Can Money Buy Happiness? by Reese

Can Money Buy Happiness? by Reese - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

Growing up, I never understood why everyone had everything they wanted. The family vacations every year, the big family dinners. Maybe I didn't have functioning parents. Maybe I didn't appreciate the fact that they worked all day, to come home and work more. Had you asked me this question 5 years ago, I would’ve said yes, of course money can buy happiness. Why wouldn’t it? Though, I never sat down and thought about it.
I didn’t have the kind of mother that was filled with unconditional love. No, I had the mother that would work, solely for the purpose of having enough money to buy alcohol. Every year, I would go to school with the same clothes, same shoes, same supplies. I hardly took notes during class because I knew I would have to use them next year, so the pages I did write in, were ripped out, and thrown away. I was never put in sports or any other extracurriculars because my older siblings were already using all my mothers “time and money”. I’m the youngest of six children, I’ve been casted aside, left with the words that were thrown at me everyday. “You’re never going to make it.” Yet, my entire life, I’ve been trying to make it, trying to survive, just like everyone else.
Now, being the only child left in the house, I can’t help but wonder if my childhood was ordinary. The dish soap on the couch that was preventing fleas, using the same costume over and over again each year, only having Christmas some years, my siblings and I having to steal our mothers credit card to buy food because she never did towards the end. Was that all normal. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon. I used to hate my mother for what she did, putting me in situations that I shouldn’t have been in, forcing me to drive at 13 because she was too drunk. But now, I thank her. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without everything that happened to me, without everyone that helped me see that I didn’t need anyone. I can get to where I need too by myself without anyone’s help.
The way I grew up changed how I thought, every time I had this question asked in school, I always said yes. Until 7th grade, we had an assistant teacher sitting in the class, she was fairly new and had just barely moved to the U.S. As the question was slowly passed around the class, you could hear faint agreements that the way to be happy was to become a ‘millionaire’. This piqued the assistant teacher's interest. She stood up and walked to the front of the class, waiting for everyone to quiet down before she said her own answer, the answer that changed the way I thought forever. “Money doesn’t buy happiness. No, you’ve got it all wrong. Money buys relief.”