I love the quote from Gertrude Stein. It beautifully refers to the saying that really drives me crazy: „Money can’t buy happiness“. What does this saying actually mean? First of all, let’s agree that human beings are quite complex creatures, so that a few things have to come together to be happy: Love and connection, health, a fulfilling job, growth, to name a few. Money is first of all either a piece of paper or a number on my bank statement. Being happy or not is subsequently never about money. It is about the things you can do with money or you don’t have to do because you have money.
While some of the things that make people happy are in fact not to be bought with money, above all love and connection, others can. You might like it or not how the world is organized these days, but it’s a fact that if you want to live in a city, have a nice apartment, socialize and get a good education so that you don’t have to flip burgers every day, you need money. That’s why I think the saying is stupid, which does not prevent it from being repeated constantly and from having its fatal effect.
So why is this saying so persistent and why is it so fatal? Have you ever heard a man say that money can’t buy happiness? I have not. But I hear it from women again and again. And that brings us to social norms. Men learn that they have to provide for the family. For them, the saying has no relevance, because money is clearly a factor to be taken seriously. Women should be caring, raising the children, caring for the elderly. In return they can rely on the man who provides the money and protects them.
The saying is the epitome of women being satisfied with what society grants them. That they stay at home with their children or take up occupations in which they are so badly paid that they can hardly cover living costs for themselves, let alone their children. Instead they do good to humanity, and that has to be enough to be happy. Any appeal that nurses (80% women), caregivers (85% women) and nursery school teachers (95% women) should be better paid will fade away unheard as long as there are women who are willing to do these jobs for a starvation wage. This may work, if they have a man to take care of them. But if he changes his mind (divorce rate in Germany: 35 percent), things look bad. Please, dear women, look for a profession in which you earn a decent wage so that you can live on it. Because even if it were true that money can’t buy happiness, no money definitely can’t either.
(The picture is showing my sister and myself at a Christmas shopping tour in New York – made us very happy!)
