“Wait,” my 7-year-old sits up and looks me in the eye. “Did Tiny Tim die?”
We’re watching Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and the reality of a teary Mickey Mouse holding a tiny crutch hits my son. Hard.
“Yes,” I say as plainly as possible. “He died.”
“Why?”
But explaining all the reasons why Tiny Tim died is like explaining why poverty itself exists. I settled on describing how there were a lot of diseases at that time that people didn’t know how to cure, but sometimes, with expensive treatments, ailments could be lessened or reversed. If you are poor, you didn’t have access to the right medicine.
That was just a band-aid explanation, though, and we both knew it.
Why is That Man Holding a Sign in the Street?
A few weeks earlier, we were at a stop light known for people holding signs and asking for money. Our family had just repatriated to the United States; since the kids were very young when we lived overseas, everything they saw in the US felt brand new.
Child: “Why is that man holding a sign?”
Me: “He needs money. He might be homeless, which means he doesn’t have a place to live.”
“So he’ll use that money to get a place to live?”
“No, that money will probably buy him something to eat. A place to live costs a lot more money than anyone can get from a street corner.”
“He doesn’t have a home? Where does he sleep?”
“Some people sleep on the street, or in a shelter that helps homeless people.”
“On the street? That doesn’t sound safe. Why can’t he just get money?”
“You need a job to get money. You don’t usually ‘get’ money, you aren’t just ‘given’ enough money to live. You need to make money by having a job.” (Unless you’re born rich, but we’ll get to that eventually.)
“Oh, well, they should get a job then. That would fix it.”
“It can be very hard to get a job. Bosses need to see that you have had a job recently. You need clean clothes to go on an interview or even pick up an application to fill out. The company you want to work for would want you to be clean and had a bath or shower that day. Plus most applications — the papers you fill to try to get a job — they’re all online now. And if you don’t have a job or a home, you probably don’t have a computer with internet access. If you’re lucky, you have a phone number you can use. But how can a job get in touch with you if they don’t have a way to reach you? A poor person can use the computers at the library, but they can’t check those very often, assuming they live close to one.”
“What about staying with a friend or their mommy?”
“Not everyone has a family, or they don’t get along with their family. Not all friends are able to help because they don’t have enough space or money themselves to give someone a home.”
Where Does Money Come From?
“Can’t they just get money from their phone?”
“So, you normally see me pay for something with my phone. But that isn’t an endless supply of money. When I take jobs, I agree to work for a certain amount. The company I work for then pays me — or, more likely, they put the money directly into my bank account. Every time you see me tap my phone or use my bank card, I agree that the store can take money out of my bank account to buy what I want to buy. My bank can give my money to the store. That money is then subtracted from the money in the bank account.
This is why you see Daddy and I sit down every week, go through every purchase we make, and look ahead to what bills we need to pay in the future. We only have the money in our bank account to spend.”
We talk about [poverty] all the time. I try to impress upon them all the various levels of privilege/luck that exist in our area, country, the world…. And we’ve talked about how colonization and slavery, etc have basically given immense privilege to some while exploiting others and making it impossible for them to get out of poverty. I have also been open about the different choices their father and I made over time, and how that affects our personal income. And, finally, I give them a small allowance and their grandparents gift them money at times, so they get a sense of what it takes to save up, etc.
Grace is a writer in Vermont.
They’re 9 and 6 now and I see this as an ongoing conversation that will get more detailed over time.”
Banks Are a Business
Child: “So the poor people can just get the money from their bank account!”
Me: “Believe it or not, it costs money to make money. To have a bank account, you need to keep money in it and have an address. And if you accidentally spend more money than you have in your bank account, the bank charges you more. And you can’t afford to pay that back at all, they continue to charge you fees, close your account, or send all the money you owe them to a collections agency or all of those things.”
“But if you don’t have money, why would the bank charge you more? That isn’t nice.”
“A bank is a business. They have to make money to stay in business. This is one of the ways they make money, or at least don’t lose money. Some laws are being passed to eliminate these overdraft fees, but not everywhere. “
“Well, they should just help people if they need help.”
“We may think so, but a business’s primary purpose isn’t to help people and make money. There are companies set up to help people, like the homeless shelters I mentioned before, but they are usually charities or not-for-profits.”
They typically nod and we let the information sink in. Then comes the kicker:
“Why do we need money? Why can’t we give people everything they need? If I were the ruler of our world, I would just let everyone have what they need.”
“That’s a very nice idea. I hope that you can one day.”
“Why don’t businesses help more people if they have the money?”
“Here in the US, we live under capitalism. That means that our economy is built around people making money, not necessarily on how to help the most people.”
Explaining Capitalism? That’s a whole other article.
Explaining the concept of the “Economy”
Dupaix, Madison, “How to Define and Explain the Economy to Kids.”
The economy is made of three things:
1. the people making things
2. the people using things
3. the buying and selling of those things
Read more: Tis the Season: Kids and Advertising
This article originally appeared as part of an earlier piece on Poverty, Privilege, and Presents
Photo/Image Credit: Cindy Marie Jenkins, Canva
Sources:
- Dupaix, Madison, “How to Define and Explain the Economy to Kids,” The Balance, 24 March 2002, HTTPS://WWW.THEBALANCEMONEY.COM/ECONOMY-DEFINITION-2085358