Money Blue Book

I recently read a very interesting online article from an English (United Kingdom) website today called the Times Online (I know it’s a well known site for British people, but I’ve never heard of it before). While the views expressed seem to come from a European perspective, with some interesting but different English terminology used in the comments section such as “blokes” and “birds” (translation: “guys” and “gals”), much of the opinion piece is also applicable to the American experience. The article addressed the familiar but sometimes complicated question of why today’s modern men seem reluctant, burdened, or feel socially awkward when it comes to talking about their moms or when it comes to actually calling them on a regular basis.

Today was Mother’s Day so I did manage to contact my mother who lives overseas with my dad to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. Of course she was quite surprised but happy to hear my message (she is my mom after all), but I think she mostly enjoyed the rarity of it all. I can’t remember the last time I ever gave her a present or anything on Mother’s day (during elementary school maybe), but I think on some level she understands that grown up sons at some point in their lives must exercise that desired financial and social independence from their parents, particularly from their moms. While I do love my mom to death, it is true - there is also something very unattractive and rather unhealthy for a man who is too clingy with his mother and refuses to cut the proverbial umbilical cord.

In General, Boys, Men, and Sons Have A Primitive But Instinctively Driven Desire To Seek Social and Financial Independence From Their Parental Guardians

This common practice and social phenomenon of sons never calling their mothers and only doing so when they actually need something from them seems to be quite prevalent. Haven’t you seen the recent Comcast Digital Voice mother’s day commercial? The commercial was advertising the company’s new digital phone service and was encouraging all viewers, but men in particular, to sign up with Comcast phone access this mother’s day so they could give their mothers a call and wish them well. The funny commercial had scenes of mothers of all countries and languages clutching phones to their ears and systemically fainting to the ground in disbelief as the voices of their sons sounded through the ear pieces. The humorous punch line is that sons never call, thus when they do, it creates such a monumental shock to the mothers that it leaves them dumbfounded.

But the truth of the matter is that most of the male friends I know, myself included rarely call or contact our moms. The more financially and socially independent men tend to be more self reliant and don’t feel the need to call their moms on a daily, weekly or even semi regular basis to talk about nothing in particular. If you asked me when was the last time that I actually called my mom or either parent over the phone, and not counting the times they called me first, I would have to offer you an embarrassed guilty look and say over 6 months to a 1 year ago. Ever since I became financially independent after graduate school and no longer needed to beg my parents for money, I’ve relied on my own abilities to eek out a living. Since then I’ve learned to take care of myself, gotten used to setting my own schedule, arranging my own meals, and keeping myself out of trouble. Everytime my parents call (especially when it’s my mom), I innately feel like I just reverted back to a childlike state in which I am still nagged and coddled by my guardians. Every time my dad calls he always wants to chat about my job or where I’m going with my life professionally and occupationally. But everytime the phone gets handed off to my mom, she starts chatting incessantly and repetitively about my diet, what I eat, what I shouldn’t eat, the importance of needing to cook for myself, and my sleeping habits. The nagging about my living lifestyle could seriously go on and on for hours if I didn’t conclude it at some point. Everytime I talk to them I feel like I’m in elementary school again, but the fact of the matter is I’m not. I’m a grown adult, with a full time job, who is paying the rent, taking care of the bills, and fending for myself as a man should.

The Social Difference Between How Grown Up Sons and Daughters Treat Their Parents

Sexist, stereotypical or not, I think most girls and women are closer to their mothers than boys and men are. Daughters simply are more driven to call their mothers on a regular basis and chat about random things like their eating habits, living habits, who they are seeing, or whether they are happy or not. It’s probably the inherent differences in male and female nature that explain why they treat their parents so differently once they’ve left the family nest. Perhaps women are simply more inclined to pick up the phone and call their moms or anyone else for that matter due to the lifetime motherly bond between them that’s never broken or altered. Maybe it’s how we are molded when we are young - daughters are generally raised to become nurturers, gatherers, and future mothers, while men are usually raised to become grown up hunters, and caretakers of their future brood. When I pick up the phone, I call a person for a specific purpose and not just to shoot the breeze. I always find it strange when some people call for no reason at all then just to chat.

When I was young, I always saw emotional reliance and financial dependence on my parents as a tremendous weakness. My view was that I would never become my own man until I could break away from them and financially fend for myself. I still hold that view today and see single friends in their early and mid 30’s who are still living at home with their moms and dads as pretty strange. I understand there are key differences in certain European, Asian, and Indian cultures whereby sons are expected to live at home with the parents until they marry, but I’m viewing all of this mostly through the classic American perspective that encourages independence, especially when it comes to males. I love my mom very much and she’s done a wonderful job of letting her two sons go off into the world on their own, but I know many other moms out there have trouble letting their little boys become men. It’s important to keep your little solider safe when he is young, but at some point you have to kick him out of the nest for his own good. The best thing my mom ever did for me was to let me be, and let me make mistakes and learn on my own.

Personally, I think it’s natural for men to want to break away from their mom’s embrace at some point. It’s all part of the growing up and rite of passage experience for males. How is he expected to one day take care of his own family if he cannot assert his own independence and take care of himself before letting others help take care of him. Besides, what woman would want a man who incessantly clings onto his mother? I know some women out there claim that they desire a man who loves his mom and treats her well, but obviously what women wouldn’t? Being kind and treating one’s mom well is one thing, but being a mama’s boy and always calling the mom to get her advice and approval is a little strange when the guy starts to reach his 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s. Living at home as a single male and having your mom still cook your food, do your laundry, and pick up after you just seems extremely childish. I have no problem with a girl or daughter calling her mom regularly after marriage, but when I hear about men who constantly feel the need to call their moms to get approvals or give updates, I simply find them to be very wimpy, for a lack of a better word. My mom will always be my mom and she will always have a special place in my personal hierarchy of women, but at some point, sons have to grow up and join the world of men and inevitably leave their moms behind to a certain degree. However, I will always treat my mom with love and respect - but not as a little boy, but as a grown up, financially independent man.

Whenever I see a predatory tow truck driver or a parking meter maid strolling by, I just want to roll down my window quickly and yell out - “Hey you! Go back to (some place far, far away from where I’m headed, and nowhere close to my car).” As you can tell, I am not too fond of tow truck drivers. My disdain also carries over to others in the parking profession, including but not limited to opportunistic car booters and sneaky meter maids who dart from car to car with their little hand held tri-corder gadgets, tucking tickets under windshield wipers and escaping before the driver comes back and catches them in the act. While these parking ticketers bug me somewhat, they don’t irritate me as much as tow truck drivers - perhaps it’s because parking ticket fines are usually not as financially hefty or as personally offensive as getting your car manhandled and forcibly hauled away by a stranger. Most of the time, I see tow truck drivers as nothing but conniving, predatory, and opportunistic vultures who feast on the vulnerable and distracted plight of unsuspecting drivers.

Just Watching Others Get Their Cars Towed In Their Absence Irritates Me

A few years ago I lived near a shopping center located next to a major Metro subway station. Every morning as I walked to the station to take the train to work, I witnessed the daily spectacle of tow truck sharks preying on those who failed to notice the no parking warning signs for non patrons. At the start of every morning rush, like clockwork precision, several red tow trucks would park themselves in partially hidden locations throughout the shopping center parking lot, embed themselves among the other cars, and lie in wait for subway commuters to improperly park their cars and walk away. Oftentimes as I walked by their tow trucks, I could see the drivers eating their breakfast sandwiches behind the steering wheel as they waited. As soon as the commuters had walked out of sight and demonstrated that they weren’t parking their cars so they could shop at a plaza store, the tow trucks would take turns swooping in, jacking up each vehicle one by one, and speeding away with their precious cargo like a thief in the night - racking up an instant $150 towing fee for each car, plus an extra $25 per day service charge for the cost of daily impounding. What a lucrative but conniving racket.

The livelihood of tow truck drivers is based on their ability to successfully hide in the bushes with their getaway vehicles and lie in wait for hapless drivers to make a parking mistake or slip up. In their eyes, a breach is a breach - if you park past a certain white line, that means you’re going to get towed - there’s little mercy. When that happens, it’s almost a given that at least one tow truck vulture will pop out from the shadows and holler “Gotcha!” as he gleefully impounds your vehicle with cranes and hauls it away to the junkyard. I don’t really care much for their self righteous claims that they are simply doing their jobs. They purport to follow the law and abide by no parking signs, but the reality is that oftentimes these warnings signs are not always sufficiently clear, evident, or easily understandable. The whole towing business is absolutely ripe for unchecked, unaccountable, and abusive practices.

A&E’s Parking Wars Reality Television Show Tries To Humanize The Entertaining Lives Of Tow Truck Drivers, Car Booters, and Meter Maids - But They Still Come Off As Jerks, Albeit Funny Jerks

I guess the world of reality TV shows has finally come down to this - an entire show devoted to the people we all love to hate. Yes, they get yelled at, cursed at, bird flipped, and harassed, but apparently they have feelings too as well as stories to tell. The A&E Channel has released a not-so-new anymore show called Parking Wars that follows the daily working lives of parking meter maids, tow truck drivers, and grunts who make a living from slapping indestructible boots onto vehicle wheels. For those who’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to work on the seedy side of the parking business, this show does a good job of telling it like it is - through the daily lenses of the ticketers and the towers.

While the show infuses the parking meter maids and tow truck drivers with some personality and offers a glimpse into their gritty service with a smile lifestyle, they still come off as predatory and opportunistic hounds who howl with delight when they successfully snag and trap a potential victim - a person who probably was simply at the wrong spot at the wrong time. It’s clear these vultures get a kick from handing out tickets and I’m sure they feel a rush of superior adrenaline when they get to flex their powerful authority by taking away some one’s valuable vehicular possession. Street signs confusing or yellow no parking lines not easily apparent? Tough luck! Ticket and tow, and ask questions later - for they are the law. After all, what is the ordinary layperson going to do - spend thousands of hopeless dollars and file a lawsuit over a $200 towing charge or a $300 booted car fee?

In an episode of Parking Wars, the camera trailed one particular meter maid as she ducked behind a building corner and waited for the right opportunity to pounce - taking a few moments to bask in the inquisitive glory of the A&E camera crew. It was 3:55 p.m. on a weekday and she was waiting near a downtown city street that was close to rush hour time. According to warning signs, street parking was prohibited at the start of rush hour, designated at 4:00 p.m. The parking girl chatted away about how much of a rush she got from ticketing people and the excitement of giving them out. As soon as her watch ticked 4:00 p.m., she eagerly dashed out to begin her ticketing raid, working her way from one side of the street and down the row of parked cars that were now illegally parked on the street. In the distance the camera crew could see a few worried drivers run towards their vehicles, trying to beat the parking violation clock. Some successfully ducked into their vehicles and drove off before their cars were ticketed while others beat it only by a few minutes. One driver who received a ticket only a few seconds before he arrived back protested. However, the parking meter maid was unrelenting and refused to rescind tickets already written.

In one case we had two individuals who verbally protested their ticket concerns to the meter maid over a broken and easily missed no parking sign that was literally dangling upside down. However, their complaints fell on deaf ears as the quota driven ticketing attendant offered no sympathy. Those drivers who parked in the spot guarded by the upside down, broken sign perhaps had a very legitimate lack of proper notice defense. A reasonable driver would not have been able to read the signs as they may not have been readily apparent to a reasonable person. I recently experienced a similar parking ticket scenario. I received a small parking ticket in a neighborhood where there were no visible signs denoting the side street I was parked on as restricted parking. While there were signs elsewhere, there were none readily apparent where I had parked. Luckily I had my digital camera on me at the time, which I used to take photographs of my parked vehicle and the surrounding signs and street shots to prove my case. However, other people are not always as fortunate and most are at the authoritative whims and mercy of parking ticketers.

It’s A Rude And Dirty Job But Somebody Has To Do It… I Suppose

Yes they are financial predators that profit from the absent-mindedness of hapless drivers but I suppose they do serve a legitimate societal purpose. None of them are ever going to win a popularity contest but on some level I suppose they are just dutifully doing their job. After all, some do come to our rescue and save drivers who are stuck in a ditch or have a flat tire on the side of the road, and I’m sure some do a great job of clearing away road blockages and making our highways and local streets more passable. A tow truck did come to my rescue when I spun off the icy highway and into a ditch in upstate New York during one particularly bad winter storm last year. Occasionally commendable credit is due.

But my biggest concern with the parking authority is that oftentimes, drivers are powerless to protect themselves against improper tows, unfair tickets, or even against scrape and scratch damages to our vehicles caused by improper and negligent towing techniques. Oftentimes it’s simply your word against theirs. I suppose the only real solution is to just stay out of their way if possible. Follow street signs to the letter, timely feed the meters, and don’t park in a spot if you have any doubts. That way, none of us will ever have to learn our parking lessons the hard way and find ourselves as entertaining sideshow victims on Parking Wars.

This is not really a blog about my religious beliefs but what is Easter Sunday without writing a post about money and God?

Many Christians may have spent the morning waking up early to attend Easter Sunday service. Although I did not attend this year, my church chose to celebrate the early morning occasion by holding special holiday services in the great outdoors at a lakeside location in Columbia, Maryland where the whole congregation could worship together with the tranquility of nature.

For non Christians and those unfamiliar with the religious concept of Easter, allow me to explain why the holiday is so important to Christians. Well for starters, it doesn’t revolve around the Easter bunny and her basket of Easter eggs. I have no idea how a cuddly rabbit and her loot became the commercialized focus of the Easter holiday, in the same way I am unclear as to how Santa Claus became the figurehead of Christmas, the other major Christian holiday. But the reason why Easter is important to Christian church goers is because it commemorates and observes the third day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and became resurrected after His crucifixion by the masses. While the day is not filled with presents and celebrated with as much shopping related hype as Christmas, Easter is actually the most important Christian holiday because it remembers the day in history that Christ fulfilled His destiny to become the living sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.

Many ordinary folks tend to overlook the significance of this holiday. I don’t blame them. It’s not a particularly exciting holiday in the secular world. But it’s an incredibly important day because it goes to the very heart of the Christian belief. Easter is the day that we pray to God to thank Him for the goodness He has bestowed on our lives, and to thank him for the continual love that inspired Him originally to send His only son to suffer and die on the cross for us. To non-Christians it may not make much sense, but for myself as a Christian and a believer, it is a very personal day. Through Christ I feel relieved and forgiven for much of the ethical and moral dilemmas of day to day life.

The Eternal Struggle Between Mankind’s Love of Material Wealth and The Love Of God

One of the biggest struggles of all believers has always been the inevitable tension between the love for wealth and the love for God. It might sound strange and funny to be in love with money, but the fact of the matter is that many of us worship wealth. We love to make it, grow it, dream about it, invest it, save it, protect it, and find ways to spend it. Part time finance bloggers such as myself might know more about this than anyone else. We make it our part time duty to write and blog regularly about the topic of money. It’s almost natural for us to become obsessed with the subject of growing our financial wealth. But for those of us who are also Christian, sometimes this fascination can eclipse our humble obligation and duty to put God before everything else.

In fact, this very tension was addressed in the Bible’s New Testament Book of Matthew, Chapter 19, when Jesus Christ was approached by a wealthy man looking for guidance on what he could do to secure his entrance to heaven after his passing. Christ immediately instructed the young man to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor before attempting to pursue God. Christ knew very well that as feeble minded, obsessed, and greedy individuals, it was in our fallible and sinful nature to pursue material wealth and possessions above all else. In fact, upon hearing that he would need to give up all of his wealth to follow Christ, the wealthy young man walked away sad, because he knew giving up his riches would not be easy - his vast wealth meant he had more to lose.

Thus it rings true - it is much easier to seek God when we are poor and downtrodden because we have less to sacrifice. But as our financial wealth grows, it’s the natural tendency to become misguided and blinded with the comforts that material possessions bring. Christ knew this was the case when He later preached to His disciple students:

“I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:23 NIV.

The statement wouldn’t be so sad if it weren’t so true. I have met very few Christians in my life who I believed could truly give up all of their material possessions, fancy home electronics, and wealthy lifestyle for the promise of ephemeral treasures in the afterlife. In this ultra consumerism culture, we have grown so materially self indulgent with our trinkets and treasures that many of us don’t seem to heed the promises that God has laid before us anymore. We are all too easily corrupted by the pursuit of financial riches and worldly things that we have become blind and deaf to God’s words and admonishments. The more our personal wealth grows, the more we seem to to rely on our own abilities and our own financial means to carry us through life’s difficulties, and we stop seeking God’s guidance and blessings.

My Confession - The More Success I Have, The More I Seem To Stray From Church

I am by no means rich or even close to it, but I do believe it would be very difficult for a wealthy individual to genuinely and faithfully follow Christ’s teachings.

A few years ago, I was just out of school and struggled financially so during that time I attended church more regularly. I was active in the church, participated in bible studies, attended church fellowship events, and even joined the church praise worship band as the drummer. Now that I am beginning to thrive again financially and professionally, I find myself drifting away and attending church less and less. I am starting to spend more time tending to my job, my side businesses and my money making ventures, rather than attending Sunday church services or even praying. Even blogging has taken away much of the time I used to have for church fellowship events and I find myself more and more cut off from the church body of Christ. I truly am more fallible than I had imagined.

My pursuit for the meaning of wealth has seemed to blind me to what God has provided for me. I know God has a purpose and a plan for me, but my human ways seem to have blinded me yet again. Deep down inside I know that my money filled world will ultimately be empty without Him, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped me from wandering away from Him like a rebellious sheep. I do hope and pray that I will find my way back. This Easter Day, I hope I can refocus back on God and manage to put Him in first place in my life again. I know that God will never stop dishing out the blessings, but I do hope He’ll help me find a way to re-prioritize my life for the better.

For those who haven’t seen it before, MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” is one of the many things in television pop culture today that is seriously messing up the minds of kids today, leading them down the path of excessive consumerism and obsession with wealth and entitlement. The MTV reality TV show follows and documents the 16th birthday celebrations of upper class teenagers. Now these are no ordinary birthday parties. We’re not talking about a day at Dave and Busters or the bowling alley. On this program we have stretch Hummers, horses, live dancers, famous rap stars, decked out ballrooms, and budget rolls in excess of $300,000. You won’t see any “paltry presents” like Apple iPods or Gap clothing here. Instead, the doting parents of these spoiled rotten kids prefer to give them top of the line BMW’s and Land Rover’s, capped with red bows on top to quench their material thirst. The show, although quite entertaining, proclaims the non-stop need to spend, spend, and spend to the utter collective delight of all luxury car dealerships and luxury boutiques everywhere.

Spoiled Bratty Kids Come In All Sizes

The show features spoiled teens of all race, nationality, and even sex - black, white, Persian, and even shockingly, a few teenage boys among the mostly teenage girls. The show follows the same template, tracing the excitement and expectation of throwing a “sky’s the limit” 16th birthday bash. We get to know the teen as she brags about her wonderful lifestyle and how much she owns in the way of material possessions. The majority of these “daddy’s little girls” stomp their feet and pout until their rich dads buy them the dream party that they want. The mothers that usually accompany these prissy little girls are no different - encouraging and stoking their behavior. In one episode, one mother even ended up trying on the same expensive dress that her daughter was trying out, sending the daughter into an angry and competitive tail spin tizzy of materialistic proportions.

The Excessive Lavishness Knows No Bounds

The show always starts with an elaborate ceremony usually complete with stretch limos and servants to hand out the official decorative invitations to chosen members of the teen’s high school in a manner befitting a royal coronation. The party usually takes up an entire decked out ballroom, with servers, dancers, and show-stopping celebrity singers. $75,000 jewelry and dresses line their wardrobes, adding to the excessive opulence. Throughout each episode, the birthday girl’s teenage guests scream and “woohoo” about the historical nature of the event and how it will go down in history as the best party ever and how everyone will always remember this - to the collective eye rolling of every single television viewer in the United States, myself included.

The end of each episode is never complete without the mandatory birthday girl walking outside with her guests in faux both-hands-to-the-cheek amazement at the ridiculously expensive luxury car awaiting her. While the girl drives away in her birthday present, her throng of friends and guests are left hollering and cheering her on with lavish love, admiration, and envy at her fortune.

It’s Really Entertaining But Also Really Sad

The alarming thing is not that these teeny boppers expect to be thrown lavish over-the-top birthday parties, but it’s that their wealthy parents are so boastful and encouraging of such a superficial lifestyle. The show proudly shows off the birthday teen’s opulence and extravagance, seemingly suggesting that such actions are perfectly normal. There are never glimpses of the ordinary masses, as the birthday teen’s friends and guests are almost always all filthy rich as well, with material throngs and possessions of their own. We never see any bitterness or ridicule by the guests or outside observers as the critics have all been effectively filtered out.

The show is admittedly quite entertaining, but not for necessarily the right reasons. It instills the wrong values in children and younger viewers today, particularly those approaching their 16th birthdays. Rather than preaching hard work and dedication, the show encourages feelings of material entitlement in the nature of “if you loved me you’d buy this for me”.

However I must admit, My Super Sweet 16 is terribly funny and interesting to watch. But when I laugh at the foot stomping, pouty girls in the show, I am doing so in the same manner that I would while watching a celebrity train wreck such as the salacious paparazzi antics of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. I laugh because it’s so stupidly funny, but at the same time I feel sad for them - for the type of persons their own parents have groomed them into one day becoming.

As for my own 16th birthday way back when, I got an ice cream cake custom baked by my mom. I rented a few Nintendo games from Blockbuster, invited 4 close friends over for a video game sleepover party, and partied like a rock star at home. I grew up just fine, although getting a luxury sports car as a present would have been nice.