Culture and Class

Every time I hear the words social class or socioeconomic status I cringe a little. I usually know what is coming next, a rant. The big speech about how "we as white American's have it so much better than we think." Lectures on minority groups and people in other countries who have it worse than all of us. Over and over and over again. It used to make me sick to my stomach that I did not fully appreciate what I had, but I've come to see it all in a new light. When I was twelve we were so poor that often the only food I would get during the week was the free school lunches. I could see my mom struggling to provide for her children without much success. At that time I was too young to legally work anywhere so I took beads I had inherited from my grandma and started selling homemade jewelry to help pay for groceries. That was around the first time I heard of socioeconomic status in a social studies class. The teacher guaranteed us that no one in the room fell below the poverty line, then I went home and asked my mom about it.

After several years of teachers telling me I was mistaken about our financial situation because they could tell by how I acted and my appearance that I was obviously middle class or higher I gave up joining conversations on status. Our class and culture are not simply skin tones and wealth, they are so much more than that. The way we act, what we believe, every little aspect of our lives plays into our culture. Some parts of our cultures can be changed, things like whether we believe in God. Other parts are more difficult, like wealth or race. We are all parts of many different cultures, we have the ones inside our families, the ones with our friends, the culture of our work environment. All of these cultures build on each other to mold us into who we are. Take a look at your family cultures and decide what parts of it have affected your reactions to things outside of your family. For example, in my family we wash the dishes immediately after every single meal. Because of this culture I've grown up with it drives me crazy when my husband will walk away after a meal without doing dishes.

This was just a simple little example, but it brings up the question. What part of our current cultures are we going to continue to pass on to future generations and which parts do we feel we could do without. Within my family on my mom's side we have a culture of being close knit. My mom lives on the same street as her mother and her sister and they visit each other daily as well as making frequent phone calls to other siblings. I hope to carry that emphasis of family into my own home as I raise my children. Because of our previous circumstances my family has developed a culture of humility and gratitude which I also hope to keep moving forward. Unlike the characteristics of our family culture there are some things that I hope to do without in the future. We have a tendency to be reserved and shut off from others, I hope to be able to change that and become more open in my interactions. I would also strive to set aside the need to be right. As we take a look at our current cultures we can examine what is working and what is not, then we can make changes towards forming better and more cohesive cultures in the future.