Well of Financially? Do you spend much time really talking to poor people? (husband, siblings)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Growing up in a wealthy family I never had much to do with poor people. I lived in a beautiful community where nearly everyone was well off and lived in large single family homes on acre lots. I went to a private school with other rich kids and never had a part time job.
Now I am on my own and going to college at a local community college. I am working part time at a local 7-11 store. What an experience! The grave yard shift at 7-11 is really interesting. Our store has got the same cast of characters who come in for smokes and beer every night. Lots of poor people making poor choices. We also get lots of lonely folks who want someone to talk to and I am open to their conversation. The stories they tell me!
Meeting my fellow students at the local Community College and working at the 7-11 store on a graveyard shift is an eye opening experience and lets me know more how the other half live. Moderator cut: delete
My parents were so sad I did not do well in High School and could not get into the elite college they went to, but maybe it was for the best.
Last edited by Miss Blue; 08-06-2015 at 08:08 AM..
Reason: troll remark will cause off topic argument
I believe you are right, kids from wealthy back grounds should spend some time in the real world and have to earn a living like every one else .
The experience would give them a much better insight to life, than coddled in school in a sheltered environment .
All too often children take every thing for granted and make greater mistakes in life because they know daddy will bail them out.
As an example ,while growing up we could not afford car insurance ,and it wasn't a law then, but the reality was that if you had an accident we could loose every thing.
We had no accidents .
I was driving dad's dump truck at age 13 and at age 14 by my self , we worked together in construction.
Yes , for the last 40 years I carry insurance, but good driving habits have paid off and still no accidents.
How many people do you know that have never had an accident ? (driving over 50 years)
It's not bragging it's good training.
Point is affluent life styles don't breed responsible ones all the time ,and tend to think of every thing as disposable including people.
The poor that must learn how to stretch their dollar ,learn how to live and do the best with what they got, not assuming any one is there to help them when they make a blunder.
Except for the entitlement welfare group, whom act like rich folk .(Government sponsored rich kids)
These have no intention of finding work ever.
They have no incentive to climb out of the hole of poverty, if they are not really living in poverty.
If those whom come from the wealthy, homes spend some of their life working and living among the poor, I think they could genuinely appreciate the wealth their parents had acquired.
Growing up in a wealthy family I never had much to do with poor people. I lived in a beautiful community where nearly everyone was well off and lived in large single family homes on acre lots. I went to a private school with other rich kids and never had a part time job.
Now I am on my own and going to college at a local community college. I am working part time at a local 7-11 store. What an experience! The grave yard shift at 7-11 is really interesting. Our store has got the same cast of characters who come in for smokes and beer every night. Lots of poor people making poor choices. We also get lots of lonely folks who want someone to talk to and I am open to their conversation. The stories they tell me!
Meeting my fellow students at the local Community College and working at the 7-11 store on a graveyard shift is an eye opening experience and lets me know more how the other half live. Moderator cut: delete
My parents were so sad I did not do well in High School and could not get into the elite college they went to, but maybe it was for the best.
I think a person really has to go out of there way to truly empathize with someone in a different station of life. It's easy to stand back from a distance and judge, or conversely to assume everyone else's life is just like yours. Neither is usually accurate.
I think it can be easier to empathize as you get older, or experience some losses, yourself.
Such as people who are now retired, say, and have time to develop their soft skills. Or those who had a job as a business executive but had the hard luck to have been laid off.
Count yourself lucky, Student Learning, that you've discovered empathy earlier in life!
You mean like a single person making 60K a year in a high cost of living area?
That would be the City Data Forum definition.
You could take it a step further and actually interact, become friends with, or even date somebody from one of those lower household income brackets.
I did, and it made me see...
1) Just how low of a rent you can pay to live in metropolitan area if you are willing to live in a 'working class' neighborhood (which isn't trendy and overrun with hipsters).
2) Just how bad of a problem debt is for people trying to claw their way to a better life after having kids early.
I grew up in a working class family. While I don't think we were "poor" my parents worked their butts off to keep us afloat financially.
Now that I'm married, my husband does pretty well financially. I find that some of my relatives and friends that struggle have made comments and judgement about my lifestyle. We go travel quite a bit and don't have the same issues they do with money. I dont discriminate based on income. If you are a nice person and we have stuff in common I'm open to friendship. I find that as my quality of life has improved, its harder to meet people. I'm not sure why.
You could take it a step further and actually interact, become friends with, or even date somebody from one of those lower household income brackets.
I did, and it made me see...
1) Just how low of a rent you can pay to live in metropolitan area if you are willing to live in a 'working class' neighborhood (which isn't trendy and overrun with hipsters).
2) Just how bad of a problem debt is for people trying to claw their way to a better life after having kids early.
Dated a woman from "working poor" back in the early 2000s just to see how others live, those I don't normally associate with in course of business or recreation. Humans sort ourselves by invisible or semi-visible class, including such factors as education, upbringing, socioeconomic status (of ourselves, of our parents, etc.) We all know it. There is no "nobility" or "peasantry" in the classic meaning of the phrases, for the High and Low respectively, but "gentry" or "burghers" or "petit bourgeois" are (I think) synonymous for American Middle Class.
My findings:
We didn't have much common ground, (upper) Middle Class vs. Working Poor. Our goals, outlook on life, etc. were vastly different, which eventually became too much to overcome by affection. Indeed, love does (not) always find a way! I come from solid Middle Class values, and vaulted (bootstrapped) into a higher echelon via hard work, strategic investment in relationships and education, planning, and self-restraint. "Poor impulse control" is one element correlated with poverty, along with lack of understanding about planning and causality of actions to future outcomes. I've been good across the decades studying, understanding, and applying the above to improve my position. Neither, however, will I ever be truly "wealthy" in the 99%+ sense of the phrase.
Expressing the above concepts for self-bootstrapping to the woman I was dating, and her family, and ne'er do well friends, flew like a lead zeppelin.
Problems like substance abuse, "contact" with the police, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and have enough food, and the matriarchal family structure were alien to me. As my emphasis on achievement, managing money well, presentation in meals (vs. simply "did you get enough"), strongly patriarchal upbringing, and more were alien to them.
I used to hear "comments" from the working poor, too, related to what another person mentions. They started small, which snowballed into resentment, and eventually contempt. Inevitable outcome, actually, based on their frame of reference. Presumably, that occurred was because I challenged their incorrect notion that fatalism and "what can you do" attitudes were holding them down. Actually, it was the factors mentioned above. Notions of achievement, tradition, investment for the future, etc. didn't track very well.
So, that was that. I'm not patient enough to be a social worker, but respect those who are and are willing to train the less-advantaged for greater economic success.
Dated a woman from "working poor" back in the early 2000s just to see how others live, those I don't normally associate with in course of business or recreation. Humans sort ourselves by invisible or semi-visible class, including such factors as education, upbringing, socioeconomic status (of ourselves, of our parents, etc.) We all know it. There is no "nobility" or "peasantry" in the classic meaning of the phrases, for the High and Low respectively, but "gentry" or "burghers" or "petit bourgeois" are (I think) synonymous for American Middle Class.
My findings:
We didn't have much common ground, (upper) Middle Class vs. Working Poor. Our goals, outlook on life, etc. were vastly different, which eventually became too much to overcome by affection. Indeed, love does (not) always find a way! I come from solid Middle Class values, and vaulted (bootstrapped) into a higher echelon via hard work, strategic investment in relationships and education, planning, and self-restraint. "Poor impulse control" is one element correlated with poverty, along with lack of understanding about planning and causality of actions to future outcomes. I've been good across the decades studying, understanding, and applying the above to improve my position. Neither, however, will I ever be truly "wealthy" in the 99%+ sense of the phrase.
Expressing the above concepts for self-bootstrapping to the woman I was dating, and her family, and ne'er do well friends, flew like a lead zeppelin.
Problems like substance abuse, "contact" with the police, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and have enough food, and the matriarchal family structure were alien to me. As my emphasis on achievement, managing money well, presentation in meals (vs. simply "did you get enough"), strongly patriarchal upbringing, and more were alien to them.
I used to hear "comments" from the working poor, too, related to what another person mentions. They started small, which snowballed into resentment, and eventually contempt. Inevitable outcome, actually, based on their frame of reference. Presumably, that occurred was because I challenged their incorrect notion that fatalism and "what can you do" attitudes were holding them down. Actually, it was the factors mentioned above. Notions of achievement, tradition, investment for the future, etc. didn't track very well.
So, that was that. I'm not patient enough to be a social worker, but respect those who are and are willing to train the less-advantaged for greater economic success.
NOT everyone who is poor has problems like you describe... Too bad your nose is stuck so high in the air as to see any type of possibilities other than your own self absorbed life...
Dated a woman from "working poor" back in the early 2000s just to see how others live, those I don't normally associate with in course of business or recreation. Humans sort ourselves by invisible or semi-visible class, including such factors as education, upbringing, socioeconomic status (of ourselves, of our parents, etc.) We all know it. There is no "nobility" or "peasantry" in the classic meaning of the phrases, for the High and Low respectively, but "gentry" or "burghers" or "petit bourgeois" are (I think) synonymous for American Middle Class.
My findings:
We didn't have much common ground, (upper) Middle Class vs. Working Poor. Our goals, outlook on life, etc. were vastly different, which eventually became too much to overcome by affection. Indeed, love does (not) always find a way! I come from solid Middle Class values, and vaulted (bootstrapped) into a higher echelon via hard work, strategic investment in relationships and education, planning, and self-restraint. "Poor impulse control" is one element correlated with poverty, along with lack of understanding about planning and causality of actions to future outcomes. I've been good across the decades studying, understanding, and applying the above to improve my position. Neither, however, will I ever be truly "wealthy" in the 99%+ sense of the phrase.
Expressing the above concepts for self-bootstrapping to the woman I was dating, and her family, and ne'er do well friends, flew like a lead zeppelin.
Problems like substance abuse, "contact" with the police, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and have enough food, and the matriarchal family structure were alien to me. As my emphasis on achievement, managing money well, presentation in meals (vs. simply "did you get enough"), strongly patriarchal upbringing, and more were alien to them.
I used to hear "comments" from the working poor, too, related to what another person mentions. They started small, which snowballed into resentment, and eventually contempt. Inevitable outcome, actually, based on their frame of reference. Presumably, that occurred was because I challenged their incorrect notion that fatalism and "what can you do" attitudes were holding them down. Actually, it was the factors mentioned above. Notions of achievement, tradition, investment for the future, etc. didn't track very well.
So, that was that. I'm not patient enough to be a social worker, but respect those who are and are willing to train the less-advantaged for greater economic success.
And you learned all this from that one experience?
I'm a person who grew up seriously poor. My multi-divorced mom was a waitress who often worked multiple jobs to support us 5 kids, mainly on tips. Never did she take public assistance. We were actually taught that you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and as mom said "God helps those who help themselves". So I wear the bootstrapper label proudly. Of myself and my siblings, none graduated college, but all are middle to upper middle class folks, who are retired or will retire within two years with nice homes in good areas. We travel in middle and upper middle class circles and no one would guess that we spent our early years scratching to barely keep a roof over our heads. Do I hang with folks with less? Yes. We are still friends with the people we knew on the way up and would never abandon them. They find their way in life and we find ours. Are we friends with our neighbors who are retired engineers and execs? Yup. No difference in our eyes, except the types of activities we participate in together differ, and we let our hair down a little more with the folks from our grittier past.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
