Jan's elder son adds his thoughts:
The night before we moved, I had just come home from a ski trip at a friend's cottage. The thought of going from privilege to poverty wasn't pleasant, and I decided to go out for one last good meal. A friend and I went to the Mandarin, for an all-you-can-eat buffet: I stuffed myself with sushi, fried shrimp and steak in preparation for a month of deprivation.
A few days earlier, my guidance counsellor assigned me a project of personal inquiry: “What are my expectations? What do I hope to achieve by going through this experience?” Truthfully, I had not given it much thought. You see, I never really had a choice. My mom made an announcement at the dinner table one night. She had this experiment in mind. . . In the end, I jotted down “new perspective and outlook” on the assignment paper. This would prove truer than I had imagined.
I joked with a friend, saying that if things got too bad, I might really get into this minimum-wage thing and start spending my dog-walking earnings on beer. (As it happens, the $95 a week I make from walking my neighbours' three dogs is more than my mom makes in an 11-hour day.)
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The first day at school, only my close friends knew about the experiment. So when classmates asked what I did over the weekend, they laughed and looked dubious when I announced we had moved to Scarborough. By the next day, half my grade knew. One of my friends even took to singing the Elvis Presley song, In the Ghetto. But in truth, our apartment was all right. My basic necessities were met, and then some. I just humoured my schoolmates, who seemed to think that I was now practically homeless.
I was concerned about spending so much time in confined quarters with my mom. Even at home we fight now and then, and I was worried that it would be worse in close quarters, under fatigue and stress. As it happens, fatigue saved the day. Since the beginning of the second week, I'd been feeling exhausted — suddenly, after going from eating a lot of meat to eating hardly any, I was protein-deprived. So we were simply too tired to fight. Most of the time, I would just note something my mom said or did that would normally provoke me — like when she pesters me with personal questions — and simply stand there, emotionless, too tired to act.
I must profess that I did indulge in a few luxuries. I'd go over to my friend's house and we'd play pool or watch a movie. Then I'd leave the grandeur of his mansion, heading back by TTC to our little apartment.
In the last week of the experiment, I was at the Dundas subway station when I saw a hobo begging for money. Having just experienced a lifestyle more frugal than the one I was accustomed to, I walked over and offered to buy him dinner at the mall's food court. “I appreciate it, but I don't want to leave my spot right now — it's rush hour,” he told me. When I handed him a $10 bill, more than I've ever given anyone before, he brightened and got up to shake my hand.
“Knowledge is power,” he said, looking me in the eye. “Stay in school — study hard.”
After living through a minimum-wage month, I think I'll take the advice.
