I've had three people recently look at me like I have two heads because of a way of seeing the world that makes perfect sense to me.
Dh's mom keeps bugging us to buy a bigger house nearer her (we live all of nine blocks away, that's apparently an unreasonable distance
). The thing is, we'd love to do it if we had the money, but we don't! She'll be all, "My neighbors are about to put their house on the market for only [insert twice what we can afford], you should check it out!" And I'm like, "WHERE DO YOU THINK WE ARE GOING TO GET THE MONEY FROM!?!?!?!?!?" Dh said to me that it isn't that she's delusional about how much we make, it's that she is more comfortable taking on debt than we are. Which is why she's still working even though she's nearly 67 and had planned on retiring two years ago. Yeah. I'm not going there. (Yes, I realize the economic crash was not MIL's fault. Just, you can't expect your plans to work out if they revolve around the economy always being good.)
Then, just this week, it happened twice more. I was telling a co-worker that dh would like to go back to school but we can't possibly afford to pay the bills without his full-time income, so he's going to wait until I'm out of school and hopefully making enough money to cover the bills. She asked, Why don't you just take out student loans? I was stunned. I managed to stammer, "Um, debt makes me break out in a rash."
I mean, our only debt is the $32,000 we owe on our house and it bugs the heck out of me that we even owe that. I can't stand the thought of owing somebody something.
Finally, I openly admit that if I had my 'druthers, I would give birth to baby #2 in the same hospital with the same OB who helped me give birth to baby #1 (when we were still on Medicaid from dh having been unemployed), because that OB is a rock star and the staff are wonderful and I like being waited on hand and foot and not having to worry about what happens if I poop in bed during labor. Okay, I don't openly admit the poop part. But I admit that I'd prefer to have a hospital birth. However, we have no maternity coverage on our health insurance (which takes up an entire paycheck for me, btw) and there is absolutely no way we can afford to pay for a hospital birth out of pocket, so I'm planning a homebirth.
I was explaining this to a friend, and she told me she thought I was INCREDIBLY brave. I recited the spiel about home birth being just as safe as hospital birth, I have some non-medical pain relief techniques, and if anything does go wrong, I have trained midwives who will intervene if necessary. Plus, I live two blocks from a hospital (NOT the one I would like to give birth in) so if I was about to die or something they'd have me there in about thirty seconds. My friend said, I know about the safety part, it's just that most people wouldn't even think about having a homebirth, they'd go into debt to have a hospital birth. And I was like
Because I'm the opposite, there's no way I'm going into debt to pay for something that's not necessary.
So am I smart, weird, un-American, or what? I like the debt rash idea. I'm just allergic to debt, that's the only explanation I can think to give people.
Dh's mom keeps bugging us to buy a bigger house nearer her (we live all of nine blocks away, that's apparently an unreasonable distance
). The thing is, we'd love to do it if we had the money, but we don't! She'll be all, "My neighbors are about to put their house on the market for only [insert twice what we can afford], you should check it out!" And I'm like, "WHERE DO YOU THINK WE ARE GOING TO GET THE MONEY FROM!?!?!?!?!?" Dh said to me that it isn't that she's delusional about how much we make, it's that she is more comfortable taking on debt than we are. Which is why she's still working even though she's nearly 67 and had planned on retiring two years ago. Yeah. I'm not going there. (Yes, I realize the economic crash was not MIL's fault. Just, you can't expect your plans to work out if they revolve around the economy always being good.)Then, just this week, it happened twice more. I was telling a co-worker that dh would like to go back to school but we can't possibly afford to pay the bills without his full-time income, so he's going to wait until I'm out of school and hopefully making enough money to cover the bills. She asked, Why don't you just take out student loans? I was stunned. I managed to stammer, "Um, debt makes me break out in a rash."
I mean, our only debt is the $32,000 we owe on our house and it bugs the heck out of me that we even owe that. I can't stand the thought of owing somebody something.Finally, I openly admit that if I had my 'druthers, I would give birth to baby #2 in the same hospital with the same OB who helped me give birth to baby #1 (when we were still on Medicaid from dh having been unemployed), because that OB is a rock star and the staff are wonderful and I like being waited on hand and foot and not having to worry about what happens if I poop in bed during labor. Okay, I don't openly admit the poop part. But I admit that I'd prefer to have a hospital birth. However, we have no maternity coverage on our health insurance (which takes up an entire paycheck for me, btw) and there is absolutely no way we can afford to pay for a hospital birth out of pocket, so I'm planning a homebirth.
I was explaining this to a friend, and she told me she thought I was INCREDIBLY brave. I recited the spiel about home birth being just as safe as hospital birth, I have some non-medical pain relief techniques, and if anything does go wrong, I have trained midwives who will intervene if necessary. Plus, I live two blocks from a hospital (NOT the one I would like to give birth in) so if I was about to die or something they'd have me there in about thirty seconds. My friend said, I know about the safety part, it's just that most people wouldn't even think about having a homebirth, they'd go into debt to have a hospital birth. And I was like
Because I'm the opposite, there's no way I'm going into debt to pay for something that's not necessary.So am I smart, weird, un-American, or what? I like the debt rash idea. I'm just allergic to debt, that's the only explanation I can think to give people.
: But I do agree that it is a good benefit.
