How Financial Advice Triggers Painful Money Shame

BraveSaver.Com

Maybe you’ve heard: debt is bad.  I have. I was raised on the conviction that debt=bad. I saw the effects of debt on family members and family friends. Dave Ramsey, the first financial figure I knew, centers his teachings on debt — and getting out of it to “financial freedom.”

I even heard about debt at church, making it a moral question. Debt was there: in bible study and Sunday school, used as a metaphor for sin — or a topic on its own.

The sum of all these messages I heard about debt was this: getting into debt was unwise, a sign of a weak will or mind. Debt was a form of bondage or slavery, and once you were in it, you were in danger of never getting out.

Fast forward to me, in 2012: 23 years old, in around $50,000 of debt — mostly student loans with a car loan and credit card debt, too.

I’d tried to make the best money choices from the options I was aware of, from taking out student debt for my undergrad degree to putting half an international trip on a credit card. But now, though, I was second-guessing myself. Would it work out? Could I really pull through?

One morning I sat at my $40 Ikea dining table in our roach-infested Los Angeles apartment, eating breakfast, unemployed and on a job search.  A barf sound effect interrupted my thoughts — a regular gag on the local morning radio show I had on in the background. It’d never bothered me before, but today, I felt queasy at the mere sound. Weird, was my first thought. Then, a few dots connected. Oh no, was I…? Three tests later and I knew for sure: I was pregnant.

My money shame: Financially failing at parenthood

This new event doubled my feelings of anxiety and shame about my financial situation. I was excited, but also terrified and ashamed.

I cried the first time I went shopping for maternity clothes. I started a job shortly after finding out, but I waited as long as possible to tell my manager. I loathed grocery shopping once I started showing. I wasn’t self-conscious about my changing body itself, but rather what I felt it told people about me. They could simply look at me and know the deep, shameful truth: I was pregnant and completely unprepared.

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