In the past I always operated with the idea that if I do things well enough in the present moment, that if I am RIGHT and PROPER in my actions, then everything in the long term would sort itself out.
I call this the Middle Class Coasting mindset. Financial crises were a staple of my childhood, true, but even those were a function of this mindset. My parents came to the middle class from radically different backgrounds and circumstances, but both had the mid-20th century expectation that being middle class was a comfort zone. That, having found their economic place in the world, it was assured and would be simple to maintain.
Neither had ever been taught money management, and neither believed that it would be particularly necessary. Poppa had a good income (and then a great retirement) from the USAF as an officer, they had health insurance, and they owned property. They were solidly white, middle class adults who fully expected that their financial baseline was set in stone. They believed that working for more was all that would be necessary in order to get more. Since neither particularly wanted to work for more, they didn’t bother. After all, they didn’t have to worry about the long term, since everything would just work itself out, right?
How this unravels: Financial crises were not prepared for. Digging out of the after effects of a financial crisis (or three) was a complete mystery. The idea that we would even need to do so was unfathomable, and when it was necessary, it was handled poorly. My parents completely expected for financial problems to be temporary and that simply “showing up” was all they needed to do in order to live the middle class life they assumed belonged to them. Even as our finances crumbled around us, as we slid further and further down the economic scales into truly dangerous territory, they went to their graves believing that all they needed was a soft wind to right our sails and put us back on course.
The Middle Class Coasting mindset is predicated on the idea that the base-line for prosperity and stability is set, and that no matter what happens, that will not change. That no catastrophe could ever be so great as to wipe you out completely. Therefore, all anyone needs to do is keep doing what they are doing in order for life to be swell.
Honestly, for some people, that is true (it helps, is required even, for them to be hetero-conforming cis-gendered white people born to the middle class already). They do not need long term plans beyond what is expected of any middle class person, such as a college degree and a marriage and a house and a “career” and maybe some kids and a 401k. Everything they do works out from those points of the compass and they sail into retirement with a boat and a beach-side condo. Maybe a cheap boat and a one-bedroom condo on a B-grade beach, but it counts. They made it!
For so many of the rest of us, not so much.
If you don’t start out middle class to begin with, it’s damn near impossible these days to get there. In 2017 The Atlantic published an article titled “Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong” — and that list of what can go wrong is obscenely long.
There are workarounds, mostly based on social privilege. If, like me, you start out roughly in the middle class before you sink into poverty as an adult, then you’ve got a lot to work with, especially if you are white. Since I was a white woman with a college degree and all the “right” social/work skills, I kept afloat and then, eventually, sailed into grad school and professional career.
Still took 15+ years.
During all of that time, as I floundered in the poverty-tide, I did not have the mental wherewithal or even just the basic skills to plan for my long-term. By the point I was in deep financial straits, long-term plans looked ridiculous and pointless. Who can plan for the long term when you are facing eviction? (True story.)
On top of that, there was the idea that if I did things correctly like I should, the long term would just happen.
Well. To be fair, part of that is true: the long-term in our lives, if we live long enough, does indeed happen.
One way or another.
For whatever reason, that truth did not hit me until earlier this year. Yes, at 48 years old, it finally sunk in that the thing many other people do is probably something I need to consider. To wit: plan for the long term by making changes and investments now.
I spent most of my life, even in the depths of poverty, naively assuming that financial stability and even financial prosperity would just somehow happen in my life by doing the things I’m “supposed” to do by the standards of MCC syndrome. Of course, this is totally wrong, and actually defeatist. Entropy is a thing and it happens to all of us in so, so many ways.
My parents’ entire lives are testaments to that, sadly.
