Work Harder, Try Harder
When I was a child, we pulled a heavy wooden paper wagon to pick up the groceries my mother had bought at the Super Duper with her government food stamps.
Every month, my mother sat at the kitchen table, writing in meals onto a blank calendar before building her shopping list. At the store, she carefully placed items in the cart and added prices to her list. If I close my eyes, I am taken back to the store, watching her add everything on a small calculator. When she finished, every item in the wagon was accounted for on the list.
Unloading the groceries, we shared oohs and aahs with each other when we saw an unexpected item. Holding it high up, calling names out, look what she got! For us, the first of the month meant there would be at least a few nights that were more than beans and hot dogs. But our excitement couldn’t last. As month end neared and the fridge became empty, we also knew—there were no second helpings at dinner.
Today my children use Instacart and Uber Eats. We drive our family Highlander to the grocery store less than a mile from our house. Chicken replaces high fat ground beef, honey ham instead of bologna, and boxes of my favorite cereals fill the cart. Grocery shopping had once been ruled by the date we received our family food stamps and a shopping list. Now, we shop when we run out of food or have a taste for something not in the house. A credit card available if I needed it.
There was no longer a moment when I had to stop. No date circled on a calendar. No mental math in the grocery aisle. If we ran out of milk, I bought more. If I forgot something, I went back. If the total was higher than I expected, I paid it. The card worked. It always did. There was no signal telling me when enough had been reached—only the ability to keep going. The waiting I learned as a child faded, replaced by movement. Another purchase. Another yes. A Greyhound bus from Buffalo to Colorado in my twenties. Today, a last-minute flight to Jamaica for a long weekend with my daughter.
I read the Ring notification that our packages had been delivered. It was something so urgent days ago that I clicked place order without considering the cost. It had now slipped my mind. I opened the Amazon app, searching the page of orders. The dog brush. I wondered when the rest of my packages would come. Looking through my history, some of the items, I didn’t even remember buying.
If you asked an outsider, they’ll say this is what working hard can buy you.
If you asked me, I’ll tell you a story of what working hard costs.
For the last five decades, my sister has worked harder, has tried harder, has given everything up.
Throughout the years, she invited our siblings into her home. When I lived there, she gave me my own room, despite having two children and another on the way. In the mornings, she made sure I was up for school and at night, she waited up late for me. She was all things to me—sister, mother, father, confidant. She regularly worked fourteen-hour days. Someone called off. Call her, she’ll come in. Holidays, football games—always working.
Making money meant losing essential support services like health insurance or food stamps. And she needed both. So, she did what she had to do to provide for her family.
Sometimes her older children babysat her younger children. Sometimes, she had to leave them at home alone. Her work has been nearly always off the tax books or at least enough to not impact her government aid. The critical aid which allowed her family to eat. To survive. She moved into Section 8 housing—the same address that I grew up in. Forty years later, the uncarpeted tile floors are still cold under our feet. The white walls—the same as any government-owned building. The facades of buildings haven’t changed. Only the names assigned to them.
Now her body is paying the price. Obesity and high cholesterol from decades of working in a pizzeria. Her teeth black or missing. In her work, it’s go to work or lose your job. There is no such thing as paid sick leave. Paying the bills is prioritized over health care. She has no emergency savings. No retirement. A home that can be taken without warning. Despite decades of working hard, there is no end in sight.
She is evidence of what working harder costs—when the rules are incompatible with survival.