausting joy when kids A and B are fighting, and the baby's crying, and you've got beautiful, tiny chaos swirling around you and you still manage to end up with a household of "Best Buddies" who adamantly stick up for a sibling when they're being scolded. THAT's just as much accomplishment as a PHD. Believe it. 

I wouldn't know that when you live in a crappy low-income apartment, your neighbors can become your family. You eat together, pick up the slack when someone falls short, know that the favor will be returned. An amazing give-and-take. A congregation, a Fellowship, all praying for better days and hanging in together until they arrive. The hallways here are always teeming with children, laughing and growing together, learning and changing and bonding. My door is always open, every door here is. We scold each other's children, we revolve babysitting, we help with homework and cook meals and collapse on each other's couches at the end of the day, tired as hell, with a glass of cheap White Zinfandel and a shitload of complaints and jokes. Your husband's an asshole, my husband's an asshole, our kids are too much, work sucks, we're broke, Let's Drink.

We're in this together. And to be honest, if I had a yard and a good man and a good job, a cute little dog and stability, I wouldn't know this. I wouldn't have to.

There's beauty in the breakdown. We all have albums of our children together, and we look at how they've changed, grown, who's going to marry who. I know each child in this apartment building as well as my own. My children love each one of my neighbors like the extended family we rarely see. They are family. 

It's an art, a challenge, and I ROCK THIS. 

My kids learn to cook with me from a young age. We make casseroles for sick friends, neighbors and members of our church. We bake pastries and cakes and cookies for birthdays and celebrations and sometimes, just because it's raining and there's nothing else to do. They learn the power of a home-cooked meal. They watch this profound give-and-take on which we survive, and they learn empathy and family values and what it means to be connected to the community around you. Tell me Muffy and Buffy and their perfect husbands and kids can say that? They don't have to worry about the things we do. They don't know. For those who truly have "It" together, giving is a hobby, an obligation, tax write off or occasional warm, fuzzy feeling. It's kept to Christmas or when Sally Struthers gets on your plasma and guilts you about starving children. When you struggle, it's a way to survive.

I don't hate the middle class or wealthy. When my lights go off or I pass a really cute handbag, I envy them. But, it definitely passes. I am proud of what I have. In a material world, in this crazy capitalist Rat Race, there are a lot of values that just sort of, fade away. I feel blessed every day that though I can't afford an Xbox or big TV, I can't take my kids to Disney every summer or buy the stupid fucking Twinkle Toes, I can give them these old-fashioned values and know that they will stick a lot longer than vacations or glitter-strewn shoes. That is a blessing.

Sorry to disappoint, dad.

I have too many children.

Today, I accomplished a great feat worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. No, I didn't cure cancer, end world hunger or erradicate terrorism. I got all my children, the number which is more than two but less than five, ready to get their bus in seven minutes flat. Woke up, 7:51am, out the door to wait for the bus, 7:58am. Yes, there were tears. I barked orders like a drill Sargent. I felt bad. But WE DID IT.
I remember lying in bed next to my husband, tracing hearts over his bare chest, talking about a "large family". It sounded sort of nice. A bunch of little Kate-and-hubby clones, running barefoot in the yard, their dad chasing them and eliciting raucous laughter as I stood on the deck with a big pitcher of homemade lemonade.
Yeah, right.
Now I have as many children as I've had my heart broken. They are not puppies, that poop and pee in the yard and can be bathed one a week. No. My brood are all under four years old, with only one NOT in diapers. All those baths every night, teeth brushed a.m. and p.m., snacks, diaper changes, boo-boos kissed, fights broken up, scrawled and scribbled pictures to admire...outfits to pick out and wrestle over defiant little heads, bedtime stories to read and nighttime fears to overcome. And forget about the expense....having a "large family" is a full time job in itself. I am exhausted most of the time.
And doing it alone??
I am low-income. Conclusively. I spend many sleepless nights adding, subtracting, multiplying and praying.  And in some ways, I meet the criteria perfectly. My kids are nearly always barefoot and dirty. I wear cutoff jeans more than I'd like to admit. My husband walked out and has little interest in our finances or daily life. We get in to nasty fights when he calls. I drink. I smoke cigarettes, a lot.
But every day I work to break that stereotype. It's my personal affirmation.
My preschooler knows what Ratatouille is, and not just the Disney movie. We don't have cable, and the T.V. is not a baby sitter. We eat extremely well. We cook together, recipes from all over the world. We go to church on Sundays, where my whole full-time nursery class sits (more or less) quietly in the pew as our Pastor reaffirms our faith and then they all shuffle off to learn about God as I sit and pray for penance for my shortcomings and the terrible things I've thought, and usually said, all week. I read to my kids, every night, from birth on. My house is not sparkling, but most of the time it's clean. We are the typical low-income white trash family on the surface, but look deeper, and we're so much more.
When my daughter was the only child, she was spoiled. Name-brand clothing, more toys than your local daycare center, vacations to Florida to visit Mickey and vacations up North to see the first snow and my Father-in-law. But, kids are expensive. We've had to adjust, severely. At first I was miserable, guilt ridden. We're broke. Everyone's laughing at me. I can't provide as well as I should. But in having WAY too many children and not nearly enough money, I've learned so much.
You have your bachelor's in pyschology? Yeah, well I have A doctorate in my children's pyschology. When you're broke, overwhelmed and overworked, all you have left in your spare time is to revel in your little miracles. I know how to elict laughter, who gets along with who, what will unavoidably turn to tears. I know it all. I know that one week at Disney World is worth a lot less than a whole summer worth of walks to the playground, cookouts in the driveway, late night movie nights and days at the beach. I know that all the toys in the world cannot possibly be as fun as all gathering in the kitchen to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I know that no educational dvds or "learning systems" can hold a candle to what we learn exploring the world together, that no one can teach my children to read better than I can, brandishing our beat-up copy of "Mr. Brown can Moo, can You?" for the eight millionth time. I hate to be cliche, but when it comes to money and children, less can be more. When your resources are limited, you find yourself improvising in ways you never thought was possible. And as much time and work as it is, more is more with children. You think your heart is finite, that with each child it cannot grow to accomidate all the space required to love this family ballooning in front of your eyes. But my love for my children is endless...this I have learned. I couldn't imagine my life without them, each and every one.
I'd be lying if I said that my life was complete, though. There is a tinge of resentment in everything I do; it's dark and toxic and menancing. A longing for some semblence of an adult identity outside of offical poop-wiper and monster-sprayer. It makes me snap when I wish I wouldn't, it makes me collapse in bitter exhaustion at this end of the night and stare at my cell phone, wishing it would ring, knowing it won't.
I read somewhere that having children doesn't neccessarily make you happier. In polls, people with children can actually be less happy than those without. I can believe it. The question I leave you with, the question I've had hanging in my own head - how do you balance the wonderful identity you find in yourself when you have children, with the identity you had before??