Marketing the Dream

By Anonymous / Fall 2024

If one were to outline the mythical American dream, the story of self- made American success, my family would appear to have followed it to a T. It's a cliche for rich white kids to say we’re comfortable, so I won't do that, we’re wealthy. My mom, a former lawyer, judge, and now a private mediator, is firmly in the 1%. My sister and I never materially wanted for anything in our lives and that's all our mother ever wanted, but she wasn’t born there like I was.

My Grandma immigrated from Portugal when she was twelve, landing in small town Illinois. At first she didn’t know English yet she assimilated quickly, finding a blue-collar husband, a job at John Deer, and having two children in the same small town after graduating high school. My mother and uncle, while having white skin, were still some of the most diverse kids in town, having slurs thrown at them constantly. That didn't stop them though, my mom a cheerleader and my uncle a star basketball player for their high school, were true American teens. After the University of Iowa, my mom paid her way to law school to chase her dream of being a lawyer in her dream location, San Diego, while my uncle stayed in Illinois and started a small business. They both caught lucky breaks, meeting a big potential client while bartending and getting a huge first contract through high school connections, and now, 35 years later, both have dreamlives well within the economic elite of this nation.

It sounds perfect, like something you'd read in a brochure or as a part of an assignment in a private school’s American history class. While having a family who ‘succeeded’ in the American dream is normally intoxicating, I’ve grown to understand we are an extreme exception, not the proof. Growing up materially wealthy is as fantastic as it's assumed to be. Anyone who says otherwise or that money can't buy happiness is bullshitting you, however, upward mobility and money aren't inherently synonymous with stability and fulfillment.

Before my first memory formed my parents were divorced, it was amicable. More importantly is that my mom remarried a doctor with two kids of his own when I was very young. No amount of square footage could keep us from hearing the screaming each night. After years of verbal abuse it was physical abuse that finally convinced my mom to get herself and us away from them. My older stepbrother had seemingly learned from his father as he abused me in turn for those same years, but unfortunately I had kept quiet until the marriage was already at its end. During this time my sister felt extreme neglect and resentment, we both felt unsafe and unwanted often in our home.

We left, for a few years our mom had to juggle a lot on her own. She began passing out at work, she couldn't drive, cook, or do almost anything anymore her anxiety was so debilitating. My dad was trying to reestablish his footing after being in between jobs for a while so he wasn't able to help much, leaving us to take care of our mom while she continued to take care of us. After one or two failed yet serious relationships, I was twelve when a friend of hers introduced her to another lawyer who soon became my second stepfather. He brought another two kids of his own older than me and my sister, both problem children as he's admitted, one is now a mother of two married to a professional athlete and the other left the country for good some years ago, considering his childhood to have been one full of abuse and dysfunction under my stepdad's roof. His paycheck took us from in the one percent to well within the one percent, and luckily this time around he took a more hands off approach to parenting.

They're still happily together, although my mom has admitted to feeling pressure from my sister especially to make this marriage work no matter what. I had to explain gaslighting to my mom over the summer because she'd realized he'd been doing it to her, demanding she be the loving trophy wife and career woman so he could enjoy the golf with his friends carefree after work. It's nowhere near physical abuse, but the third marriage still isn’t close to perfect. Throughout my life so far, a family with all this wealth and material luxury, and yet we made the Simpsons seem healthy and functional.

My dad’s story is different but still deeply American. From a small farming town in Iowa, he grew up in a family that has been here since before the civil war, fought on the union side thankfully, and went to college at the University of Iowa. A frat guy stoner who vaguely wanted to become a professor, he quickly dumped that dream after teaching high school for a bit and became a salesman instead. He was bitter and unfulfilled, part of the reason why my parents got divorced, but he pushed a few more years until he felt he had to take his life in another direction. On recommendation he started working at CPS, he fell in love with the work and the meaning behind it, protecting kids from growing up in unsafe environments. He's struggled with how little funding they often have, and he's keenly aware of the class and racial implications that often come with taking people's kids away. Doing the best with what American reality has given him, he's found real purpose in finding children safe homes as fairly as possible along race and class lines. Now he lives alone with his two cats, a few girlfriends but never remarried, and I try to see him once a week for dinner. While especially when playing soccer he could be critical, his advice has always meant a lot and I never felt unsafe in his home.

My mom told me when I was young people got paid but how much responsibility they had, and that's why our world was just. As an adult now I see a stepfather who defends corporate landlords and private prison owners in court and my mother who does celebrity and billionaire divorces lives far more luxurious lives than my father who works tirelessly to make sure some of the most unfortunate children can have safety and opportunity. The lesson she taught me isn't true. My dad may not be able to afford expensive trips, but my mom and stepdad are more trapped than he is, at least in some significant spiritual way. Chasing the dream has left my mother stressed to the point of risking her life and my stepdad with kids who don't talk to him, yet neither feels true fulfillment, online shopping or golfing and drinking to fill in the gaps.

Buying into American culture, and the confirmation bias of success has altered my family's perceptions for the worse. When I was nine I asked my mom what I had to do for her to consider me successful, she told me $200,000 a year. I talked to my grandma last year about why our family decided to leave Portugal and she told me it was socialism, but Portugal never had a socialist leader and during the time our family left it was fascism that had taken over. I guess she got confused after decades of watching Fox News and desperately wanting to assimilate. My stepdad even has signed copies of famous race science books alongside The Wealth of Nations.

I was the problem child, mostly due to bad grades and mental health struggles, I didn't realize I also had ADHD and OCD until after failing out of ASU. Since then I've worked hard to transfer my way here so I can succeed but under my own metrics and definition of the word. This essay is not a long-winded complaint about my childhood, it was full of love and comfort, I had more privilege than the overwhelming vast majority of everyone on this planet and I'm eternally grateful, while also feeling guilt over my luck. In fact, my favorite compliment I received as a teenager is that when people found out I had money they'd say they never would've guessed that I didn't act like it. I'm proud that I never came off like that, I want to dedicate my life to closing the gap between rich kids like me, and all the other rich kids who I generally hated perhaps due to projection, and everyone else whom I never understood why they supposedly deserved less. What my family story illustrates is that the myth of the American dream doesn’t work even when it does, its marketing, a painting we can't step into, meant to manufacture our consent and belief, yet it leaves even those at the top trapped and wanting on the backs of billions.