Brutally Honest Rant - 06/14/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Dads and Dollars
Audio Transcripts
06/14/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

This coming weekend is Father’s Day. It’s the time that we should remember and give thanks to our fathers, just like we did for our mothers. Or at least that’s what we’re supposed to do in theory.

Now I personally happen to think that fathers get pretty much a bad rap in society, and some of it happens to be well earned.

Traditionally, the burden of raising kids has always fallen on the mother. I mean, she’s the one bearing the little tax deductions to term, she’s the one giving birth to them, she’s the one raising and nurturing them, and she’s pretty much the parent you see more of in those first formative years. Mom’s the one that has to be out front and doing stuff for the little kids.

Dads – for the most part – are on the sidelines… if they are even brought into the game in the first place. You see, that’s the sad part about this… guys can be dicks about bringing kids into the world. Just because the woman can make ultimate choice to decide of bringing the little tyke to term, some guys think that they shouldn’t even be bothered with the whole thing. One of the little subtle messages from the women’s movement that has really done women a disservice is to tell us guys "We don’t need you! We can raise our children all by ourselves!"

Well you can, and many have, but that doesn’t mean that you should. It certainly shouldn’t be considered an ideal situation.

And then we turn on the TV set, and there’s the television family on any regular sitcom… with "Mom" looking so beautiful and so professional and so good at what she does… and "Dad" basically looking like an out-of-shape buffoon. "Mom" makes cracks about his shortcomings, the kids scheme to get around "Dad", and "Dad" basically does double-takes as he fumbles around trying to fix things without putting himself in the hospital. That’s what we see on TV, folks. Mom’s a professional… and Dad’s a dork.

Now you take a look at those two messages and you ask yourself… why would any guy want to get involved with fatherhood if all they’re being told is that they’re unnecessary and ineffective comedic material? That all we’re good for is for whatever MONEY that we generate? That’s the message that we’re getting.

Let’s get brutally honest here… there is a difference between parentage and BEING a parent! Biology can make someone a mother or father, but being a parent takes a conscious effort. It’s not just being there or providing money; it’s also about being the kind of guardian, teacher, and inspiration to that little tax deduction that anyone would be proud of. Our understanding about authority figures – even our religious beliefs – comes from what kind of parents we grew up with early on in our lives. One parent can try to do it… but it really takes two… and if you don’t have that other parent, then another family member usually tries to step in. It’s instinctive, because it’s filling up a natural gap in social upbringing.

There’s a lot about my father that I’m pretty impressed with. I mean, I would love to help bring a David 3 or even a David 4 into the world someday, but the stuff that my father did during his time is a really hard act to follow. This is a man who’s been in a military conflict that most people don’t even realize we were really involved in. Most baby boomers can tell you about what they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but my father was there, on the ships during the blockade. At one point my father worked FIVE jobs. Not just two or three… FIVE of them! He helped build and test nuclear submarines… he was a firefighter… he was a paramedic… he was an instructor… he was a police officer… he was an electrician… he built homes… he did whatever he could to help pay the bills, and he wasn’t always there for my sister and I because of that. But when he was there for us, he made sure that he did everything possible to BE the kind of father that someone would be proud of.

Now THAT is a pretty hard act to follow. And, you know what? It’s a little hard to find a Father’s Day card that reflects all of that. But I’d like to think that someday I could be in the same league as him.

And that brings me to the next subject… MONEY!

NBC recently kicked off a new series called "Windfall", which deals with a story that you’ve probably heard about a couple of time in the past few years. A group of people get together, pool their money, and end up winning the biggest lottery jackpot in that area’s history, which they split equally among themselves. There was one group of winners just like that a couple of weeks ago.

Now in true network television design, these newly-made rich people are all good-looking and are from ALL demographics. And, hey, we even have a couple of former teen heartthrobs in the form of Luke Perry and Jason Geddrick in the mix. We have a teenager with repressive parents, we have a single mom, we have a young medial professional, and EVERYONE is struggling. EVERYONE is trying to make ends meet! And now they’re getting this HUGE jackpot, and of course the whole series is about showing how each of these people change when given all of this MONEY.

But there’s actually something worth seeing in this series… and it’s something that you probably won’t notice right off the bat because you’re looking at the cash and the pimple-free faces and the flat-bellies and the fooling around.

It’s about people’s PERSPECTIVE about that money.

If you get to watch a couple of episodes, I want you to take a look at the supporting characters. You’ll pretty much see a familiar attitude with their friends or family members when it comes to having that money. The attitude is that these people – who didn’t take part in the lottery thing at all – are still somehow ENTITLED to having either a portion or ALL of that money by virtue of acquaintance.

I’m serious! There is a basic attitude with these people that says that any kind of wealth that is given to someone they know must IMMEDIATELY be shared! And they will come out of the WOODWORK to find you!

Someone you may remember from high school will call you up and say "hey, remember when I bought lunch for you because you lost your wallet twenty years ago? Well, you owe me with interest!" If you had any kind of one-night stands, all of a sudden you have "love children" that you would have NEVER heard about if not for the money that you just got. They may not even be yours, but they’re more than willing to waste your money in the courts and in testing to prove them wrong, especially if they can somehow worm out some payments in advance. Just about everyone has a scheme or a business plan that they want you to invest in. Just about everyone has a cause that they want you to champion and a charity that they want you to contribute to. And everyone is your best friend… that is, until you start saying two certain letters that they don’t want to hear… namely the letters N-O.

There’s an interesting scene in the series where one of the winners is in the middle of finalizing the divorce and the soon-to-be ex-husband all of a sudden is demanding HIS half of the money. She wisely tells him flat-out "this is MY MONEY, not yours!" but then her flaky teenage daughter – who thinks she knows everything – whines that "you already make enough money… why can’t you share?"

THAT, my friends, is the attitude! Boiled down, compacted, and served up with all of the indignation that a clueless teenager would have! "You already make enough money… why can’t you share?"

And it’s not just about lottery winners! You see that pattern repeated over and over again when it comes to large sums of money.

Take a look at professional sports figures. Everybody wants to complain about how a superstar jock isn’t getting paid "enough" but somehow the team owners are worth "too much", even though most of their money is going to pay the team salaries. But that’s the general attitude. Millionaire players bitching about their pay from billionaire owners… which in and of itself should be downright embarrassing since WE are the ones that are really paying for both groups! Remember that $10 stale hot dog and that $5 bathroom cup of lukewarm soda? Guess where that money went?

Take a look at the attitude when it comes to big business. A CEO gets $400 million in salary and bonuses and that supposedly isn’t "right", even though it’s in that person’s contract. Somewhere in black-and-white is the statement of "if I bring up the company’s profits by X-percent or higher, then the company will pay me $400 million in salary and bonuses." Just about EVERY corporate executive has a contract like that, that states their role in the company, what their purpose is, and how much they will get in compensation depending on how well they perform their duties. It’s a legally binding contract.

But that doesn’t matter, right? That CEO shouldn’t be making that much money, right? Because it’s more than what you would consider to be "enough".

Now let me ask you… do you think that this hypothetical company should be FORCED to VOID that contract with their hypothetical CEO simply because it violates YOUR definition of what "enough" is? Because that’s basically what the argument is about! If you believe that the hypothetical CEO is getting "too much", then you believe that there’s a hypothetical dollar amount that you would deem to be "enough", and if anyone violates that limit, then you’re basically arguing that any money OVER that amount should be forfeited.

So let’s say that you win… and the CEO is forced to give up some or most of that money. What kind of incentive is there for that CEO to do his or her job to keep that company going? Hey, if I’m in that position and I know that the company cannot be trusted to live up to their legally-binding agreement, then I have no reason to be there, and I certainly have no reason to see that company go on for one more day.

Now folks, there is a word for that kind of mentality of "you make enough"… it’s called COVETING. That means having designs on something that’s not yours. It also goes by a different name… GREED.

And this coveting goes on because these people, quite simply, have no appreciation of money! They have no idea where it comes from. They just know that it’s out there, and that somehow they should be ENTITLED to it, even if – and especially when – they did nothing to warrant it.

Now let’s suppose that you got a promotion and a very nice raise at work. Your pay goes up from $75,000 a year to $100,000 a year. Nice, huh? You think that you’re doing GREAT! You can pay down some loans, you can get a house, you can afford to put some money away for retirement or for a college fund for your kids. You can take your spouse out to some nice restaurants and gets some good clothes.

The next day, I’m pounding on the door, and I tell you flat-out that it’s GREAT that you got a promotion and a raise… however, you’re now making "too much", and I think that you should "share the wealth" with other people... especially me. Just about everyone would tell me that I’m out of line with that kind of statement! Everyone would be on my ass about it! Who the hell am I to determine what is "too much"? What right do I have to tell someone who makes a certain amount of money to fork some of it over to other people? That’s what you would tell me if I were to make that kind of stupid, greedy, self-centered statement.

Well I’ll tell you what… if it’s wrong for that kind of argument at $100,000, then it’s JUST AS WRONG when the amount goes up to $1 million, or even $100 million! If you’re not paying it, and if you’re not cashing it in, then YOU DO NOT get to decide what is "enough" and what is "too much"! PERIOD!

And it’s sad for someone like me to have to make that kind of pronouncement, because that’s the kind of lesson that a good parent would teach his or her children. I think that it is a parent’s job to teach his or her children to appreciate the value of money, and how to accumulate it, and then how to spend it wisely. That’s certainly not something that can be encouraged too much from a GOVERNMENT school, which is paid for by the money that the government TAKES from other people. It’s basically the blind leading the blind there!

And isn’t it strange that of all of the family values that conservatives and neo-conservatives and theo-conservatives complain about not having in society, that somehow an appreciation of money is not there? Strange, huh? But then again, I guess someone has to wash their Hummers and clean their mega-churches, and they can’t do that if they push for THOSE values in society.

(Computer – some appropriate stuff that you’ll have to listen to appreciate)
(Fade Music In – "Who Am I?" by Peace Orchestra)

One of the taglines for the "Windfall" TV series is that "money changes everything". Well I have to disagree with that statement. Money doesn’t change a thing. It just exposes you to a different side of people. You get to see a part of that person’s life that you never realized existed until it hits you in the face.

The people who have no appreciation about money never had any to begin with. It’s something that has eluded them for quite some time. Oh, they’ll pass it off as bad fortune or a few unlucky breaks or that missed opportunity from their glory days, but it really doesn’t matter. They just don’t have good money sense, and it burns them to know that they don’t have it! It eats away at them.

And as long as they’re your friends or your acquaintances, and you’re in a similar financial situation, then you’ll never know that they have this problem with money. Then, if you do win the lottery, or have some rich relative drop a load of cash at your feet, you’re suddenly "the enemy" as far as that "friend" is concerned. The feelings were there all that time… the only difference is that it now involves someone they know instead of a distant athlete or unnamed corporate executive.

And by the way, the same holds true to those of you who DO win the lottery and still don’t have any appreciation of money. That’s why you have lottery winners who go from having it all to having nothing again. It’s not that they were unlucky. It’s because having money doesn’t automatically make them wise enough to appreciate it.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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