Class Acts

Gratitude 3/292026

I am grateful for the gift of a new day.
My heart is filled with gratitude for the many blessings I have.
I will appreciate the small joys and express my thanks in all circumstances.
Let my attitude of gratitude bring joy to others.

I am so grateful for people who recognize and accept people who are not in their social economic class.

I have long thought of and experienced some of the great social equilizers in the United States, social structures and institutions that ignore class distinctions. That includes public schools, the military, social service institutions like Medicare and Social Security, and the judicial system.

I went to public schools, as did my children. And I taught in the public schools. In public schools there are efforts to group students based on their grade level and abilities. There are programs for children with learning disabilities and programs for gifted students. But there are no programs in American public schools beyond geography that group students by their socioeconomic class.

Growing up I really wasn’t aware of kids who came from money and those whose families struggled. Both of my parents worked for most of my childhood. I knew there were families in which the mother was a homemaker and was engaged in volunteer activities at school. I knew there were families that got a new car every couple of years. I knew kids whose parents had both gone to college, and others whose parents were in business. But I didn’t think a lot about it. In Northern Virginia in the 1960s, there were lots of people who were in the military or who worked for the government. So I believed that everyone was a member of the middle class. Some might be better money managers than others, but we were all playing by the same rules.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I became more aware of people who came from money. There were some students who had gone to private schools, had traveled internationally, and some whose families had interited money and property. But academic achievement to me was so much more of a differentiator than social status.

The military is also a huge equilizer. Up until 1973 when I was in college, every young man was considered for the draft. Some got out of the draft for physical issues, but the military made all abled-bodied young men regardless of how much money they had, eligible to be drafted.

My mother’s cousin, A.C. Metzger had been drafted into WWII. He was a conscientious objector, so he did not serve in combat, but he did serve in the army’s medical system in Bath, England. In some ways, it was the big adventure of this farm boy’s life. Even though when he came back from the war, he lived with his mother and tended the farm because his father had died, he had made life-long friends with everyone in his company, and held annual reunions. I don’t think he ever thought about how much money his war buddies made.

The judicial system in the United States is also founded as is the Constitution, that all people are created equal and no one is above the law. We have a system that guarantees equal justice. There is evidence that some people are not treated fairly and get harsh sentences for crimes that others get away with, but the system is designed to provide justice without fear or favor.

In the United States every one of us is endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. NO one is better or worse or more deserving than anyone else regardless of how much money or power they have. EVERY single one of us has an opportunity to live the American dream and even become President of the United States.

I am elated when people who come from very humble beginnings achieve high positions in business and government. It is inspirational when a lower middle class child raised by a single parent, becomes a U.S. Representative or Senator, or President! The best thing about this is when they refuse to forget how difficult some people have it because they lived that. They don’t pull the ladder up behind them and instead try to create a rising tide to lift all boats.

I have had periods of my life when I had very little money. Even though I had a good paying job, we wound up with a lot of loans and credit card debt. We never had anything repossessed, but I do know that it’s like to have my credit card declined and to constantly be moving money around to make sure nothing bounced.

We decided as my parents had done for me to send our children to colleges of their choice, the best college they could get into. We figured we would find a way to pay because we thought it was such an important experience to have. It’s frustrating that because of the roll back of state and federal government support for higher education so that it has become astronomically expensive, we’re still paying off college loans almost 20 years after our older daughter graduated. That’s a burden that my parent’s generation did not face. During the 50s and 60s, higher education was considered a national defense priority that the government wholeheartedly supported.

I don’t think ANYONE should be given something they did not work for and do not deserve. This includes people who could work, but choose not to, or people who turn to crime. It also includes people who have never worked a day in their lives because they inherited wealth. And it includes people who take advantage of their connections and arrange tax advantages and insider trading deals that are hidden from the vast majority of Americans. It is so repulsive that in a country founded on equal justice that some people take advantage of others, financially, using their power, or sexually, because they can get away with it.

I’m so grateful for those of us who appreciate the blessings that have been given to us and work to make life better for everyone.