Summer 1969, hippies, peace and love, psychedelic colors, long-hair and bell-bottomed jeans. I was a pre-teen getting ready to go back to school. The May Company was the kind of department store where you could find all of the latest fashions and trends for back to school. It was a very common shopping place for the kids I went to school with.

I remember going shopping with mother at The May Company in Cleveland, Ohio. When we got there, instead of heading to the girlís department, we went to the basement. (I didnít realize it at the time, but this was the clearance area.) On the way out, we passed the girlís department and I begged my mom to let me go over and look at the clothes there. She was very nice and let me look, but also made it clear that I could not buy anything.

Bell-bottom pants and tie-dyed shirts; these were all the rage for girls my age at that time. I knew everyone would be wearing them and I didnít want to feel left out. Those years are very important in shaping a young girlís image of herself.

I saw you looking at that shirt. You know, the tie-dyed one. I knew all of your friends were wearing them and like all young girls, you wanted to dress like your friends. You donít know how much I wanted to buy it for you. But it really was just a T-shirt that had been tied with a string and dyed. There was no way I could justify the cost. I had already spent more than we budgeted for on new school clothes for you, your sister and brother.

That summer we moved to a new town (my sixth in 11 years.) I made many new friends there and of all the places I have lived, my fondest memories are from that area. As I entered my teen years my friends and I did what teenage girls did, we went shopping. But in reality they went shopping, I went looking. I usually responded to their questions of ìhow come youíre not buying that outfitî with a comment that went something like, ìit looked better on the hanger than me.î I was very good at hiding the fact that I was very disappointed that I could not buy anything.

I remember returning to school in the fall and listening to my classmates talk about their vacations. They would talk about going to Florida or California, or taking a cruise. My summers were spent at home. I only remember one summer vacation during my entire childhood and that was going to visit my grandmother. I felt left out of the conversations because I had nothing to tell.

Finances are hard to explain to children. But in our case, it is not being able to buy something particular or not, it is a philosophical difference between me and your father. I want to do whatís best for all of the family, but most of the time I give into your dad. He feels he has something he needs to prove. Things that are important to him are not necessarily important to me. He wants to live in communities that have prestige even though financially we cannot afford it. He believes if we live in these neighborhoods that people will think more of him than if we lived in a less prestigious neighborhood.

Growing up, we lived in middle to upper middle class neighborhoods. Most of my friendsí fathers were doctors, lawyers, or corporate executives. My dad was in middle management. I didnít realize until my mid-teen years, but my parents (at least my dad) wanted to be more than they were. We belonged to a different class of people than our neighbors and my friends.

I think this incident came to my mind because I now have a child who is about the same age as I was then. My oldest son is twelve and he could care less about whatís in ìstyleî. He doesnít want to have designer jeans or the ridiculously expensive tennis shoes. He claims that none of his friends care about those things. But pre-teens can be very cruel. And most of my sonís friends really do come from a different class than he does. I worry that he is being made fun of and he wonít tell me.

Maybe thatís why I remembered the incident in the store with the tie-dyed shirt. I wanted so much to be like the other kids. I didnít want to be laughed at for being different. But, I was different. I just didnít know it then. I am white. I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood. My family had a nice house. My friends lived in nice houses. Sure, some of their houses were nicer than ours, but to an eleven-year-old, the difference was not significant. The differences I saw were with the kids themselves. They always had new clothes and new shoes. Their parents had new cars. They took nice vacations every year. I also saw they way they treated the few ìpoorerî kids at school. There were snide remarks and laughs. Those kids werenít allowed to hang out with ìusî. My parents and I must have put on a pretty good front, because I was not considered one of the poor kids even though in reality I was.

I donít want to play that game when it comes to my own children. They are in a different class than a lot of their friends. My husband and I have never tried to hide that from them. They may not understand what that means, but they do understand that money doesnít grow on trees and there are a lot of people in the world that make significantly more money than my husband and I do. I wish my parents had been that forward with me.

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