Charity

I was reading a blog post on another financial blog regarding how much of your income should be given to charity. I just did some calculations and last year I gave less than 1%. I think. I don't track the money I spend feeding the foster animals. But it's still probably less than 1%. In my world, I cover my back end before I try to cover others. In my world, owning 5% of my home and 16% of my education means my ass is not covered. In my world, not maxing out my Roth each year means my ass is not covered. On the other hand, I do enjoy life. I go out for lunch one or two times a week. I'm plotting the most expensive vacation of my life for this year. I make cosmetic updates on my home as I deem fit. And then I think that there are people out there that can't afford to eat. But even the prisoners get cable tv, and I don't get tv, right? This year I think I will take up monthly giving again. But it will still probably be less than 1% of my income..haha. I think that's okay for me, for now.

Oh that note, I watched an interesting documentary last night called Daughter from Danang. I'm not up on history, it was one of my least favorite topics in school. Something tells me they wouldn't have covered this matter anyway. Apparently in the 70s, someone convinced the Vietnamese that any mixed race children (1 part Viet, 1 part American soldier) would be killed. The solution was to turn your kid over for adoption, knowing the children would be airlifted to the US. Operation BabyLift. So these children make it to the US and all they can talk about is their families. Where's my family? Someone informed the people in charge that the children had families, but somehow the people in charge didn't care one bit.

This documentary followed one of these children. She was adopted by a single lady. The single lady adopted one of these children because US orphans weren't available to single parents at the time. She didn't really seem like she even wanted to be a parent so I'm not sure what she was thinking. So this doc checks in on this lady many years later. The adopted lady, Heidi I believe, talked little about her childhood but to say initially she was miserable. Later she adjusted just fine. But she always instructed to tell people she was born in the US. Her mother didn't allow her to talk about her history. She mentioned briefly that her mother's version of spanking included belts or whatever was nearby at the time, and that there wasn't much affection, rarely did anyone tell her she was loved. In college, things went really south. Heidi came home 10 minutes late and was locked out for the night. After that, her mom said follow the rules or pretend you never knew me. Heidi moved on. Since then, over the years, she's tried to reconnect with adoptive mom but adoptive mom won't have any of it.

Anyway, she decides she wants to meet her biological mom, expecting to find the unconditional love she's been looking for. She travels to Vietnam and the first day is bliss, besides the language barrier of course. But after that it goes south. She feels smothered because they don't leave her side. Worse is that in Vietnam, apparently, they don't hesitate to ask family for money. So her sister, whom she had only met days earlier, asks her for money. Heidi gives her money and the response is a request for more money. While put off by the forwardness, she gets over it quickly. But then on the last day, the family is all gathered up. The brother asks Heidi to take the mom back to the US. See, the siblings have taken care of her for 20 years, now it's Heidi's turn. When Heidi looks visibly upset, he revises his request, that perhaps she could just send a monthly stipend. Still very upset. Leaves Vietnam with a bad taste in her mouth. Following that, every time they write to her, they request money. It's like they just see her as money bags. In fact, the sister makes a comment that makes me thing she resents Heidi. Like Heidi was given this great opportunity, and now she needs to pay for having had that great opportunity.

I don't know how I would feel about that. Part of me says if I could afford a small amount, and it would go a long way for them, maybe. But could you imagine? In a few years it would be a bigger request because now one of the children wants this or that or now mom needs this or that. It would be like a black hole. And maybe that's all you know of them. She remarked that the door is closed on them, not locked, but closed. She didn't even want to find her dad after that, afraid of opening a new can of worms.