Midwestern Generosity

One of the first things anyone will come up with if you ask them to describe the Midwest is generosity. Generosity is a virtue in many cultures around the world and throughout history. While it may seem like this is a virtue that is quickly being forgotten and even rejected, I can assure you, fellow Amerikaner, it is alive and well in our little slice of this continent spanning nation.

I’m sure we all know what it means to be generous on a base level, but according to Oxford dictionary as (Of a person) showing a readiness to give more of something, as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected. The value of generosity can not be understated either. It is a virtue that long has connected people, and generations. To be generous is to give of your own to someone who may not have much, and most of the time, you’re expecting little or nothing in return. The idea of “calling in a favor” is something which is pretty foreign for most midwesterners. Sure, we’ll tell our boss that so-and-so’s kid is applying and they’ve got a good attitude, but we don’t call in favors. We give our time, resources, and influence out of the goodness in our hearts. That’s not to say other regions are populated by miserly curmudgeons who only help because they can call in a favor later, it means that we just give.

A personal anecdote to illustrate this point. Years back, I was in high school, living in the far north of the Midwest. My family was not wealthy or even “comfortable” really. Dad worked a dead-end service job, step-mom couldn’t work and collected disability. We were poor, simple as that. Without getting into deep family backstory, we had a major shift in the family, and it really shook a whole lot of things up. Some folks I went to church with had heard about it, and few days after the news got out, they showed up with their minivan, and the back half of it was filled with groceries, essentials, meals prepped for two weeks, and probably $500 cash. These people were better off than us, significantly to be sure. But this was a significant amount of groceries and essentials for anyone to just buy for another family. I distinctly remember my step-mom walking outside and she began crying at the sheer weight of what she saw. These people probably spent close to $800 on us, to get us by even for a little bit. These are the kinds of people across the Midwest, this is the character of the people who live in this region.

Another anecdote to illustrate the point, in a more intangible way. Growing up, my grandmother would host Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter dinners for the family. She always made sure to buy more than what was needed, and set an extra place at the table. Often times, our holidays included people from outside of our family. One Christmas, I asked why she did it. Her response was a very simple “Some people don’t have anywhere to go for the holidays.” And it is here that we see the true spirit of generosity, exemplified by a woman who’s never lived more than 30 minutes from where she grew up.

Anyone who has ever been to a Midwest cookout or potluck will tell you that this virtue is alive and well. Almost everyone who lives here has hosted, or been to a cookout, they are an inevitable fact of life here in the Midwest, once the snow is gone of course. Almost without fail, there will come a moment where the host sees a neighbor, coworker, or friend who wasn’t initially planned to be there, starts up a 15 minute conversation, and invites them to join. Of course in almost all cases, this is no skin off the back of the person hosting, because they bought twice the brats and significantly more hamburger than was needed. But this just illustrates my point further that the Midwest is a place of incredible generosity. In that the host, despite not initially inviting them, has planned for this eventuality, simply assuming that there will be an opportunity for one more person.

It’s something that the people here are understated about though. We don’t like to brag or be conspicuous about our generosity. It’s subtle and understated, like many aspects of our Midwest culture. Some of this attitude comes from the pervasive protestant ethic in the region. Look at any Midwest town or city and in almost all of them you’ll find a bar and a Lutheran church.

We’ve all been out to eat or grabbed some drinks with friends, and inevitably someone says something to the effect of “one check” or “hey, don’t worry about it.” Now, too be fair, the weird nuance here is that you’re obligated to refuse the first time, as is customary, but in areas near where I grew up, it’s not uncommon to hear people refuse two or three times, before acquiescing. The point is that we are people who just a good natured spirit, we aren’t stingy, or miserly.

We aren’t too fond of flashy and conspicuous generosity, but we are a people of quiet and humble generosity, and that is what makes us different. We’re a generous people, willing to give the shirt off our backs, or shell out to provide for our friends. We know our neighbors, we care about them, we care about our friends. We are generous not because we are Midwesterners, we are generous because it’s who we are on a spiritual and ethical level. As I close, I’d issue the challenge to spend the next few days or weeks, finding small ways to be generous. Buy your friend a round at the bar, pick up donuts for the team at work. The only way the world, and our little piece of it, will get any better is if we ourselves do better to make it better. In so doing, we will preserve the culture of generosity that exists here in “real Rhinelander.”