Money Is Hard To Enjoy When You Grew Up Poor
The currency connecting me with my mother, my partner, and Florence and the Machine
A year before I was born, my mom left the Comoro Islands — an archipelago northwest of Madagascar — and half my family to start a better life in France. My early childhood memories are hazy, but I know we lived at the bottom of the wealth pyramid and had to rely on charities to get the bare minimum, like accommodation and food.
Growing up poor, I believed we could spend money solely in three ways. First, we needed money for accommodation and food, the bare minimum for us to survive. Second, I knew money could bring comfort. That kind of privilege could go from a new TV, video game console, or a bigger fridge, all the way to new bedsheets, an indulgent bedtime snack, or a memory card for a PlayStation 2 — I still don’t know how my mom acquired that. Third, money could provide experiences. I grew up believing this kind of spending was abstract, intangible, and a waste of money. From traveling the world to going to the cinema, spending money on things you couldn’t keep or hold felt pointless.
As a penniless first-generation immigrant, I convinced myself that the value of currency meant the power to buy. Poverty crippled me with tunnel vision that allowed my brain only one option —…
