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Spending Seemed to Run in the Family, Until the Day My Father Died
Portrait of my mother looking over my shoulder.
By Gail Harlow
y mother was a profligate spender, until the day my father died. When she became a widow and had to balance the checkbook and pay the bills herself, the term “fixed income” took on new meaning. Her transformation from spendthrift to thrifty was startling and ultimately impressive. There were times when I, who had inherited her profligate ways, would chafe at her penny-pinching. When she came to visit and didn’t want to splurge on a fancy restaurant, I’d groan, “Oh, mother you’re no fun!” then get out my grease-spattered Julia Child to whip up a reasonable facsimile of a holiday feast myself. (Of course, the cost of preparing a gourmet meal at home is more expensive than anything you’d order at any but the fanciest restaurants.) Nevertheless, though I wouldn’t admit it to her, I enjoyed the chance to show off my culinary skills, and I secretly admired my mother’s ability to change her ways.
Taking control of her finances was a point of pride for her. Born in
Russian, raised in Poland, and married to an American during World War II,
she lived the last 50 years of her life in the United States, always
mindful of her heavy accent (she spoke six languages) and how others
perceived her because of it. Smart, independent, a survivor, she fled the
Nazis when they bombed Warsaw in 1939 and made her way through
unimaginable horrors to relative safety in Vienna, where she met my
American father.
Her survival skills (she taught herself English in a matter of weeks so that the U.S. Army would hire her as a translator in Vienna) bred in her a self-confidence that could be, at times, intimidating. She was a curious mixture of entitlement, generosity, avarice and practicality. Either through nature or nurture, her sense of entitlement (I deserve to get everything I want), was passed on to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit her practical side.
As a teenager, whenever we couldn’t afford to buy THE dress I wanted to wear to my high-school prom, or that must-have sweater, or the latest Beatles album, she’d always say to me, “You’ll marry a rich husband, and then you’ll get everything you want.”
Well—surprise, surprise—that didn’t happen. Like other idealistic boomer flower children, I married for love not money. Like many feminists of my generation, I felt I should be able to earn my own money. . . something my mother never did, though the rewards she got from volunteering were immeasurable.
I have been successful in my career; I make enough money to be comfortable, and I count myself fortunate. But there are always dresses that I wish I could buy and sometimes do—on credit when I can’t afford them. And when the bills come, and I sit signing checks and balancing my checkbook, I think about my mother and how she taught herself to be responsible about money. When my father was alive, she would whine and wheedle and charm and strong-arm him into buying the Hummel statues, the ton of mushroom soil she needed each spring for her garden, the Rosenthal china she loved. And he usually did—how could anyone say no to her?—on credit. But when she had to make ends meet on Social Security and a military pension, she counted her pennies.
What was the secret of her radical transformation? Always fun-loving and high-spirited, she made a game of saving money. She discovered the appeal of shopping at Wal-Mart. When she lunched with "the girls" on Tuesday afternoons, she bragged about how much she saved by ordering the Senior’s Special. She always paid her credit card balances in full and on time. (Can you imagine doing that?) When she bought a new car a few years before she died, she’d saved enough so that she could pay half the price up front in order to reduce her loan and interest payments.
In a few words: she simply stopped being frivolous. When I took her to lunch at a local “Turf Club,” featuring off-track horse betting on tableside screens, she couldn’t even enjoy putting $2 on a horse to win, place or show, calling it too much of a gamble. Only once, after my father died, do I remember her splurging on something special for herself. She bought a “pre-owned” baby grand piano, whose ivories had once tinkled in the smoky nether regions of a local cocktail lounge. She said she wanted to learn to play again (she had owned a piano when she was young in Warsaw), and she did take lessons briefly. But eventually, the baby grand stood, unused, like a beautiful black sculpture, taking up a corner of the living room, adding a touch of elegance, a reminder of the luxury she had left behind one frightening day in Warsaw.
Thinking about it now, I realize that my mother’s ability to adapt, to shape her behavior to her altered circumstances, was probably the secret of her survival during the War. Her latter-day frugality and practicality are qualities I aspire to. But a lesson I treasure even more is the one she taught me when she splurged on that grand piano. In her wisdom, she knew that we all have to treat ourselves to the things we want every once in a while. Because, you know what? We deserve it. _______________________________
Gail Harlow is the Founding Editor of MAKING BREAD: The Magazine for Women Who Need Dough. E-mail her at gail@makingbreadmagazine.com with your comments. |
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