Today’s Almanac featured an article about a family living on Coleman Avenue that has been threatened with huge rent increases and eviction. (Web Link
A recently merged family, Chad and Karla collectively have four children, ages 2, 2 (twins), 9, and 11. They are renting a 2 bedroom apartment upstairs from the apartment manager. Apartment living is rarely quiet. Like any six-person family with toddlers, they make noise, although they have taken steps to minimize it. The apartment manager wants them out and has alternated huge rent increases with eviction notices. They have sought legal aid and allied themselves with others in the community in an attempt to remain in this marginally hospitable place that they call home.
As is typical of any story in the Almanac, anonymous commenters are weighing in, sometimes harshly. How can any family of six expect to be allowed to live in a 2 BR apt.? Why did they have those kids if they couldn't afford them? Shouldn’t the mom be working? Why aren’t the older kids helping with the younger kids? Why should they expect to be able to have friends over, to invite guests to use the pool, to send their kids to premier schools? Such entitlement!
Of course every story has multiple angles and viewpoints and we haven’t heard the other side. But there’s a lot to chew on here.
First, let's break down the economics:
1) Even at $2K/month, this family was probably already maxed out on rent. And yet according to Craig’s List, the cheapest available 2-bedroom apartment in Menlo Park is listed at $2500/month. Assuming the traditional guideline of spending no more than 1/3 of one's pre-tax income on rent, we're basically looking at an $100K annual income threshold for affording a 2 BR apt in this area. If you're working in the service, education, or nonprofit sectors, that's not a starting salary, to say the least.
So it’s no wonder that this family is desperately clinging to the option they have, however imperfect.
Side note: please remember this story next time someone complains about local public sector salaries. $100K might sound like a lot--until you take it out and try to rent an apartment for your family (forget about getting a home loan).
2) No, it's probably not a tenable proposition for the mom to work full-time when she has twin toddlers plus two other kids. Full-time daycare in this area for one kid can cost north of $1500/month; for two it would presumably be twice that. Add the cost of after-school care for the older kids and you're looking at $3500+/month that someone would need to cough up every month–post-tax, unless they happen to have a dependent care FSA, and I'm not sure the contractors that run Stanford dining halls offer those sorts of perks.
Basically, there are a lot of people (mostly moms) who do this calculation and decide that they can't afford to work outside the home. And other people go the Family/Friend/Neighbor care route (as it sounds like this family was considering) in order to work more and make ends meet. Sometimes this works out well; other times the care is substandard, especially compared with what kids in wealthier families are getting. Remember, something like 90% of brain development happens in the first five years.
3) Sure, the path of least resistance would be for them to choose a cheaper neighborhood with less effective schools and a longer work commute. They could skimp on childcare and leave their little kids in the care of the older ones while working weekend jobs. But any of these choices will decrease the odds that their kids will make the leap from working poor to a more comfortable future.
Despite living in the great city of Menlo Park with its premier schools, these folks are probably not living a cushy, stress-free life.
So, what is it about this family’s situation that causes people to describe them as entitled? Didn’t many of us settle here for the good schools? Don’t we hope to be able to host friends and family from time to time? Don’t we claim as our right the ability to make what we perceive to be the best choices for our children’s development? And shouldn’t all kids theoretically have access to teachers that don’t yell, parental attention, and microscopes? Would we accept for our own children the conditions that some find suitable to prescribe for this family? If not, we are raging hypocrites.
Perhaps I’m sensitive to this topic because I can relate. This is my childhood we're talking about, essentially. There were four kids in my family and my parents were living paycheck to paycheck. My mom taught night school for a while in order to stay home with us during the day, and my dad had a paper route in addition to teaching at a community college. None of us had our own room; in fact, for the first five years of my life I shared a room with all three of my siblings. We didn't get allowance, go to camp, eat in restaurants (aside from the occasional splurge on a bucket of KFC for a picnic), buy new clothes/furniture/etc, or go on vacation. We did take music lessons, play team sports, borrow books from the library (and buy them, along with everything else, from the local Goodwill), attend free concerts, and go to the best schools our parents could manage. One year that meant not heating the house for the winter so that they could cover the cost of Catholic school. Another year my parents swallowed their pride and accepted from their parents the money for a downpayment to buy the cheapest house they could find in a good public school district. (This is, of course, a choice unavailable to many other families in similar income brackets.)
It paid off: we all went to competitive colleges (on extensive financial aid packages) and grad schools, got high- and are all living in upper middle/upper class circumstances.
Of course, people can make these same choices and have it not work out. Many working poor families are one major financial incident (a broken-down car, a medical emergency, etc.) from destitution. And that’s before we introduce structural racism, etc. to the equation.
Yet we persist, as a country, in valorizing the American Dream, and encouraging people to pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. Let's return to Chad and Karla, who are basically playing by the American Dream fantasy rule book, the one that says personal sacrifice, hard work, and smart choices should invariably lead to success.
Who are we to criticize a family for taking their children’s education seriously and making the requisite sacrifices in comfort?
Why would we recommend lesser schools/child care situations to a family if we wouldn’t accept those ourselves?
How many of us grew up in poor or lower middle class families and had the good fortune to move up the ladder?
How many of us were lucky enough to be born into families of comparative wealth?
Do we really want everyone who isn’t making a $200K annual household income to have to commute from far away to work here? Because that’s where we’re heading. And that’s not good for anyone: traffic, employers, the environment, family stability, etc.
What kind of community do you want Menlo Park to be?
It is my humble opinion, based on the available evidence, that this family is doing the best they can for their kids, that none of their choices represented in this article sound lazy, crazy, or entitled, and that our community and our country would be a better place if we could find a little more empathy in our hearts.
And if compassion is beyond you, consider that it is in all of our best interests to have an educated electorate and a working class that lives in proximity to the jobs in which they serve us.
