GoFundMe: Middle-Class Virtual Panhandling or Community at its Finest?

I have seen all the GoFundMe posts on Facebook. One friend just was having a hard time paying bills, another had a friend who needed help paying funeral expenses, still another had a pet who needed medical care. I've rolled my eyes and internally thought that I have to pay my bills why don't they have to pay theirs? Or I haven't had money to contribute. For whatever reason, I've seldom helped, but I have a few times. I feel similarly when I see someone panhandling on the street. But I honestly feel more compassion for the panhandler...until now anyway. I can't imagine being in a situation so dire that I had no option but to stand on a corner and beg strangers for spare change. That has to hurt to be there. I'm there.

Two years ago I got divorced. I've mostly done really well, and I'm no longer emotionally grieving the death of that marriage. However, doing the parenting and bills thing alone is really, really tough. I made decent money at my last job, but it was just barely not enough. I have amazing parents who have helped me more times than I can count. I got a new job about a year and a half ago. A great job, really. It was demanding, though, and at a time that I didn't have enough to give to my child and a demanding job. I lapsed on my antidepressant pills, and before I knew it, I was in quite a spiral. I began to emerge from that spiral in January....but it was too late. Coupled with some other factors, it led to my being unemployed.

My son turned 10 this last October. I had been managing my mortgage pretty well up to that point...and all my other bills. I would slip behind a bit on the mortgage but catch up. I took my son out of town to celebrate his bday and spent waaaaay too much money on him. I knew it was stupid, but I needed to celebrate him in a big way. I figured I could catch up. Only I had gone one month too far-the mortgage company would no longer let me pay a month's worth. I had to pay 2-3 month's worth or not at all. Anyone who has lived paycheck to paycheck knows this is a profound struggle. I didn't have it...so the money got spent elsewhere. I kept thinking I would catch up. And I was still depressed on top of that.

Late December/early January, I decided it was time to drag myself out of this hole. I began trying to take my medicine more regularly. I began taking care of bills I had been neglecting. I was making plans at work to bring more and more A game. And then I found myself with no income. I was crushed.

I have a part time temporary job that I got 2 days after I lost my job. I had one more check from my last job. This weekend marked the first missing paycheck...or lower one, I guess. And my mortgage company finally set some dates that they are taking my house back. I contacted them and asked what I could do. They gave me an amount I have top pay very very soon to get my house out of foreclosure. It is far more than I can scrounge together. It is more than my generous parents can give me or even loan me.

So I stuffed my pride way down low and made a GoFundMe page. It feels like asking strangers (though it's really friends and families) to give me spare change even though they have to work to pay their bills. I have received a few donations. I am so unbelievably grateful for my friends that have donated the little bit they can....it means so much to me and my son. To those offering sympathy, thank you. To those who think their 5 or 10 dollars wouldn't help, it would. To those judging me, I get it.

To answer the title question, I think the answer is yes. It is a bit like panhandling. I screwed up. I'm asking you to help me fix the problem I made. But it's also an opportunity for my family and friends to show me compassion and come together to help me better myself...to learn from my mistake. I know my viewpoint will be so different next time I see someone asking for help through a social funding site.

My GoFundMe Campaign: Save Our Family Home

The "F" word

Feminism. It's become such a trigger word in our society. My girlfriends, my daughter, my sister, and I wear it as a proud badge. To us, it means something important. It truly is about equality. I wrote what I hoped would be the beginning of a book (maybe it still will be) a year or two ago. I think it's even more important now.

I sat with a group of friends a few nights ago. The three of us chatted over adult beverages and 
appetizers. We talked about motherhood, jobs, husbands, fitness, money, the gamut! It struck me more 
than once the manner in which we would rail against the injustice of some condition of the modern 
woman in one breath and dismiss it as something we must just bear in the other.

My friend, the fitness instructor, complains nearly every time we talk about her job that the women talk 
badly about her. And worse, that every person who enters the gym where she works is so unhappy. 
No matter the level of fitness, they all are unhappy with their bodies. She wants to help them feel better
mentally and physically through exercise, but she feels she is only helping them and herself feel more
miserable. Then she sighs, sips her margarita, and moves to the next topic. I’ll confess I wanted to hear
her excitedly tell me about how she has thought of some new techniques to help them love themselves
more. She did not. I don’t know if this is because she fears it won’t be accepted, she does not want to
put in the effort, or that the disappointments and many practical responsibilities of life have rendered her
unable to catch that spark of idealism. I fear it’s the latter. Or maybe I’m just too idealistic. Maybe she's
tried and got stopped short by the trappings of bureaucracy.

These two same friends live feminism in a way that I find both intriguing and inspirational. They choose 
whether they work outside the home or not, and financial considerations are not their only motivations. 
They are both great moms that don’t parent by the rule book. And, though they’re great friends, they 
aren’t afraid to disagree or criticize each other.  In a few weeks, they will embark on a 5 week camping 
trip with their respective children. Their husbands will join them for portions of the adventure, but they will 
do most of it without them. We are not talking campers and hotel back-up plans, either. They have 
reserved campsites, sealed tents (I don’t even know how one seam seals a tent!), and even planned 
sleeping arrangements within their vehicles for the long drives. Accompanying these moms are SIX 
children ages ranging from 5 to 10!

Once they were on a smaller camping trip and had a flat tire. They fixed it themselves (I think AAA might 
have been involved), but were asked many questions along the way about how they were able to do so. Not just 
questions about the tire; questions about how they were camping without their men! This is one of the 
most poignant and personal expressions of feminism I’ve ever encountered.

Shouldn’t feminism be personal? Few people would suggest that everyone should have the exact same 
job for exactly the same pay, wear exactly the same clothes, or otherwise live cloned lives. Yet too many 
times, that’s what feminism becomes. We must all work outside the home and become executives. We 
must all dress modestly or dress immodestly (depending on which message we’re sending this month). 
I am not suggesting that these are not noble efforts to gain awareness and equality. I am instead 
suggesting that we personalize feminism.

Feminism and the fight for women’s rights has been compared to and linked with the civil rights struggle 
of people of color in this nation. What is the story most told about the civil rights movement? What really 
grabbed the attention of the nation and our history books? Rosa Parks on the bus. Or a random person 
being denied a seat at a lunch counter. Were these the greatest issues facing people of color in the 
South in the 1960s? I dare say not! Of course we are aware of voting rights, lynchings, disappearances, 
and other travesties, but it is so often boiled down to the very personal experiences of eating, drinking, 
sitting on a bus, and using a toilet. 

How can we apply that to feminism? Let’s start talking about what feminism means to each one of us. 
Not in a pedantic way that suggests what works for one woman works for all women. Let’s share our 
experiences and how we overcame our internal fears. Let’s share the times that we have felt 
persecuted and how we moved past it.