Recognizing Our Places of Privilege

Last Wednesday Rhonda, the woman who cleans for us twice a month, stopped me as I was passing through the kitchen.  "There's something I've been wanting to tell you.  It's about something that happened last summer when the children were all here while I was cleaning, and I think you should know."  Anyone who is or has been the parent of teenagers knows that my heart stopped for a moment as I braced myself; I think I may have even reached behind me to grasp the counter.  "What happened?" I asked hoping she wouldn't hear the fear and trepidation in my voice. Silently I was going through a litany of possibilities. Were they rude?  Did they get in a fight verbally or physically?  Did she find something hidden in their rooms?  My mind was going a million miles a minute. "Well," she started, "You really do have great kids.  They always speak; they offer to move and don't act annoyed if I have to vacuum or somehow get in their way."  As I was waiting for the 'but', I was thinking, "they better speak and they better not act annoyed that you are here cleaning up after THEM!!"  "Last summer," Rhonda continued, "William came into the kitchen while I was cleaning and out of the blue said, 'Miss Rhonda, I want to thank you for coming every two weeks and cleaning for us.  It helps Mama not to be stressed and to be able to spend more time with us.'"  She paused and then said, "I just thought you should know.  There are days when I'm not always treated very well and when I remember your sweet boy and what he said; it helps me to get through."  I stood there speechless as tears sprang to both our eyes.  "Thank you for telling me," I said, "They are good kids but sometimes I forget that and get too caught up in what they are doing wrong.  I too needed to hear that."

Looking back I needed to hear that for many reasons and not just so I could remember that the next time I started to rant and rave about how selfish and self involved they were.  (You know how much they act like normal teenagers whose brains are not fully formed.)  Truth is our children, although they would disagree, do live a fairly privileged life.  Truth is compared to the rest of the world most Americans live fairly privileged lives. But how many of us remember that some of our privilege is because of the hard work of someone else? More importantly how many of us remember to thank others for the things they do for us, the things that make our lives easier?  It is true that Rhonda is paid for her work at our home; William knows that. What William values, however, is that because we are in a position to pay her, I do have more time to spend with them, and our relationships are strengthened.  (Clearly he also recognizes my neurotic behavior and that without Rhonda I would be a baseboard cleaning lunatic on top of all the usual household chores.) Humor aside, (perhaps this is such a difficult conversation to have that I want to resort to humor) many many men and women work full time and take complete care of their own homes and children.  And I believe that most do a tremendous job, but it's not easy.  Our privilege allows it to be a little bit easier for us. I believe that while privilege has benefits, more importantly  it a has responsibility and some of those responsibilities are to acknowledge our places of privilege, to say thank you,  and to give back. Sometimes that acknowledgement is simply a 14 year old boy saying thank you. That "thank you" also gave back.  But the first step is recognition.  Step out with me..