A few days ago a reader complimented me on giving to the homeless while unemployed.  He called me “humble”.  I was, well, humbled.  I felt like a fraud…because I’m one of those terrible people that just. doesn’t. give.  In short, I suck.  

The other day Ninja at Punch Debt in the Face wrote about Obama/Romney and their respective charitable donation histories. Let’s just say they donate a lot.  Romney, as Ninja pointed out, is Mormon and is therefore expected to donate a substantial portion of his income, as a general expectation of that specific religion.  Ninja himself includes how much he and Girl Ninja tithe, and no kidding, I never even knew what that was until I started reading his blog.

So then Ninja wrote, “Obama’s tax returns tell a different story. In 2009 and 2010, the Obamas donated about 14% of their income to charity. Not too shabby. But if you look at his tax returns prior to becoming El Presidente (2000 to 2008) he never gave more than 6.5% to charity, and two of those years he gave less than 1% of his earnings away.Makes you wonder if he is giving more now because he knows he will get hell if he doesn’t. The Biden’s have never even pretended to be charitable givers, only donating around 1% of their income each year.”

I was shocked that Obama giving 1% of his income to charity was a negative.  I am of the belief that all charitable donations are a great thing, no matter how big or little.  I was a little weirded out at the negative tone Ninja took toward Obama…and the Bidens…but then…I realized why.

For some people, charitable giving is ingrained into them.  For people who grew up with tithing, it’s common for 10% of their income to be the minimum of which to give.  When I read Trent at The Simple Dollar talk about how he is raising his kids to understand money, he talks about teaching them to divide their savings into wants/savings/give away.  I’m like, wha?  That stuff was definitely not ingrained in me.  My parents focused their money on paying for our education and paying their mortgage.  I don’t remember them ever giving any money away, except for a couple dollars at church for Christmas and Easter.  I know that their early money troubles is the basis for their need to control with money (and they had super crazy early money troubles due to my grandfather’s problems – he had 1 mil in debt when he passed away in the 70′s).  I don’t blame them for feeling that way.  It’s human nature.

There are so many of us that don’t think of others while trying to deal with everyday life.  I have friends who are trust fund babies – I have never, ever known them donate money to anyone unless it involved friends at a bar and alcohol.  In fact, they don’t believe in donating anything. I have friends who walk with $400 every night (in restaurants), and whatever they don’t need for bills and such they spend on shoes and handbags.  The last time that we donated to a cause was the Japan Tsunami, and that was not a huge amount.  In fact, it was tiny.  We had decided to make a donation every year to the Seattle Animal Shelter, because that’s where we adopted our cat from.  That lasted 2 years.  The last non-monetary donation I did was to cut my hair off and send it to the Beautiful Lengths program, that gives free wigs to people with cancer.  Because it’s such an obvious donation, people congratulated me for it.  Again, I felt like a fraud.  I can grow hair, others can’t.  But it took me 30 years to get up the courage to cut it all off and start over again?  I’m ashamed even now.

I am a donation failure.  I suck, and I’ll admit it.  

Right now we’re trying to teach our son to share.  After that, I think we’ll take some of Trent’s advice and teach him how to save and give.  Everyone needs to figure out their personal causes and their limits to how much they can give without hurting themselves, because if you’re giving everything away and ending up on welfare, well then, there’s some whack priorities.  (It’s like they say on airplanes, in case of an emergency, put your own face mask on first, then help others.)

Charitable giving is a personal choice – how much, to whom, when.  I have some strong feelings about which organizations should receive money and which should be sent to burn – but again, not my choice (except the Westboro Baptist Church, which I think, regardless of religious, political, socio-economic, racial, and sexual preferences/choices/standings, everyone agrees should just go away, as the protesting of fallen veterans is a terrible, terrible thing) as to where your money goes.  Or doesn’t go.

So while I usually agree with Ninja, I disagree with him on this point.  I think the Obama’s realized how important giving was.  Maybe it was a political thing, as he thinks it is.  Or maybe they just had their eyes opened to how important it is.  Like me.  For me, it’s something that took an awakening.

Walking up to a crippled man begging a dollar from a brand-new, bright yellow range rover just after I had gotten approved for welfare health care was a damn eye opener.  Seeing the driver inside turn away, freaked out, was an eye opener.  Looking at this man as he asked me for money was an eye opener – a wallet opener really because I automatically handed him a dollar.

When our stroller got stolen, I wondered, “Did the person that took it need it more then us?”  My husband is convinced we’ll see a homeless person walking around with it one day.  I’d feel better if that’s the case than if some freaking college kid took it on a dare.  (If it was a freaking college kid I’m calling the cops on him/her.)

I told my reader in the comments, “Sometimes it takes getting pushed out of your comfort zone to really see things from a different angle.”   Because now all I can see is where needs donations, and I wonder how long it will be until I can help.  All I can think about is volunteering while my son is at school and I’m a home-bound unemployed pregnant lady.  I look at programs and think about how much good they do for people – how much good they’re doing for me.  And I wonder sometimes if this unemployment – this really crummy situation I’ve found myself in – was in fact the ass-kicking I needed to get off my selfish high horse and make a small difference to someone/something/somewhere.