How does wealth affect people?

Today I was such a weirdo. One of the mums at Isa's school invited us around for dinner. I expected the normal thing where you go to a normal middle class person's and eat french fries and hotdogs to keep the kids happy. Then we got there, and these people live in a MANSION. Which is the understatement of the year. The house has 10 bedrooms for one thing, and a dining table (at which we had to eat!) which seats about 80 people - MASSIVE. The woman is lovely lovely, totally down to earth and obviousl very at ease with her surroundings. But I found myself feeling utterly akward. I don't know why though. I like her as much now as before I went, but I stood there my mouth hung open; I always knew people could be rich, but I've never actually been confronted with it, i.e. been IN such a house, peeing in a bathroom with solid marble tiles and eating with genuine silver cutlery and such things. It was nuts and scary. Why does one feel like that?

that is a perfectly normal response to the newness of it all, ree. i used to have the same reaction as a kid to carpeting and air conditioning! maybe the reason it makes you feel bad or uncomfortable (?) is because the wealth makes you think of a class distinction, of us and them? i'd luv to have a home like that!

Ree, Money doesn't care who has it. Remember that and that you are equal in every way to the lady who was your hostess. I was raised in that atmosphere, and if my Mother had not entertained my friends and their Mothers, I would have ended up as a terrible snob - just like others I went to school with. Having money does not make you different - it is the attitude toward it that makes the difference. I thought we were poor...my Dad kept us on a tight budget and we had to account to him for what we had u ed the money. It was excellent training for the time when I did not have money and was newly married to a PhD at the bottom of the academic ladder. I now have all of the silver I could ever want and do not use it...but, it is lovely stuff and so nice to have. Ray, you'll get to that sized house - if you still want one that big. The one I grew up in was huge and without 3 daughters to help her (no hired help though my father could have well afforded it) it would have been impossible to keep the place as lovely as it was. I never aspired to a huge house - way too much for me, I'm afraid!

let's see... if Brandon and I were independently wealthy... our house wouldn't change nor would many of our other material things... but you can bet that last dollar we'd RARELY be home! I'd spend it all on travel and new experiences!! Lots of money affords people more choices IMHO and it's interesting to see what choices people make.

I think I'd go for travel too. I never want to feel as lost as I felt that day in my own home.

I can empathise with the feeling Ree. I felt like that coming back to England from Africa. I don't know whether self-image comes into it too. I decided ages ago that poverty is relative. In Britain I'm not rich, advertising, other people's homes etc make me aware of what I haven't got, but in Africa relatively speaking I'm very rich. In Cameroon when I was staying in a village with a family I hid half the (few) clothes I'd taken and was glad all my undies were the same colour, because I was so embaras ed by what I had. Yet, we all have aspirations, and that's not wrong. I aspire to have a really good computer that does all I need it to - oh, and a printer that can print photos!

That's a good one! I agree that it must be relative. I mean, I've never thought of myself as poor; my kids don't have to make do with second-hand clothes or toys, if I need something I can go out and buy it and so on. I'm defenitely alot better off financially than I was in Africa. But when I stood in that great big house and imagined the kind of money and effort that must go into it (my friend doesn't have a cleaning lady) I just thought to myself: does she own the house, or does the house own her? That's what scared me. I don't ever want to be owned by anything.

I agree. Don't you think that 'simplicity' is difficult though? It seems (to me!) to be more difficult to live a simple uncluttered life than a materialistic cluttered one. Recently my TV died, my car got totalled and my hard disk did something stupid (well, I own up it me was me actually). I felt bereft, angry, and then angry at myself for being so dependent on these 'things'. Yet, how to detach from being oned by them?

Being owned by one's house is precisely something i can relate to. Most frightening when storms tear off your roof and your bank account is modest. The obligations are enormous... Love the horizontal bars in here. Are they new, as well???

Defenitely. Maggie, I think that money corrupts, fulstop. I mean, I live ALOT more modestly than my friend, so I can say that people richer than me are corrupted by money, because they 'need' to live in luxury, whereas I know that one can be perfectly content without owning a flashy car and house. But then again there are alot of people who are ALOT worse off and that doesn't kill them either. So in theory I can give perhaps at least half my income to charity organizations to make life easier for those poorer than me. But I feel like I 'can't', because I don't know how I'd manage (even though others do). So I'm corrupted even by the modest means that I have.

I find myself reacting to the word 'corrupted', perhaps because I don't want to feel I am! Society does put an enormous pressure on the individual, most of which we don't realise. We are pressured to conform whether it's in body shape,attitudes or possessions. It takes a lot to resist that pressure and say 'I like the way I am, I have enough I don't need more'. I think this about more than money, although, obviously it has a lot to do with it. I was amazed once when we got some windfall shares at how m ch of a hold they had on me. I kept checking the market to see if they'd gone up or down. In the end I got rid of them because I didn't like the feeling. Perhaps if I'd had a lot it wouldn't have mattered. I don't know, but it felt uncomfortable. There's a lot of difference between knowing and feeling! I can know that I can live simply, but feelings make me 'feel' I can't get rid of everything. We're 'de-cluttering' at the moment preparing to move again to Africa next year. It's a sort of grief pr cess. Can't get away from those feelings. Need to recognise them and work through them.

Subject: Money Money can buy a house but not a home. Money can buy a bed but not sleep. Money can buy a clock but not time. Money can buy a book but not knowledge. Money can buy food but not an appetite. Money can buy position but not respect. Money can buy blood but not life. Money can buy medicine but not health. Money can buy sex but not love. Money can buy insurance but not safety. You see, money is not everything. Therefore, if you have too much, please, send it to me, immediately.