by Carol H. Morgan

Created on: May 02, 2008   Last Updated: May 05, 2008

I have often wondered why I never seem to get the etiquette right when it comes to the appropriateness of mentioning how much money my family makes. I hen my husband first got his job after college. Cartainly when he was only a teenager and only made 3.35 no one else thought it was a problem either. People love to talk about how much they pay for things and save with coupons and such, and in general people like to talk about their talents and accomplishments at certain things. If someone is young looking or pretty or thin often they like to talk about it. Or if they have run a certain number of miles or made a certain number of quilts they can report it proudly. And in my case I wouldn't be even talking about my own accomplishments at all because I am pretty much a freeloader at the moment as a housewife.

I have heard some people argue that they don't want to know how much people make because it would make them have bad feelings toward that person if the other person made more. I can't say as I sympathize with that, nor does my husband. We would absolutely never have bad feelings toward anyone else no matter how much more than us they made. Nor would we expect that anyone we told would have bad feelings about us if it were the other way around. But when I slipped one time and miscalculated and mentioned my husband's income and I got a big verbal spanking from a certain relative, it made me think about why ever since. Especially when I heard that same relative saying how proud they were of another person for the good money they made, it made me wonder when it is or isn't ok to talk about salary without any such censure.

Then it hit me. People like to not know the specific dollar amount that someone makes nor do they like to reveal how much they themselves make because some people like to speculate about others' incomes, and of course it is much more fun and flexible to do so without conclusive proof to end their fun. And many others and often the same people like to mischaractarise their own incomes. The I'm so poor and can't afford anything game. Particularly things that they don't want to afford.

This is why I haven't liked the whole income taboo, and certainly not because we make a lot of money at all. It is because I hate these kind of games. I really don't want to characterize or mischaracterize my own financial situation at all beyond what it actually is, nor am I interested at all in what anyone else makes particularly if I weren't actually right about what

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>