Hi Allison,
I've been a long-time listener and watcher of your content and I'm so grateful you started Emotional Support Lady. It came at a time when I really needed it.
I'm kind of afraid to ask this question, but I think I really need to. I come from an upper middle class family and while I support myself now on a relatively low income, I feel very anxious about my parents and their money and the help they've given me. They paid for college and are currently helping me pay for grad school and helped me out when I was getting on my feet after college and through some of COVID. I know these things are HUGE benefits and I am always going to benefit from having generational wealth. Ultimately I can't help but feel guilty, ashamed, and embarrassed. I remember on a JBU pod you talked about seeing a tweet that said something along the lines of "no one who's parents paid for college should be in a creative field" and you were able to see that and just go "okay" and move on. How the hell do I do that?? I would let a tweet like that fuck me up for weeks even though I think the person tweeting it is valid in having that opinion. I am asking this because I'm not as immediately forthcoming about my background as I'd like to be and I know it's a problem. I want to be able to have conversations about money in a responsible and honest manner. Any and all help is appreciated. Thank you so much for your time!
- Anxious
Dear Anxious,
I saw this email in my inbox a few weeks ago and immediately knew I needed to answer it while also being quite worried about what to say and how to say it. Money, generational wealth and financial privilege are difficult topics to navigate, and I apologize in advance for any missteps I might take. They are also topics I think about frequently since I come from an extremely privileged background and continue to benefit from my parents’ financial (and emotional!) generosity.
I have often wondered how to handle my privilege both on a personal level with people who know me in real life and as a public figure on the internet. For example, my decision to go back to school for a degree in psychology was facilitated by the fact that my parents are paying for it. While I hope to one day pay them back, I don’t know if I will ever be in the financial position to do so. It would have been a much more difficult decision if I had to take on 80k of debt with interest to accomplish this goal. This situation brings up a lot of feelings for me including immense gratitude and guilt. But I’ve also come to realize that it doesn’t make sense for me to not pursue my degree because of that guilt. What I don’t want to do, however, is forget my privilege. It’s important for me to remember and publicly acknowledge that the decision to go back to grad school is a huge financial burden for most people. It is not harmful for me to take advantage of my parents’ financial generosity to further my education in the mental health field so I can improve my advocacy and writing. But it is harmful for me to act as though anyone would be able to do what I am doing without significant financial strain and sacrifice.