In my teens, when i would refer to being from the Middle Class, i would always be corrected by my parental units, the Kids, most particularly the paternal one, the Cow:
“Middle class?! US?!! That term is for rich, white-collared professionals, like doctors, lawyers, teachers, and their families, not us?” One income, blue-collar machinist’s family.”
I’d fight it, as all good, politically-minded, obstinate teens are like to do. My parental units may have had a point, but like Gina Crosley-Corcoran’s article on explaining the subtleties of white privilege (linked below), the Kids could’ve used the explanation for class that Crosley-Corcoran offers up:
“These are all things you are born into, not things you earned, that afford you opportunities that others may not have. For example:
Class: Being born into a financially stable family can help guarantee your health, happiness, safety, education, intelligence, and future opportunities.” “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person.”
I’m living the embodiment of that explanation, and again challenging the Kids’ idea that we are not a middle-class family as i rush to the hospital now. Here’s how the last hour and a bit has played out.
5:05 p.m. receive the call at the office from Kids’ GP’s technician, Nadia, that the mother unit has been rushed to the hospital to have her left leg checked out for phlebitis and a potential blood clot. She is being driven there by my 86 year old father, she herself is 82 years old. They have been married just about 55 years, and together for nearly 60! They are survivors of many a health scare, so many in fact, that they could be case studies in a medical text/journal. Their combined ailments read like a cheat sheet for a medical exam: thymoma (cancer of the thymus), hypertension, arrhythmia, varicose veins, diabetes, triple bypass, prostate cancer, dementia/Alzheimer’s, tinnitus, glaucoma, osteoarthritis, gout, cellulitis, … , but they still continue to live fulfilling lives in a comfortable home that was long since paid for, with investments and pensions to keep them comfortable, and well cared for, throughout the balance of their lives. I like to say, part of the advantage of marrying and starting a family later in life, is that you can fully reap the rewards of a two-income family, with fewer bills, for a longer period of time, but i’d be naive to not include in that, part of the advantage of being in the Canadian middle-class, is with the benefits of OHIP, none of the above ailments have crippled my family financially, when they might have if we’d lived elsewhere.
I’m able to commute from my job at the university to the hospital for relatively no cost, as I have a discounted TTC Metro-pass for a flat monthly rate. I actually have a pretty good seat on the subway so i can download my thoughts, which is especially nice as I am practically going from one end of the line (and city) to the other – a far cry from the experience of being crushed while standing one morning this week, listening to two other crushed commuters talking about how the Japanese have people who forcibly shove commuters on to the trains each day. I have access to the family vehicle weekly, but choose to live without a car, so i don’t have to deal with the hassles (costs of parking and insurance, not to mention gas) of having one in the heart of the city.
I’m also able to text my brother, still at work, using my iPhone while i am en route, to let him know what is going on. I’m listening to an iPod to try to relieve a portion of my stress, with the dark turn that the day has taken. I am using a pen and paper, because I’m able to, but also because although I have technology that I can also use for this purpose, I simply decided to leave the laptop at home today and the iPad at work, to lighten my load, as it were.
Earlier today I was able to place an order – over the phone – with the Union Pharmacy for the medication that my folks (a.k.a. the Kids) are running out of, so that it would be ready for pick-up later. Medication, that is completely covered by a combination of an insurance plan my father paid into while he was working, combined with a dispensing fee that the pharmacy waves for its “better” senior customers – truly an irony, as it should read “sicker” for how much medication they use.
On the bus now, the final leg in the journey to the hospital, and I can hear, see, and read the stops as we approach them, so I know exactly where I am, combined with the GPS on my iPhone, it’s very rare that I’m ever truly lost these days.
(*Excerpt from an offline journal on that tumultuous day May – Thursday, May 21, 2015.)