“I remember when I got my first job. My dad taught me how to negotiate my salary, set up my 401K, and make my first budget.”
“My mom is my best friend. Whenever hard things happen, I call her first.”
“Sure, I try and save. But I also know my parents are leaving my sisters and me a pretty hefty inheritance. So I prefer to spend my money on travel right now. You only live once, right?”
Each and every one of these statements is an honest-to-goodness comment I’ve had an acquaintance from my life say to me over the last five years.
And each and every one of these statements is an example of the parental privilege so many people who don’t come from relational trauma backgrounds hold and yet don’t often recognize.
Each and every one of these statements can be the sort of comment that can create pain, jealousy, and resentment. For those of us who do come from relational trauma backgrounds. Who are, very specifically, upwardly mobile and attempting to be a kind of first in our family. First to go to college, first to break the poverty cycle. To hold a professional job and navigate middle-class structures and systems. First to consciously and ardently attempt to raise our children in a non-traumatizing way, etc.
I wanted to shine a light on this specific experience when we hear comments like these.
It’s one of those “stings” that so many of us encounter on our relational trauma recovery journeys. Especially when we see others with parental privilege.
A reminder and a rekindling of grief and frustration that we ourselves don’t necessarily have the privilege of functional, healthy, devoted, and resourced parents and guardians to turn to when life gets hard, confusing, or complex.
Instead, many of us could never even dream of letting our children have a sleepover at their grandparents’ house. We have legitimate concerns about their physical and emotional safety.
In contrast, many of us have to work twice as hard for twice as long to save up pennies for a downpayment. (And that’s after we pay back the student loans we took out because goodness knows that wasn’t paid for.)
Instead of being able to turn to a parent and get exactly the emotional salve we need, we often get the opposite (if not the total absence) of what we needed.
Rather than being able to rely on grandparents for babysitting or a savvy parent to help guide us through making good financial decisions, we pay for our community and our supports. A vetted babysitter, a financial planner, and a trusted, safe therapist.
I want to acknowledge that you, like me, are upwardly mobile and on a relational trauma recovery journey. These kinds of contrast experiences with parental privilege can sometimes (okay, often) feel painful.
It’s normal and natural to imagine how much easier life would be if you did have healthy, functional parents to rely on for emotional, logistical, and financial support.
