Decades ago, as I moved around Manhattan from cheap apartment to cheap apartment, most of my stuff fit into “New York luggage:” big black Hefty garbage bags. Now that I’ve acquired children, however, and all their junk precious possessions, the New York luggage has been retired. Now I have to hire professionals, like the team of four guys who hauled our furniture and approximately eighty gazillion boxes into long-term storage when we moved from New York to Abu Dhabi two years ago. It took us more than three days to finish that move—I’m sure those movers still have a dart board with our apartment number at its center.
That move almost killed me—and I’m not even including the hours we spent packing and re-packing the twelve suitcases we were lugging to Abu Dhabi, in a desperate attempt to make sure that no one suitcase went over the weight limit for checked bags.
So after that move, moving from one neighborhood in Abu Dhabi to another was a piece of cake: on moving day, a squad of ten men showed up armed with huge rolls of bubble wrap and cardboard; they fanned out across our apartment and hey presto! the contents of our apartment vanished in a few days.
When we moved from New York, I don’t remember thinking much about the difference between my life and the lives of the men putting our boxes in the truck. At the risk of generalizing, I assumed that I had more education than they did, and that my children probably went to “better” public schools than theirs did (if even they had kids). I mean, I know I’m generalizing here—and maybe the movers were PhD candidates in philosophy out to make an extra buck, but that seems like a stretch.
But during this Abu Dhabi move, I couldn’t stop wondering about the movers’ lives compared to mine. After all, in some ways, we are all “expats,” although in Abu Dhabi “expat” tends to refer to white-collar workers and professionals, while “worker” or “laborer” refers to people who work in the shops or do unskilled manual work. What did they think, these men who are so far from home, as they schlepped in the boxes of my kids’ toys, the cartons of clothes, the boxes and boxes of books (when two literature professors marry, they may or may not have children, but they will breed enough books to open a bookstore). In their home countries—places like Sri Lanka, Goa, Kerala—these unskilled workers might only make about 200 dirhams a month (about 50USD), so they come here, where they might make a whopping 1000dh (about 200USD), most of which gets sent home.
Who knows: maybe the man hauling boxes up the stairs is paying for his daughter in Kerala to go to school, live in a house with indoor plumbing, get regular vitamins and checkups—all privileges that my children have and don’t see.
The next day, as I sat with the kids at breakfast (paper plates and toaster waffles, the post-move breakfast of champions), Caleb said “I feel sorry for those movers because that’s all they do all day is move stuff around,” and his older brother said “They have hard lives.”
I had to think for a minute before I responded to what they said. Because on the one hand, yes: moving heavy furniture all day long is thankless work, especially when the thermostat reads 115F. But on the other hand, these men don’t need or want pity. On the third hand, there’s the fact that life here for these workers is in many ways better than it would be elsewhere (although, of course, many migrant workers are not treated well)—and their work here is almost certainly making life better for their families back home. And then, on the fourth hand, how to explain over toaster waffles and OJ the inequities of global capitalism and an economic system that renders it impossible for people to live humanely in their native countries?
I didn’t have enough hands to explain, so I went for the easy answer: something about how working here allowed the men to help their families back home, wherever “home” might be. Global economics would have to wait until dinner. But perhaps the message sank in: all week, without a word of protest, both boys have been helping unpack boxes, cart cardboard out to the street, sweep up packing dust., organize their rooms. It’s as if each kid also unpacked a little box of perspective that’s helped each boy be more aware of his own relative privilege.
Of course by last night they were squabbling over whose turn it was to choose the game on the wii, so perhaps they only found a very very small box of perspective. We’ll see.
Question: How do you help your children think about class, wealth, and privilege, without dipping into the easy response of “pitying the poor people?”
This is an original post for the World Mom’s Blog by Deborah Quinn.
Photo credit to the author.
Mannahattamamma (UAE)
After twenty-plus years in Manhattan, Deborah Quinn and her family moved to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates), where she spends a great deal of time driving her sons back and forth to soccer practice. She writes about travel, politics, feminism, education, and the absurdities of living in a place where temperatures regularly go above 110F.
Deborah can also be found on her blog, Mannahattamamma.
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Spot on. I too “run out of hands” when trying to break this down even in my own head. But I try to avoid the temptation of pitying because it’s honest hard work and does help family members at home. Still, I can’t help thinking that I have been able to avoid that kind of hard labor simply as a consequence of where I was born. See? One more, “but then again…” and I run out of hands like you. ; ) My kids are too young to get into this too much. Hopefully by the time they’re older, I’ll have a better explanation….
Yes, Kim, it’s the many hands that is confusing–I just know that “pity” is not the option that I want my kids to exercise. Compassion is the word I return to again & again, trying to point out that even if these workers are there by choice, it’s still not necessarily that they have a range of choices from which to select…(And yes, there are some “see how good you kids have it…” type comments that spring from my lips too…)
There are no “easy” answers. I live in South Africa which is often referred to as “the First World of the Third World”.
Here we honestly have it all, and experience it all. On the one hand we have some locals who would rather beg than do “hard” labour, but we also have refugees who’d rather work than accept charity!
Just to lob another “curve ball” at you – not all of those doing “hard” labour are doing it due to an accident of birth or no other opportunities – sometimes it’s simply because of the CHOICES they themselves have made!
For example, in S.A. (since 1994) “black” South Africans have been overtly favoured for all the “good” jobs (as retribution towards “white” people for Apartheid). It’s been nearly 20 years of Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action and fully integrated schools. Our government has been run by the ANC for all this time and yet (still) the majority of menial labour is done by people who have been given every opportunity to do something “better”!
No matter what your own “status” in life is, you’ll ALWAYS find those who have more than you, as well as those who have less than you. EVERYTHING is RELATIVE! I encourage my children to avoid judging others according to “social status” and to share with those less fortunate, however I also emphasize that charity begins at home!
Yes, I think that it’s important for kids to learn that social status – how much “stuff” you’ve got, what you or your parents do for a living, all those sorts of things — is not a marker of character or value. And I also agree that it’s important to point out that we do what we can to help our community, even in whatever small ways are available (and that might include just helping mom with the dishes!)
Great article! It is a difficult situation for sure. I struggle, myself, with the seemingly contradictory viewpoints of ‘get paid on your merit’ and ‘it isn’t fair that some people make $50 million per year and others starve to death.’
This is definitely not an easy subject; especially for kids! However, I do think it’s important to try to explain that hard work, while physically demanding, isn’t necessarily bad nor is making less money. There are a million ways to live a happy and balanced life! We get so caught up in ranking things: hard work bad, easy work (less physical work) good, lots of money good, less money bad… etc that sometimes the true point get’s lost! Now, how to convey that to a hungry five year old? No idea. Ask me in four more years so I can give you upgraded answer of, “I still have no idea!”
Thanks for the post!
Jeff
We have this conversation sometimes as we hear about sports stars salaries (the European soccer leagues are good fodder for this sort of thing) …but also in Abu Dhabi, where there is an incredible amount of wealth on display, we have this sort of discussion frequently. I wish I could say that it gets easier, but it seems that much of the message that the world seems to be sending out is that wealth matters more than…well, more than most stuff. And our message — similar to yours — that a happy & balanced life means more than a big bank account gets buried under the noise of BIGGER MORE FASTER …
Hi Deborah,
I tell them about our family stories of how many of our ancestors came to the US with very little. And that they were just like us and a part of us, and we are grateful for the risks they took and the hard work they put in. Creating that camaraderie with our fellow humans, make me feel like we’re all in this together, and I hope that carries through to my children, too.
Jen 🙂
I love that idea – I hadn’t thought about pointing to our own family stories as a way to explore these issues. It is so important to keep those lines of connection open & visible – not only between our present lives and our family histories but also between ourselves and those who seem to be “other.”
Some of the comments especially made me think of the fact that something like nursing here in Israel has really lousy salaries compared to hi-tech jobs or sports or many other things. I really feel that it’s very telling about the priorities of the world when we look at what kind of jobs get higher salaries.
I also heard something really interesting once about the fact that our happiness after a certain point where our needs are met, has nothing to do with how much only WE have but rather how much money (and this things and experiences ) the people around us have.
Yes, it’s true – your comment about salaries reflecting cultural priorities. All the talk in the world about the importance of a given job (nursing, teaching, etc) doesn’t matter if the person doing that job can’t make a living wage. Your comment also reminds me that many of these jobs *were* well-paying and well-respected…when they were performed by men. As these occupations became feminized, wages & respect went down. Hm…. a coincidence? Methinks not!!