Workingman's Wife: Dollar Decisions

Everyday decisions to buy this, postpone buying that, and consider more seriously what to do about a clanking refrigerator take place within the context of purchases already made, ones long planned for, certain overall conceptions of oneself and one's family economically, and certain habitual ways of managing the family's income. These hard facts and psychological fancies form the backdrop against which those day-to-day purchases which constitute the flow of goods from store to working class home are acted out. If we are to understand why it is that the working class housewife buys the things she does, when she does and in the way that she does we need to know something about the particular economically relevant context in which her consuming decisions are made.

Working class women, like most American women, are somewhat discontented with their financial status. However, they express more "absolute" discontent than do middle class women, whose discontent is more nearly "relative." The former do not admit that their dissatisfaction is rooted in human nature as do the latter; they do not blame their dissatisfaction on any human weakness to "want more no matter how much you already have." Working class housewives genuinely feel that their incomes are inadequate for participation in many of the normal activities of American life, like being in afternoon clubs, taking "nice" vacations every year, going "out on the town" in the evening every now and then, or stocking their homes as well as they would like. Middle class women believe their incomes are sufficient to any of these purposes, and they proudly point out that their participation or rejection in any of these so-called "normal activities" is more a matter of personal preference than financial considerations.

Most working class women realistically assess their families' incomes as average or a little bit below. Few think of themselves as being much above average (even when their husbands have some of the higher-paying working class jobs). It is not that they believe they are particularly disadvantaged compared to their neighbors and other average people; rather, it is that they feel their incomes just are not large enough to cover the things they think they should buy, and are entitled to have. They tend to think of themselves as people for whom ends meet, but not as comfortably as they should, and sometimes the ends are made to meet by a sacrifice in the mid-section.

Thus, working class women have a strong psychic sense of money deprivation in spite of their relatively good incomes. In comments about their economic position, we find a persistent theme of not having enough to go around, yet we know that they have close to average incomes for their community, and that they amass a respectable quantity of goods. Overall, this sense of economic deprivation seems, to the outside observer, primarily relative. One of its main sources lies in the avidity with which they consume, and the strong desires they have for material well-being.

In the section on the working class wife's relationship to the associational apparatus of American society we noted that they typically claim that they neither have the time nor the money to take part in clubs. These women feel their homes and families come first. They honestly feel they cannot afford to be "club-type women," and this creates some dissatisfactions with their "economic lot in life."

I don't go to clubs because I can't afford the time or money. It's hard to go anyplace when you have small children. I just can't afford to pay babysitters.

I don't have the time or money or whatever it takes. Most of your people in clubs are the kind who have lots of money and can throw fancy parties.

Clubs are outside of my reach financially. I won't join as long as I have to hire a baby-sitter.

There's too much money involved in one way or another, and we just plain don't have it.

For the same reasons that these wives feel they cannot afford club meetings during the afternoon, they cannot afford to go out to parties with their husbands in the evenings.

We don't do much at all. We haven't the money to spend going out, much less the price of a baby-sitter.

Right now we don't have much money to do anything social with -- so we don't go visiting much, and people don't to come here either. Most of the people we know are about like us that way.

One solution to this problem is suggested by a woman who described her family's favorite recreation in these terms:

Our family likes nothing better than a drive out in the country. It's good, cheap recreation -- and no baby-sitters to worry about. We just pack a lunch and go.

Working class women also experience the same feeling of financial inability with respect to "taking vacations" or "going out in the evening." Their husbands are not paid enough during the work year

to permit their saving a substantial enough amount for a vacation. ("We just stick around the house and relax. That's the only way we can get by on his vacations-we don't have enough money left.")

These women sometimes complain of lean holidays, and of a lack of opportunity to privately "celebrate" much on other days of the year.

We've had so much sickness and doctor bills to pay this last year that we wouldn't have had much Christmas or Thanksgiving if my mother hadn't sent us a little extra money. That way we did get to do a few things that otherwise we couldn't afford.

One reason that working class people are "family-type people" is that it is cheaper that way. If some complain that, "if it weren't for all the relatives I keep giving money to, I might be well off," others must surely be "better off" precisely because they have got relatives.

The pervasive concern over their economic status is also shown in a widely-scattered group of remarks which are presented here to illustrate this general point. A woman observes, for example, that "it's cheaper to live in summer" as the principal difference between the seasons.

It's cheaper...in summer. We can eat outdoors quite often. It doesn't cost us so much to stay outside in the evening. We don't use up all that electric power. But now in the winter we're confined inside and use up all those electric appliances -- like TV, that's on most of the evening.

Another cites as her reason for maintaining a church membership the belief that a minister makes a good "credit reference."

One reason church is so important is that most places you go to ask for a loan they wonder what church you go to. Your pastor can come to your assistance if you've been going to his church a while.

Another woman feels that her grocery bills are problem enough to her without a husband adding to the miseries by bringing extra guests in for dinner.

A husband oughtn't to bring men from work in for meals. A wife has a hard enough time figuring out how she'll get through the week with the groceries.

We do not wish to imply with these quotations and references that all working class housewives are overwhelmed by the inadequacy of their financial resources. Some of them live in very pleasant homes and are able to take vacation trips to Miami every other winter. However, more of them experience the sensation of not having enough money than the opposite one of having plenty to go around. Many are not bowed down by the weight of their financial problems; instead they use this as a challenge to their creative enterprise. If some of them were forced by economic necessity to spend a few of their early married years in stale and stuffy rented apartments, this experience seems only to have whetted their appetities for "do-it-yourself" projects once they have reached the state of home ownership.

In summer there is yard work to keep us busy, then in winter time we try to do things inside the house so we can have time in summer to enjoy the out-of-doors. We lived in an apartment so long that we really enjoy working in our own back yard. We do a lot of puttering here and there fixing up the inside too. My husband figures he can get quite a bit done on his vacation if he keeps busy.

Source: Workingman's Wife; Her Personality, World and Life Style