Last night’s dinner-table conversation topic was a continuation of a conversation The Daughter and I had in the car the other day.

How different would your life be if Daddy had a lot more money?

I had guessed that The Husband might drive a Cadillac; nothing flashy just a regular Cadillac. He used to drive Cadillacs back in the old days when his dad was still alive and bought a new company car every two or three years. The Husband used to buy the old Caddy from the company. It’s not the prestige of the name, it’s just that he got used to the size, comfort, and bells and whistles that those Caddys had.

But when I voiced this guess, The Husband thought for a second and shook his head. No, he really likes the sporty little Subaru Impreza that he drives now. For an old coot, he’s awfully adaptable. And adorable, if you ask me.

As for myself, I, too, felt that my life would not be significantly different. If we had a lot more money, I’d probably drive a different car. When we bought The Tank both of the children were still being homeschooled and I had grand visions of increasing the amount of our travel beyond the 4 to 5 months a year that the children and I were already spending on the road. The kids were getting bigger and I knew that trend would continue so I wanted something bigger and a little more comfortable to travel in. I also had dreams of owning some sort of travel trailer so we wouldn’t always have to engage in destination-travel so towing capacity was needed. But shortly after buying The Tank, our life situation changed and we settled into a schedule tied to the academic year. We started doing less traveling, rather than more, and our in-town life starting involving more and more regular commuting. If I’d known that I’d end up commuting around a large metro area in an SAV (suburban assault vehicle), I never would have purchased The Tank. And if we were among the wealthy-class instead of the middle-class, I would have replaced The Tank with a more gas-mileage friendly vehicle long before now.

Also, if being completely honest, we’d probably live in a different house in a different neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, I love our house. But the rooms are small and it doesn’t have a real living room nor a proper eating space. And half of the total living space is in the basement. Granted, it’s a walk-out and fully finished. That’s not the point. The point is that when it was designed, all of the living space was divided among half of the house’s total square footage — the main floor. That makes the rooms smaller and the layout more miserly. We’d still live in the western suburbs though. Not in the city. Not near The Daughter’s school. Out here in the foothills above the brown cloud.

I’d still dress the same way. I’d still wear baseball caps, woollen socks, and no make-up. My values and tastes would be the same. I know that The Husband would dress the same, too — he wears whatever we and his first generation of children give him as gifts.

The Daughter was dismayed and disgusted. Her life would be completely different if her daddy had a lot of money. She’d live in the city near all of her private-school-attending friends. She’d get a car for her 16th birthday. She’d have “lots more clothes and tons more shoes” (high-heeled ones, too, even though I pointed out that her lack of high-heeled shoes had nothing to do with our finances and everything to do with the fact that I say she can’t have them at her age).

She really wants her dad to have the desire and the finances to be part of the “country-club set.” Where does this come from? Her dad and I find it bewildering. And worrisome.

Once we got past the question of how our lives would or would not be different, materially, we went on to discuss the more subtle differences. The Husband felt that life would be more stressful. The Son wondered why life with more money would be more stressful? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Well, Dad responded, “I’d have to pay more taxes and spend more time figuring out how to invest it. And people would always be bugging me wanting to borrow money.”

I think some of that was tongue-in-cheek. But he and I both agreed that wealthy parents seem to face unique parenting challenges that middle-class parents don’t face. We aren’t faced with some of the moral and personal-value conundrums that wealthier parents face. For example, we feel it’s a bad idea to give a 16-year-old a car. And luckily we won’t be faced with deciding whether or not to stand by our moral position. For us, it’s simple. We can’t afford to buy The Daughter a car when she turns 16. But we’re also lucky in that adding a teen-aged driver with good grades to our policy won’t put us in debt.

Ah, the comforts of a middle-class income. Enough money for the basics without the worries of excess. Life is good.

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