A reader wrote in after I posted my giving plan, asking if I ever plan on having children or buying a house, and how those things affect my decisions about giving. These are questions I get a lot, so I thought I’d post part of my response here:
In answer to your questions – I do think about being a parent sometime in the future, and I definitely want to have a stable, sustainable place to live. Some obvious reasons that I’m not too worried about those things are: 1) my dad is still owning class and both my parents own property, which gives me a pretty real financial safety net and also means I might inherit a house and/or money when my folks pass away, 2) having had class privilege my whole life makes me pretty employable for various reasons even though I never finished college, and also means I have no debt, and 3) I still have about $200,000 left in my trust fund that I don’t have access to yet.
I’m not relying on future inheritance – I still plan to give away most of my trust fund and other money I inherit – but I mention those things because I want to be clear that the actions I’m taking right now (giving away 50% of my inheritance) are creating zero financial hardship in my life. Even if I gave away 90% of my trust fund tomorrow, even if I gave it all away – I’d still have access to more resources than most people ever do. There are lots of fundraising statistics illustrating that the more money people have, the less they seem to want to give it up. Working class people typically give away a much larger percentage of their income than owning class people, which I think is so telling – the richer we are, the more we think we need. Sometimes I do get really stressed about potential future expensive needs (kids, home, medical expenses, caretaking) – the future is scary. When I get caught up in a freakout about scarcity and security, I try to give myself a reality check and remember that in terms of financial privilege, I’m way ahead of the game no matter what I do.
One great thing about giving away this money is that it’s made me think hard about living within my means. When I decided to give away most of my trust fund, I realized that I was going to have to get my act together financially and stop living like an irresponsible rich kid who could get bailed out by my parents whenever I overdrafted my bank account. I looked at my life for places I could cut back on spending and got better at things like riding my bike instead of driving, taking full advantage of the library, cooking at home more and eating out less, buying things used instead of new, etc. I started writing down everything I spend money on so I could budget well, and I’ve been doing that for years. All these things really help me be less scared about the future, because I’m know I’m developing tools and strategies to make my life more sustainable and cheap.
Of course, having class privilege means I get to see living on a really small budget as an exciting project rather than a stressful necessity. Truly being poor is expensive, and having had good healthcare my whole life, never having to go into debt, not having to take financial care of my family, and a million other things make it easy for me to live cheaply. So the privilege of being rich in the first place makes it a lot safer for me to give away money when it comes into my life, which is why I always challenge the folks who tell me that I somehow “need” the money I’m giving away for myself. Given the privileges and safety nets I’ve already mentioned, I certainly “need” this money less than most people – and since I have and will use some of it for myself anyway, it seems like the least I can do to live in a way that means I need as little as possible.
I do think about these things a lot, and there’s lots more to say about them. I hope that you and other folks share your thoughts, because I think questions about how to afford the things we need or want in life – and afford them in a way that reflects values about economic justice and community and sustainability – are questions a lot of folks think about and that we would benefit from talking about a lot more.
Thanks for this interesting blog. These are topics that run through my head all of the time, and it is nice to hear someone else thinking aloud about them.
I am from a working-class family, probably upper-prole, and I spent most of my adult life living in poverty, but I was getting, first a degree (paid for by loans), and then advanced degrees (paid for by scholarships). So, now, I think I’m lower-middle class.
I am happily married, but my male partner and myself (female) have decided not to have children. I never “felt like it,” and it was because of financial reasons, I’m sure, because once I got a job that pays a lower-middle-class wage, I thought I could swing it and seriously considered it.
Ultimately, I opted out. I really don’t think that things will be any better for the next generation. I am Generation X, and we are the first American to fare worse financially than our parents. So, I’m not going to pretend that I live in a traditional society by living a traditional lifestyle. I also refuse to reproduce, because Americans (even those of us who care and are environmentalists) consume too much. On top of all of that, I think that the chances of my producing a wage slave is high, and the pool of workers is so large that it is depressing wages.
So, to you or your readers think that it is radical not to have kids, or am I just taking capitalism too personally?
Thanks, again, for a great blog!
Hi Elizabeth – thanks for your comment! I think capitalism is definitely personal (in many different ways) – but I do really support folks having kids if they want to, and I don’t think having kids is in any way un-radical. I think the responsibility for our harmful system lies squarely with the government and corporations, not parents (no matter how many kids they have).
I also think there are lots of ways to apply ideas about responsible use of resources and wealth redistribution and anti-capitalism to raising kids, and I’m inspired by lots of radical parents I know who are challenging the consumerism and individualism that so often gets pushed parents (and all of us).
Hi, I really respect what you are doing. I was wondering, though, why you are choosing to give away your capital rather than investing it and using the interest for philanthropy? I would have thought that over your lifetime, you could give away much more money if you used the $400,000 as a nest egg to generate income. I assume you have considered this and rejected it for a reason, and maybe you already wrote about it somewhere and I missed it. Apologies if that is the case.
Hey there,
Thanks for the great question. I chose to give away the capital rather than invest it and give away the interest for a few reasons: first, most investment seems pretty evil to me (my trust fund grew partly through investment in places like Nike, Proctor & Gamble, Shell, etc.), and even so-called socially responsible investing seems to me to be the lesser of evils, especially as an anti-capitalist who doesn’t believe in profiting off other people’s labor. I think of giving away this money both as a useful contribution to organizations and movements, and as divestment from an exploitative, imperialist economy.
Second, I don’t want to be a funder for my whole life. I’ll always give away money and things and energy, but I don’t want to be a philanthropist in the sense that I have a massive chunk of money invested somewhere and am perpetually doling out the interest. That seems to be the typical role inhabited by rich people who want to give away money, and it has the effect of consolidating power largely in the hands of wealthy white people – I wanted to challenge that dynamic.
I don’t believe in an economy that allows a few people to hoard huge fortunes made possible by most people’s poverty, which is how things work right now. I like to think of giving away the capital as “investing” in grassroots movements directly, instead of putting my stake in a system I don’t believe in. (not to mention one that is currently in crisis, resulting in *major* loss of philanthropy funds that many organizations counted on!) It feels better to me to give the money I can now when it’s so direly needed, and rely as little as possible on the success of capitalism for my giving.