gold digger attitudes

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As something of a specialist in socioeconomic status, I could rant against these ideas at great length, but suffice it to say:

What kind of man would your husband be with untold millions? What kind of person would you be?

The wealthy people I most admire are those who are deeply invested in bettering the community around them. Hell, that's true for the poor people I admire most, too, but the wealthy have the capital to really make a difference. Are you and your husband going to use your means to fund early childhood education programs, keep the arts running, find the cure for ebola? Or is keeping up with the Joneses the furthest horizon of your undergraduate ambitions?

I don't care if you're in a tacky McMansion in Lehi or Jordan Belfort, I honestly think that if money for its own sake is your raison d'être and you're over the age of 23, you have some growing up to do. You can make a real difference in people's lives whether you're in a crappy dorm in Provo or a penthouse in Paris. It all comes down to what you do with the education that you're presumably lucky enough to be getting, heavily subsidized, at BYU.

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Here are some thoughts for those struggling with this idea of upward mobility and its moral discontents, or who may push back against my advice, gleaned from Conference talks.

A worthy woman personifies the truly noble and worthwhile attributes of life. A faithful woman can become a devoted daughter of God—more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish, more anxious to exercise compassion than to exercise dominion, more committed to integrity than to notoriety. And she knows of her own infinite worth.

Each faithful young woman in the Church proclaims that individual worth is one of her most cherished values. She declares,

“I am of infinite worth with my own divine mission which I will strive to fulfill.”

(Personal Progress, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989, p. 7.) Each daughter of God is of infinite worth because of her divine mission.

There seems to be a particularly insidious idea prevalent among young women, by no means exclusive to LDS ones, that their worth derives from their boyfriend/husband/prospects. I feel like this is an ethically dubious stance to take. This talk is pretty retro with its extolling of a sex-based division of labor, with which I wholeheartedly disagree, but he raises some valid points. I think that little girls SHOULD be taught to work hard and earn money and value their work, even if he was perhaps a little snarky about it. My sister saved up hundreds of dollars which she then donated to my brother for his mission. I saved up half the fare for a history trip to DC. Don't outsource the responsibility for your own welfare to a putative husband. Learn to work hard.

This faithful member of the Church never had much in the way of social status or wealth, but his influence extended deeply to all who knew him. He died in an industrial accident while stopping to help another worker who was stranded in the snow. ...

This couple would have been the first to say they were not of much importance in this world. But the Lord uses a scale very different from the world’s to weigh the worth of a soul. He knows this faithful couple; He loves them. Their actions are a living witness of their strong faith in Him.

This one straight-up made me bawl. Wow. There are some really kind, decent, gentlemanly guys on their way up their ladder or who have already arrived. I know them. But you can't tell me that this guy doesn't exemplify all that is best in human nature. And he was "just" a steel mill worker. The human heart has boundless depths which you may very well miss if you're too preoccuiped with surfaces.

I knew President Child’s style. I prayed fervently for that quorum president. He remained silent for what seemed like an eternity and then declared: “Brother Child, the worth of a human soul is its capacity to become as God.”

This talk includes a long, digressive story about pioneers saving up for windows in the St. George Tabernacle. There would be great honor in being the man who was prudent enough to have saved up hundreds of dollars to be able to donate on a whim. But I think there's honor in the widow's proverbial mite, too.

I decided that the man who comes closest to my ideal mate was the principal ("headmaster') of my primary/middle school. His funeral was full to capacity -- everyone who crossed paths with him was touched by his generosity, his intelligence, his kindness, his old-fashioned sense of decorum. He came from some nothing podunk town in Cache County and served in WWII and attended USU on the G.I. bill. He was a mentor to his kid brother-in-law and let him stay with them when his wife and himself were newly married for summer in the canyons. He worked his butt off to be the best engineer he could be. Then he pivoted his career in midlife and helped his wife cofound a school because they didn't see the school they wanted. I saw his name on the list of donors for the Leonardo museum when I was eating in its cafe.

I don't think he would have stood out as having especially high earning potential in the forties. He was kind of gangly, came from nothing, and wasn't a "pre-professional" (which back then really was the Old Boys Club more even than now). He made a very comfortable living for his family, but more importantly, they didn't spend beyond their means. They saved up for what they really wanted (fine art, for one) and skimped on what they didn't care about (furniture).

What has happened to our culture??? I don't want to call out this girl per se, she's young and anxious and in my opinion growing up in a culture which continuously, insidiously, broadcasts harmful ideas about self-worth, self-sufficiency, and identity by proxy. But seriously, fortunes can fade with one downturn of the market. Don't hitch your wagon to anyone who doesn't have good character. I've cried in the Ritz and smiled over Cheerios, so to speak. YOU'RE 21 DON'T LOSE YOUR IDEALISM YET.

[Digit]

Don't think it applies to the facts of this case, but something about this topic reminds me of an old episode of the TV show Frasier. Frasier has a cousin named Nikos. Nikos's mother is really mad at Frasier for convincing her son to follow his greatest dream, which it turns out is to quit medical school and become a street juggler. If you were Nikos's trusted confidant and he told you that were his true desire, what would you tell him to do?

[Portia]

Don't think it applies to the facts of this case, but something about this topic reminds me of an old episode of the TV show Frasier. Frasier has a cousin named Nikos. Nikos's mother is really mad at Frasier for convincing her son to follow his greatest dream, which it turns out is to quit medical school and become a street juggler. If you were Nikos's trusted confidant and he told you that were his true desire, what would you tell him to do?

I wouldn't want to be operated on by a reluctant physician. I'd tell him to make a rational cost/benefit analysis, I suppose. If someone is driven enough to be admitted to medical school, I'm sure they can succeed in many veins. I don't know what the debt situation of this fictional television character is, either.

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There once was a real man who got an M.D. from Harvard and went through a post-doctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, only to never get licensed to practice medicine and decide instead to focus on being a writer. His name was Michael Crichton

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Apparently no fewer than five women thought he was marriage (and then divorce) material. ;-)