Income

I have to admit, I've never made much of the green. As a teacher in rural Ohio, my top income was about $25,000. This was over halved when I became a full-time graduate student for five years. So, I've been used to not making much money. When Bob and I hastily got married to move to China, and I abruptly had to quit school and my job as a graduate assistant, I then had to get used to not making any money. This may not sound like such a big deal to most married folk - the whole "his money is my money" concept is pretty common, but my independent spirit really asserted itself in the beginning (I know, big suprise). It seemed wrong not to be working and making money. Of course, I eventually got used to this life of leisure and then Morgan came along, the whole stay-at-home mom thing happened. . . What I'm saying is that I eventually stopped worrying about it. Until this week.

I posted a few weeks about about Morgan taking some test pictures for a catalogue shoot. She was grumpy and didn't photograph well so I didn't expect anything to come of it. Well, yesterday I got a call from the photographer that she actually did get a gig - shooting baby carriers - this Wednesday. It's all in good fun - I thought it would be cool to show her some flyer when she gets older with her in it. Then I realized, Morgan actually makes money from this. Ok, it's not much money - somewhere around $40 for an hour's work. But, that $40 is more money than I have contributed to our household income in the last three years! Does that make me feel small and unimportant? Yeah, a little bit. Am I a tiny bit jealous? Yup, I think so. My slightly-less-than two year old daughter makes more money than I do. Again, I am faced with a bit of moral discomfort that somehow this is wrong on several levels.

I comfort myself thinking that in less than a year I will be back home and, hopefully, soon thereafter reenrolled in school to finish my Ph.D (yep, look at me throwing that out there to make me feel big and important again). Of course, that graduate income that I'll hopefully be getting again will only just pay for Morgan's child care while I finish that degree. But, that's a whole other topic of guilt and discomfort. Until then, I'll just suck it up and probably go have a lavish lunch or shopping spree - courtesy of Morgan, of course. ;-)