I don’t think of myself as rich. 

Of course, rich is a relative term.

I only own half of one house, and it has a mortgage; but being a homeowner means I’m richer than a lot of Americans. I drive a seven-year-old car (running nicely, thank you) which makes me more affluent and gives me a larger carbon footprint than most people in the world.

I think of myself as middle-class, as I believe do most Americans whose annual family income ranges (depending on where they live) from thirty-something thousand dollars through, I’d guess, the mid-six-figure range. Even those at the high end of those numbers probably don’t think they’re rich, because it’s so hard to say when you have enough.

I’m thinking about this subject because the front page of the New York Times and most other newspapers have been loaded yesterday and today with stories about investment banks, brokerages and insurance companies, all in financial trouble, and about the tumbling numbers on the stock exchange.

And what’s weird is that it worries me, not only because I worry about the country sliding further into a recession, but because I have actual investments.

I never used to look at business stories.

It doesn’t seem so many years ago that all I had was a checking account from which the money went out as quickly as it went in, and a plain vanilla savings account (often with a balance of about $35, if that) and I thought that if I could ever get up to having $1,000 put away for a rainy day I would feel secure.

Now, having survived as a single mother the years of Catholic school and college tuition (with the help of my son’s scholarships and earnings) I have modest tax-advantaged retirement accounts invested in various mutual funds…and I don’t like hearing that the stock market is tanking.  I even have funds that I moved out of my savings account and into the market because the savings account was earning less than one percent interest: over about six years, that amount has gone down about ten percent. I guess nobody should ask me for financial advice—except that it is a good idea to save what you can if you ever hope to retire, even if the value of stocks and bonds invariably fluctuates and even though that fluctuation is a little daunting sometimes. (I also have what I think is a healthy fear of debt, but that’s another column.) And I don’t feel terrifically secure.

What rocks me a little bit is that back when I thought $1,000 was a whole lot of money—and I still think it’s a whole lot of money—I would have thought someone in my current position was rich.  Not quite a bloated plutocrat, but more than comfortable. And instead of feeling rich, I watch my nickels and look for bargains.

How does rich feel, I wonder. I once wrote a series on how Christians relate to material goods. As part of my research I interviewed a couple who had married when they had no assets and low-paying jobs (they lived in a rented room and she cooked on a hot plate), and when I met them were earning an annual income over $1 million. They said that being rich meant they didn’t have to think about money: when a bill came, they paid it; when they needed something, they bought it. They didn’t live ostentatiously. They sent their kids to private school but didn’t shower them with luxuries. They weren’t socialites. They were frank about the negatives as well as the positives of handling their wealth responsibly. They also said they’d always tithed, giving ten percent of what they made to the church and other charities.

Their example influenced me—and that was when I was pretty poor—to work charitable giving into my own budget, to write a check to my parish each week instead of giving from what was left over in my wallet. I still do that (I increased the amount a little each time I got a raise, although I haven’t reached the full ten percent) and regularly give to a couple of other causes.

But in a world where over a billion people live on less than $1 a day, where having a bank account, let alone retirement savings, puts me among the minority of the wealthy, I wonder how I dare to worry about Wall Street ups and downs.

How am I going to squeeze through that needle’s eye?

There’s been much ado in the news the past couple of days about the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, presumptive Republican nominee for vice-president.

Reports are that  “family values” delegates and supporters of Senator John McCain are taking the revelation well, noting that out-of-wedlock pregnancies are among the things that happen in real families and that everyone makes mistakes, and applauding the fact that Bristol is going to give birth to her baby rather than have an abortion.

Bravo, I say, to this family that is rallying around their daughter and sister and promising her their ongoing love and support. They are offering the country a model of a truly pro-life response by preparing to welcome new life into their hearts.

I am a little concerned, however, about the other half of the announcement that always follows immediately on the news of Bristol’s baby: “and she’s going to marry the father.”

If “legitimizing” the child is a key element for the family values folks—and its invariable inclusion in the announcements by people connected to the campaign makes me think that the campaigners at least think it’s important—then I have a problem with them.

There is, after all, no such thing as an illegitimate child. Every child is a priceless gift from God—a premise Sarah Palin upheld when she bore her own infant son knowing he has Down syndrome. 

So why is everyone so pleased that this pregnant teenager is getting married?

We haven’t been told much about the baby’s father, and that’s appropriate enough—this family is dealing with a tough situation with little enough privacy. But I wonder how old he is, and, if he’s near Bristol’s age, how ready either of them is to take on the lifetime commitment of marriage and childrearing. I hope for their sakes that they’re among the lucky few who are ready to become instant adults. I hope that what looks to me like an old-fashioned shotgun wedding is instead the decision of two young people with their eyes wide open to freely choose each other as life companions.

If the Palins were to ask my advice—something most unlikely to happen—I would encourage them continue to be supportive of their daughter, but to postpone the wedding. Let them let Bristol know that they love her outrageously and unconditionally—she’s going to need love more than anything else during these next months—and let her have her baby, bring him or her home, and take significant responsibility for his or her care. Let them help her continue her education, but help her also to know that she now has the primary duty of nurturing a new life. Let the baby’s father help her, if he’s willing, and let him continue to woo her if he wants her. Let him find out some of the realities of parenting, including that a baby’s needs have to come first, and that for responsible parents teenage pleasures run a distant third, after education or perhaps a steady job. Let them both change some diapers. Don’t buy them a condo and a new car.

Then, maybe, talk about a wedding. If they’re both still interested, he may have proved himself good enough for a beloved daughter. If not, he wasn’t worth having in the first place. For Bristol, being an unmarried mother will be hard (I’m sure it already has been hard for her), but not nearly so hard as being a young mother stuck in a bad marriage. Her baby’s father may be the right man for her—but should she really be deciding that at seventeen?