You Don't Need Money To Be Happy

A few weeks ago, I had an interesting childcare job. My mom works for a nonprofit called the W.I.S.H. Program (that stands for Workforce Initiative for Supportive Housing). The program gets working, homeless families into supportive housing, pairs them with a social worker and a team of volunteers from a local church or organization, and works with them to develop money management and other skills.

I was called upon to help with childcare during one of their educational sessions, meaning my sister and I watched 6 kids ranging in age from 5 to 15, all of whom are or have been homeless. We played with the kids for a little while--timed races to complete a Disney princess puzzle were a big hit--and then they asked to watch a movie. After much debate, we finally chose the 2010 film Nanny McPhee Returns.

The entire plot of the movie isn't important here, so let me just say that part of the premise involves a poor family living and working on a farm while the father is fighting for Britain in WWII, but their wealthy cousins come from London to live with them and escape the bombings. As we watched the movie, several of the kids were full of questions, often making funny remarks about how gross it would be to live on a farm (though they're in a low income bracket, that is very different in the city than it would be in the country). When they kept asking about why the rich kids had to go live with them, my sister replied that the point was that they need to learn you don't need money to be happy.

Promptly, one of the girls responded, "Yes you do!" My sister and I replied again, saying that sometimes having too much money can be a bad thing, that rich people are sometimes even more depressed than poor people. The little girl argued with us for a minute, and then I stopped, because I realized something.

Of course I could say you don't need money to be happy. I'm currently in graduate school on a full tuition scholarship, my other financial needs met by my parents or money earned from a very generous field education stipend leftover from last summer. If I get into financial trouble, I can either go to my dad or dip into what's left of my college savings--because even though I've graduated college, there's still money in that account.

All my life I have struggled with my sense that it really might be a sin to be ridiculously wealthy. Of course, we need wealthy people to help the poor people...I guess. Although I've talked enough about redistribution of wealth to get called a socialist (check out this paper I wrote for a Public Policy course in undergrad on relational redistribution). Of course, all the intellectual and moral debate I can have over wealth and poverty and morals is irrelevant to an 8-year-old girl whose mother is just trying to keep a roof over her head.

So where do we go from here?