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I thought we were not exactly poor, but poorer than others when I was a kid because most of the people around me or that I knew had nicer houses, nicer clothes, their parents drove nicer cars. I was embarrassed that I had to wear my older sisters' hand-me-downs before I got anything new. We were the last family on the planet to get a color TV because my parents wouldn't buy a new TV as long as the old B&W still worked.
Then I got out in the real world when I got a job in NYC, and I met people who had been evicted and then their mother would wait until sundown because they knew the sheriff wouldn't come back into the ghetto after dark and she would pull out her tools and break the lock and get them back in the house. They'd eaten rice for dinner for days on end. Got Thanksgiving baskets from a church every year. I met people who had spent their childhood summers picking cotton or vegetables to help their families.
I realized I had NEVER been poor in my life. I was one of 7 kids and my parents were Depression kids and my mother especially had been dirt poor, where they ate turtles caught from the local pond because there wasn't anything else. But my father always had a job, we had two cars--used, because my parents knew that cars depreciated right away so they only bought used--the use of hand-me-downs from my older sisters were just them watching their money. I'd always had a good dinner, and my mother sent us to school with homemade lunches. My parents owned their own home, we had doctors when we were sick, toys at Christmas, summer vacations to a lake. I had NEVER been remotely poor.
Same. We were lower middle class, a small-business owning family in a rural economy. We didn't get a VCR (!) until years after everyone else already had one, limped along in cars always on the verge of dying, were frugal both by choice and by necessity, didn't go on vacations where we'd have to stay in motels or eat in restaurants, instead using cabins owned by family friends and bringing our own food to cook. I didn't play certain sports because of the fees involved, didn't take the class trip to Washington, D.C. because of the cost involved, etc. But we never had our utilities shut off, always had food to eat, could get medical care if we were sick, etc. I was always aware that other families in the area had more than us, and lots of others had less. The issue wasn't so much that my parents' income was so low, it was more that the nature of the business was that there were flush times and very lean times, vs. a steady income. Not exactly "feast or famine," more like "eating a modestly sized, filling and nutritious meal or famine."
My first "job (actually, volunteer gig)" took me to inner city Chicago, working with street kids. Who thought I was rich, even though I was making my room and board, plus an $80/mo. discretionary stipend. The difference between being lower middle class and being impoverished is pretty staggering.
I'll tell you who are the type of people who look down on chronically poor people with disdain: It's those who grew up poor and become successful. The people who grew up in affluent families are actually more sympathetic toward poor people.
i grew up very poor. Our family was at or near the poverty line for many years. I graduated college with tens of thousands in high-interest loans (in the 90s, interest rates were high). Then became a millionare in my late 20s and a multimillionare a couple of years later. Yeah, I do look down on chronically poor people. I'm sick of the excuses they make. I had every reason to remain poor -- like going to bad public schools with gangs and a high drop-out rate -- but I was really driven. So were my siblings. We're all doing well now.
Attitude and ambition are what get you places, and chronically poor people have a bad attitude and no ambition.
Yes, I think you are exactly right. Very wealthy people who have always been wealthy generally take a very patronizing view of poor -- the poor little helpless victims attitude.
People who have been poor and made it out, usually did so by hard work and a lot of scrimping and living frugally. They have less tolerance for those who don't want to work and just want everyone to feel sorry for them and give them an easy life.
I've been completely broke, I was inches from losing my house, worried how I was going to feed my kids, but working two jobs was the only way out so that's what I did. I didn't grow up homeless however -- I had a good middle class childhood but parents who didn't believe in handing kids money or spoiling them with too many things.
I know what it's like not to have enough to eat out in restaurants or buy new clothes, I really find it difficuult to respect those who claim to be poor but are buying steaks and buy their clothes at the mall and have cell phone service beyond a cheap prepaid with 50-80 minutes a month.
Work is the way out. If one job doesn't cut it, then you work two jobs.
I was in my late 20's/early 30's. I was renting a small 1 bedroom apartment. When I moved in I had no furniture. I move in February 1, in the middle of winter with snow everywhere. I slipped on the ice and fell moving my very first box into the apartment. I had both a wood stove and a baseboard heat. I could not afford to use the baseboard heat, so I use the wood heat. I had a huge box of wood scraps someone gave me and that is what I used. I had a tiny one person air mattress I slept on, on the floor next to the wood heater for warmth. Someone later gave me a double size mattress that had no frame and so I just layed it on the floor in the bedroom. Someone gave me a chair that was so destroyed that I had to throw a bedcover over it. It had screws in it that would nick me now and then. My books were on bookshelves made of cinder blocks and pieces of wood. I had no phone and no car. I would walk to a nearby phone booth no matter what the weather was for set-up calls with my family. For awhile I had no tv and then I bought one that was black and white from a garage sale that the picture on the screen was cockeyed. I painted and did work around the apartment to get the rent down a little lower. I had $20 a week for food, and I would shop each evening after 6 pm when the submarine sandwiches were half price after 6. That was my treat for the week. I had no family at all that lived near me and just a couple of friends. It was a tough time but at the same time it was a time I look at with nostaglia, my life was so much simplier then.
I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood and I'm on a scholarship to one of the best private schools in Australia, and compared to many of my classmates who regularly holiday in Europe and spend summers on their private yachts, yes I do feel poor.
I didn't grow up homeless or anything, and my circumstances never warranted living on benefits from the government but my parents were distinctly blue-collar. I live in an immigrant neighbourhood where English isn't widely spoken amongst the adult generation, and I was born to immigrants. My stepfather is a factory worker and my mother is a receptionist, neither which are glamourous jobs by any means. My siblings and I were often told 'no' when we asked for things when we were young children, and the adults in our families weren't around often because they worked (and still do!) long hours. All my siblings and I attend/ed private school, and received tutoring lessons, piano lessons, sports lessons etc. and that came through much sacrifice on our parents' parts because they wanted us to grow up well-rounded with good futures. We hardly ever go on holidays to different states, let alone overseas and I remember when I was younger, and first started at my school, I used to lie about where I live because it used to be a fairly dodgy area and even then, I still don't bring any friends home. Yes, I can admit I'm ashamed of where I live and it sucks, really.
My family is definitely not rich, but I know that compared to many, we're not hard up or anything, we're just the type of family who can get by while foregoing several luxury items in the process. We don't really celebrate Christmas, birthdays etc. though we do celebrate Chinese New Year XD I'm grateful to my parents for my opportunities, though once I finish high school, I'm definitely planning on going to university and getting the hell out of this place.
A while back my wife got funny and had me booted out of the family home... My brother who is wealthy said I could stay at his house..THEN ..he reneged and I ended up on top of this hill in a shack that my other brother was going to tear down a build a house..The place was a dump...but it was by a horse ranch and over looking a lake...I got so poor that I had to resort to a pager to get work..Had to cross a field in the middle of the night to get to a pay phone by a general store..crossing the field in total darkness I had to work my way through a herd of horses...it was unnerving.
Things got worse - I ran out of money and had to take a canoe out and catch these tiny little sun fish and would make a chowder out of them...To bath I would have to fill up this huge old wash tub and light up the wood stove ...I would put the tub in front of the stove and open the door so I could see the flames...Oddly - I absolutely loved the experience..Eventually the wife started dropping by...Making love out side in the pasture in the middle of the day was very erotic.
Eventually I went home...Thinking back I really enjoyed the primitive living..The well water was crystal clear and cool...When a storm came up the place would creak...sitting out back in the morning having coffee and watching the horses were sweet moments...Poor is fine..providing you have control over the situation...like the ability and opportunity NOT to be poor.
Sometimes I wonder if I made myself poor intentionally for the adventure.
I ask this because I came across a post on a different forum and the comments got heated. Some of the people were so stuck up and not understanding or sympathetic at all. It made me wonder if they used to be poor too and now they aren't so they kind of have a disdain towards those who haven't gotten ahead like they have.
I grew up poor. I was homeless for the majority of my childhood and then when I was teenager was placed into foster care, which didn't really help. Now I'm in college but for a year, I worked two jobs and had nowhere to live so I slept on the all nighter bus (the route took a few hours), took showers at my gym, went to school then job #1 and then job #2. Eventually I saved up enough to get my own place and I'm still struggling kind of. I eat mostly salads and pb&j and occasionally ramen. I clip coupons, take public transportation and my apartment is furnished by secondhand furniture that the local st. vincent de paul donated to me. I am no longer homeless but I still consider myself poor so it saddens me to think people look down on people like me (and those who are worse off) because of my income and lack of assets.
So I ask: Have you ever been poor? How poor and if you aren't anymore, how did you move up?
One the best will come to you. You did not go through all you did to not be someone successful
Yes, in my first marriage, every time I got a job, my husband quit his. I had to budget for everything and read the electric meter daily to make sure we stayed within the budget that I had set for that. I learned to cook everything from scratch, buy all the marked down things at the grocery and figure out what to do with them. I learned what to do with pig's feet! We had one small child at the time. The marriage ended after almost 5 years. Now, 30 years later, my life has no debt and I feel those early years have a lot to do with how I lived my life. I do not ever want to be that poor again.
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