While writing my book, The Joy of Financial Security (published November 2013; available on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide), I had to fight to keep personal stories in the book. A few stories were from my childhood and others were from my financial planning clients. Some editors and reviewers envisioned the book as a financial textbook, and they recommended the personal stories be sent to “the cutting room floor.”
Yet, the book is about the relationship between money and happiness, and the fact that having a healthy attitude toward money can lead to being happier overall. The premise is that money does not buy happiness, but it certainly impacts our happiness. The happiness component leads to the “softer” side of money. It is grounded in psychology, economic, and neuroscience research because I didn’t want to write a “fluffy” book about happiness. It contains many practical strategies for taking control of one’s finances and becoming happier. The book is receiving great feedback. Readers are telling me it is helping them “get on top of their finances”, and learn how to maximize the 40% of our happiness that we control. And, they are telling me they love the stories.
One of the personal stories involves my childhood in southern Indiana, and the fact that both of my parents were alcoholics. I am aware of my positive and negative traits resulting from the dynamics of an alcoholic household. I also talk about the fact that my father was “out there”. Everyone knew he was an alcoholic, and he entered many treatment programs to try to gain control over his addiction. Sadly, my mother was a closet alcoholic. She refused to admit there was a problem, and died at a young age as a result of living in denial.
Below the surface of deciding whether I should include this story in my book was a fear that my mother would be ashamed that I am revealing her secret; that I am letting her down. Children of alcoholics are taught to be “little adults” at a very young age, and that includes an incessant desire to please everyone. My mother would not be pleased. She would argue that alcoholism should not be mentioned in The Joy of Financial Security. So, why did I have a need to reveal the alcoholism? Because our lives are shaped by our experiences, and I suspect many readers have deep, dark secrets in their families too. At some point, we need to quit living our lives on autopilot, and make small, deliberate changes so we can become happier.
So, imagine my thrill when I was reading Delia Ephron’s newest book recently Sister, Mother, Husband, Dog. Delia Ephron is a very talented author and screenwriter. She comes from a talented family, (her sister Nora and her parents were all screenwriters). Her book is a collection of essays that touch upon real life—she somehow weaves sadness and loss with an abundance of humor. In one essay, titled Why I Can’t Write About My Mother, Ephron writes honestly about her mother’s alcoholism and the caustic comments her mother said. (The word caustic and alcoholic go well together when children of alcoholics are trying to make sense of the bizarre behavior). She states:
“I believe having an alcoholic parent is not only something to write about, but that there is an obligation to do it. Growing up as that child is lonely, isolating, confusing, and damaging. There are lots of us. If I have the power by telling a story to make an isolated person less alone, that is a good thing.”
I am grateful for writers like Delia Ephron. Underlying her essay about her mother is a lot of pain. But real life contains pain, humor, and a slew of other emotions. Her essay titled Bakeries is just pure humor. The underlying theme is whether women can have it all. My answer to this dilemma after having two successful careers, a loving family, and writing a book: No, it is not possible to have it all. We have to be selective at different times in our lives to pursue different goals.
Highly paid female executives who can afford a team of assistants (at home and work) sometimes portray an image that they have it all. What they are forgetting is that their kids will grow up some day and they may write books about their childhood. The kids may read Delia Ephron’s book or my book, The Joy of Financial Security, and decide that revealing secrets about their mother’s alcoholism or caustic behavior is therapeutic. After all, real life is not whitewashed. Then we’ll learn the real truth.