Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: feeling shame/guilt

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

Thanks for your clarification, Racheli. It got me to thinking. Why didn't it
occur to me that there would be shame/guilt involved? I certainly have felt
it at various times in my life with money.

I think the answer lies in the fact that when we make decisions about money
in SSPCH, it always seems to be about money *style*, rather than who has or
doesn't have it. For instance, one family, with plenty of money to send two
children to private school, always complains about any amount we want to
spend on something less than utilitarian. They seem incapable of enjoying
money at all, and they are not by any means poor. Other people feel like our
pooled resources are a license to print money. Again, not related to how
much they have. When I think of money issues in my own community, it's not
in relationship to my own resources, but to the community as a whole.

Perhaps that is the answer to this question. When the decisions are made
together, an individual's resources are irrelevant.

Liz

> From: racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com (Racheli Gai)
> 
> Liz wrote (in part):
> 
>> I'm not sure why you've brought this whole guilt/shame angle into the
>> conversation at all, Racheli. I feel that people are bringing a lot of
>> cultural baggage into this discussion that is unnecessarily demeaning
>> about poor people. I know of nobody in my community who is ashamed of
>> being poorer than anyone else here.
> 
> Liz, first of all, I just brought it as a theoretical possiblity.  I
> didn't say that I know people who feel that way, I was saying that this
> is, on the conceptual level, a possibility.
> 
> [On a personal note: I know, BTW, what it is to be "poor" (compared to
> others who have more).  As a growing child and teen ager, I DID feel
> embarassment about this.  Ideally, I shouldn't have, but I did.   So, when
> I bring this as a possibility, it's somewhat out of my own past
> experience].
> 
> R.

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