Steve Almond explains what we learn when we learn to give.
Last year, my two older children launched an endeavor called the All Stars Animal Clinic. With the help of their friend Fiona, Josie, 8, and Judah, 6, devoted themselves to the veterinary care of creatures ranging from earthworms to injured birds. I’ve been privy to the All Stars’ various medical interventions because their headquarters is under the porch stairs outside my office.
Several months ago, the founders expanded their mission. As Josie explained it to me, rather breathlessly, “We’re going to make money and give it to poor people!”
I have no clue where they got this idea. I suspected that Fiona, who comes from a family of regular church goers, had put them up to it. But the kids insisted the plan was conceived spontaneously. Whatever the inspiration, All Stars has become a thriving charitable organization with multiple revenue streams. The kids have sold lemonade and healing crystals. They’ve babysat. They’ve scratched the backs of itchy parents.
I was so inspired by their good intentions and industry that I pledged to contribute $100 for every $1 they raised. A few weeks ago, the All Stars solemnly presented me with their endowment: $26. Gulp.
But a promise is a promise, particularly when that promise was issued to three child philanthropists. Our charity of choice was Doctors Without Borders.
As my wife will tell you, I am a devout cheapskate, the kind of guy who can spend 20 minutes anguishing over whether to purchase a cup of yogurt for $1.39 – before deciding not to. The strange thing about writing that check for the All Stars is that I never suffered a moment of regret. On the contrary, seeing my children act on their altruistic impulses has led me to think that I’ve been too selfish all along.
I’ve got a whole litany of excuses when it comes to why I don’t give more to charity. We’re a single-income family, freelance writing is a precarious career, we have three kids. These things are all true.
But it’s also true that my wife and I have enough money for all sorts of luxuries. We eat out. We send our kids to ballet and pottery classes. We occasionally shop at Whole Foods. None of these expenses feel exorbitant, partly because we live in a neighborhood where everyone enjoys the same basic standard of living.
When we assess our own socioeconomic status, we tend to use our richest friends as the frame of reference. (“Sure, we have two cars. But neither one is an SUV.”) We also spend a lot of time consuming images of celebrities – rubbernecking the lavish lives of CEOs, rock stars, and athletes – which further distorts how we view our financial stature.
What’s more, as Americans, we’re constantly reminded that the government is taking our taxes. We’ve come to view these payments as a form of public aid, rather than seeing them as an investment whose dividends include roadways, schools, clean water, law enforcement, and other necessities.
Amid this, we’ve lost sight of a simple fact: Being a member of the North American middle class confers material comforts unfathomable in most other precincts of the world. Our “tiny” cape bungalow, for instance, is packed with food and furniture and clothing and appliances and toys – so much stuff that we find ourselves packing a couple of bags a month for charity. I’m not sure I should even classify these donations as charity. They’re more like an effort to avoid being overrun by the unholy excess that we have come to accept as normal.
My mind keeps wandering back to my first job out of college, as a reporter at the El Paso Times. I had no idea that El Paso was on the Mexican border until I arrived there. Having grown up in a leafy Northern California suburb, I’d never considered what life might be like for a citizen of Mexico.
My fourth-floor apartment included a view of the Rio Grande, across which day maids from Ciudad Juárez would wade at dawn with plastic bags on their heads. They would scramble up the concrete embankment to the U.S. side and pull their dry work clothes out of these plastic bags. Sometimes, it was cold and they shivered. Sometimes, immigration authorities in a green van would show up and chase them through the low desert scrub.
One day, a woman named Lupe showed up outside my apartment with her daughter. She was a friend of a friend, in need of food and clothing for her children, one of whom, a cute little girl of perhaps seven, stood behind her. Lupe had snuck across the border with her daughter to beg rich gringos like me for help. My girlfriend and I gave her as much food and clothing as she could carry. We would have given her everything in our apartment. Why not? We could always get more.
That was the lesson that El Paso taught me: Those of us with the good fortune to be born on the banks of what Kurt Vonnegut called “the money river” could always get more.
I suspect the question of charity would feel less fraught if I’d grown up in a religious home. After all, nearly every religion enforces some form of almsgiving. My family was technically Jewish but nearly secular. Jewish law requires adherents to contribute 10 percent of their income to worthy deeds or causes, with the central aim of promoting self-sufficiency. These allotments aren’t considered charity, though. The term used in the Torah is tzedakah, which means something more like “righteousness.” The idea is that giving this money isn’t an act of benevolence, but the fulfillment of an obligation.
Charity isn’t a panacea: Throwing money at the world’s problems will not change the larger systems of inequality that keep so many bound in poverty while others live amid vast wealth. Such a transformation requires social and political action – a dedication to economic justice, and to the movements and leaders who share that goal.
I don’t want to sound like a raving radical here. I’m not calling for some kind of class warfare. I’d describe the goal as practical humanism, the basic compassion that Jesus preached in his Sermon on the Mount.
And it has to begin at home.
Over the past few months, between chasing down our toddler and getting our older kids ready for school, my wife and I have been discussing what our goals should be. We’ve agreed that we need to reconnect to the church we were attending before our third child came along, a congregation that stressed service work and civic engagement. We also want our children to understand that social responsibility goes beyond collecting money for the needy. It’s a larger recognition that we bear some moral responsibility for the suffering of people we might never see.
As for whether we’ll actually give 10 percent of our income away, we’re not there yet. I’m constantly reminded by other parents that expenses grow as children do. Then again, if our kids can part with 100 percent of their discretionary income, we can do better ourselves. And we will. — Steve Almond