Age-old advice: Richer or poorer

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/01/2017 (3542 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dorothy Dix Letter Box, originally published April 12, 1930

Dear Dorothy Dix — I wonder if most of your letters from discontented and unhappy wives and husbands aren’t from rich people who have so much idle time in which to get into mischief?

We are poor people, yet we are happy. My husband only makes $4 a day* and have four children to support.

We do not have fine clothes or furniture, but we have a second-hand car that takes us on many a picnic. We have no radio, but we have pleasant evenings at home.

Sometimes when my husband is sick we have hard times, but I take in a few washings, or go out and do a few days’ cleaning and all is right again.

Tell me, isn’t our home happier than where they have all the clothes they wish, and the children go to shows every night? Mine never go more than three or four times year.

-A Happy Family

Answer: I know why your family is a happy family. It is because at the head of it is a woman who is strong and courageous, and wise and philosophical, and tender and loving. That kind of wife and mother makes a happy family, no matter whether they have millions of dollars or none at all.

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But the letters I get from discontented and disgruntled husbands and wives come from every class of society. They come from millionaire husbands and wives who have fought to the doors of the divorce court, from rich fathers and mothers who have wayward sons and daughters they cannot control, and from poor husbands and wives who scrap together all the time, and poor fathers and mothers whose children are running wild.

There is just as much strife in cheap bungalows and two-by-four flats as there is in palaces. Women’s hearts break alike under brocade and chiffon and calico over unfaithful husbands. The girls before the counter and the girls behind the counter are just as apt to be wild and go with boys of whom their mothers do not approve, for human nature is just the same uptown and downtown.

And as for happiness, it is one of the things that money does not buy. And behind having enough to keep the wolf from the door, money cuts no figure in our happiness.

That comes from, within, and it is a matter of a brave spirit and taking the right attitude toward life. It is a matter of a cheerful acceptance of our fate and making the best of it. It is matter of finding pleasure simple things and keeping faith with God and life. And whether one is rich or poor has nothing to do with it.

*$4 in 1930 is worth about $58 in 2016 dollars.