My nephew and his wife came for Sunday dinner last month and spent most of it talking about their rent. It had gone up again. They were thinking about moving somewhere smaller, or farther out, or both. My sister looked worried. I did not. I told them they were getting an education most people have to pay a great deal more for.
There is a dignity in rent that we have lost sight of. When you own your house, you start to believe the ground belongs to you. You get comfortable. You plant things. You stop thinking about where you would go if it all went away. A renter never makes that mistake. Every month, when the money leaves his account, he is reminded that the roof over his head is on loan. That is a humbling thing, and humility is good for the young.
Think of it like borrowing a good saddle. You ride more carefully on another man’s saddle. You clean it. You do not leave it out in the rain. My nephew keeps that apartment cleaner than I keep my own house, and I believe it is because he knows he could be asked to leave it. Ownership breeds a kind of carelessness. Renting breeds care.
And when the rent goes up, the lesson goes deeper. You learn to need less. My nephew sold the other car. They stopped going out to eat. His wife picks up extra hours on the weekends. They have a friend from work living in the spare room now, which I think is fine. Our grandparents lived with their parents and their grandparents under one roof and nobody wrote articles about it. Close quarters make close families.
They told me they had hoped to have a baby this year and decided to wait. I know some people would find that sad. I find it responsible. A child should come into a home that can afford him, and if the home cannot afford him yet, the home should wait. That is not hardship. That is prudence, and I wish more young people had it.
I hear people say that young families are being squeezed out of the towns they grew up in. Perhaps some are. I have not looked into it, and I am not sure looking into it would help anybody. What I know is that a young man who has been squeezed a little comes out the other side harder and more careful, and a young man who has had everything handed to him does not.
I mean to vote for my party’s man for the Senate this fall with my nephew in mind. My impression is that the other fellow wants to bring down what young families pay for a roof, and I would hate for the lesson to end just as my nephew was getting the hang of it.
My own house has been paid off for some years now. I do not think about the roof much anymore. I suppose that is what I have lost.
They are learning to be grateful for a roof that is not theirs. I hope they never stop.
D. M.