“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, stave 1
Like many people from a basically privileged background, I have a complicated relationship with poverty and homelessness. I mean, I’m against them, obviously, but when it comes to their eradication or even their alleviation, things can get a little … well, fraught. When I was little, and my dad was still in grad school, were definitely poor. Like foodstamps-and-subsidized-housing poor. Powdered-milk poor. In other words, grad-student-with-a-family-to-support poor. Which is a kind of poverty, for sure, and I’m sure it was stressful for my parents. But at the same time, as kids, my siblings and I never felt particularly deprived. We never had to worry about where our next meal was coming from, or where we’d be sleeping that night. We had clothes and shoes and enough money for school supplies. We were poor, but not destitute. Continue reading
