If you grew up poor...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Shoes never fit well. I was never well-groomed. I didn't get nice haircuts, didn't wash my hair every day and it was always oily. My clothes always old, worn, and dirty. I was not a popular girl at school. No female hygiene products - we used cotton and cloths. "

Ditto. I died a thousand deaths every time I opened the nearly empty medicine chest, no toothpaste, no soap, no toilet paper, no Q-Tips. One toothbrush for the whole family. Rarely going to the doctor or the dentist.

Never had anything to treat my terrible acne. No clean towels. No laundry detergent and no money for the laundromat. The want and hopelessness goes on and on, for years.

I wasn't permitted to attend kindergarten because I was needed at home to help with the little ones.

I was considered "slow" because I rarely answered when spoken to. In second grade, the school arranged to have my hearing tested, and it was discovered that I was totally
deaf in one ear and 60 per cent deaf in the other ear.

My seat was changed to be closer to the teacher. I then became a straight A student.

My parents did nothing, as usual.

PPs, I am so sorry you went through this. I had the exact same experience, basically growing up in filth. it got better when I turned 15 and got a job so I could buy toiletries and clothes at thrift stores. I also went several years with no glasses after I lost mine and there was no way to replace them. Oh the stresses of trying to read that damn blackboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all so much for sharing what sounds like some very hard memories. I grew up wealthy, and was surrounded by others with plenty (went to one of the big 3 here in DC; no one had any experiences like these). In reading these stories, I feel almost appalled at the money that my family, and now I, have, and the things we had and did which seemed normal at the time, but now seems like indulgences. I can tell you that I am doing some research first thing tomorrow on how to donate my time and money to people who have life experiences like many of you. While my family worked hard for their wealth, a lot if it was luck, and it easily could have gone the opposite way. I guess I am guilty of taking things like food, let alone any and as much food as I want, for granted.

PP, glad to hear it. I suggest that you focus your research on programs that get food to children. When school is out for the summer, students who get breakfast and lunch at school lose that opportunity.

I agree, food security is a still huge and growing issue, it's pretty awful when you start looking at the numbers. There are many really great food programs in the city: Capitol Food Bank is a favorite of ours, and also DC Central Kitchen. So Others May Eat is popular with some of our friends, they take regular volunteers.

Also, to the first PP, I really appreciate your openness and perspective. My experience was by no means the worst but what I did experience stays with me and rears its head in my parenting life in some way nearly every day. Like a PP said, half the time I am overcompensating and the other half I am falling into the same traps. It's a lifetime of work to be healthy after a hard childhood, but we do it because we want something different for our children. Even if you were just moved to speak after reading here, that's still nice, but I do hope that you find a longer-term way to give that works for your family. One of my biggest fears for my child is entitlement; I never want him to be disdainful or contemptuous of others with less (for any reason, I do not have time to be the "worthy poor" police) or to believe that (like you said) indulgences are his god-given right. I don't require an attitude of slavering gratitude but I do not want to raise (pardon my French) a little dickhead!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you are poor:

You wear shoes that don't fit. They are always too big because it was all that was at the salvation army on the day your mom went. Then you trip and stumble during gym class because your shoes don't fit. Then the other kids think you are clumsy and you start to think so too.

You don't have a snack with you for morning snack at school. So you tell the teacher that you don't bring a snack because you always have a large breakfast at home. This is a lie, because there is NO breakfast at home. So your first meal is the school lunch.

The school nurse sends home alot of notes to your parents saying that she has tested your eyes and you can't see. The notes get thrown out . You learn to go up to the chalkboard during recess to see what is written there because you can never see the board.

If anyone wants to help the poor kids in your local public school:

Buy snow pants and boots and mittens and give them to the elementary teachers to give out.
Arrange for an optometrist to donate eyeglasses to kids who have been identified at school as needing glasses.
Buy gym shoes in several sizes that are typical for kids in a classroom and give them to the teacher to go to kids for PE class. Not loaned to the kids, but given.
Buy gift cards for a place like Cost Cutters Hair so kids can get a haircut professionally. The haircut done by mom in the kitchen is terrible.

DH is out of work right now and we are lucky enough to have retirement savings that we are going to have to cash in. However, even when he was making the big (or adequate) bucks, I still cut the kids hair because it looks better than when I've taken them to cost cutters or bubbles.

All the poor kids in their school (I volunteer so I know who gets free/reduced lunches) all have nice hair cats.

[Anonymous]

Cuts. Not cats. Obviously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ziplock bags over my shoes, tied with rubber bands, instead of snow boots. Mom's idea. I was in second grade and thought it was brilliant. Until everyone made fun of me.

I grew up with money but my mom who grew up poor made me do this. Ridiculous.

Ha! I do this. We are well off even by DCUM standards. It just seems wasteful to buy shoes that may get worn up to 3-5 days (since we get little snow most years). Honestly I think when you are well off and everyone knows this, you get a free pass to be cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ziplock bags over my shoes, tied with rubber bands, instead of snow boots. Mom's idea. I was in second grade and thought it was brilliant. Until everyone made fun of me.

I grew up with money but my mom who grew up poor made me do this. Ridiculous.

Ha! I do this. We are well off even by DCUM standards. It just seems wasteful to buy shoes that may get worn up to 3-5 days (since we get little snow most years). Honestly I think when you are well off and everyone knows this, you get a free pass to be cheap.

We're lucky enough to get hand-me-downs from a kid who goes up North in the winter. The boots are too big for my kids so they get a couple of years out of them *but* I can't see purchasing boots for them when they don't need them every single year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember going into Pioneer Chicken and taking as many of the little packets of two saltine crackers as we could fit in my mom's purse. Then we made "sandwiches" with either ketchup packets or little plastic packets of grape jelly taken from McDonalds. Occasionally we'd try out other combinations of free condiments - mustard, relish, mayo, but we always came back to either ketchup or grape jelly.

Off topic here, but OMG, Pioneer Chicken was the best!!!

[Anonymous]

It's very therapeutic to read these response and realize that I wasn't the only poor kid who had to...

eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for several days straight
get reduced lunch
watch my mom sell off stuff so we could pay a bill or get food
have the phone, electricity, water, cable, and so on turned off time and time again
go to the food pantry
go without all of the normal high school activities because we just couldn't afford it

Ugh, I hate to even think about it!

And, yes, I also spoil the hell out of my girls because I am trying to fix my trauma through them. It sucks and I know I need to stop.

Thanks, I needed that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's very therapeutic to read these response and realize that I wasn't the only poor kid who had to...

eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for several days straight
get reduced lunch
watch my mom sell off stuff so we could pay a bill or get food
have the phone, electricity, water, cable, and so on turned off time and time again
go to the food pantry
go without all of the normal high school activities because we just couldn't afford it

Ugh, I hate to even think about it!

And, yes, I also spoil the hell out of my girls because I am trying to fix my trauma through them. It sucks and I know I need to stop.

Thanks, I needed that!

PP, I totally understand trying to deal with the trauma by spoiling your girls. However, you will cripple them by turning them into spoiled brats. Continue to love your girls with your generosity, within reason, but also see a therapist to deal with your trauma, it really helps.

[Anonymous]

"And, yes, I also spoil the hell out of my girls because I am trying to fix my trauma through them. It sucks and I know I need to stop."

Yes, please stop. Remember the mean girls at school?

[Anonymous]

I grew up lower middle class blue collar but my mom grew up poor- really poor. It haunts her and it she did her best to get my brother and I educated- private schools and through college. We have student loans but we are both upper middle class via income levels. My mom broke the cycle by making sure we were educated and exposed to things like travel, theatre. That being said we did have some rough times I remember my dad being laid off and shopping at the food pantry and government cheese. We always had shelves of extra food/ snacks and 2 refrigerators and freezers. I remember stories of my mom having one pair of sicks, receiving clothes from school secretary- my mom could sew so she always looked amazing, and eating stewed tomatoes. My dad loves fried bologna but I think that is just because that is a staple he grew up on during WWII. We always learned proper manners and ettiquite, I include this because I am still bothered by the other thread about class and the nasty, judgmental comments about being lower class, blue collar and poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"And, yes, I also spoil the hell out of my girls because I am trying to fix my trauma through them. It sucks and I know I need to stop."

Yes, please stop. Remember the mean girls at school?

Oh come on! "Spoiled" doesn't automatically mean brat or mean. You can still teach gratitude, kindness, and work ethic. You have to work yo do it but it can be done.

[Anonymous]

RETIREMENT SAVINGS?? FOR REAL???

Girl, THAT is NOT poor. You need some perspective.

ITA it is parents RESPONSIBILITY to teach gratitude, kindness, and work ethic. You have to step up and actually parent, but you can get it done. Why have kids if you are not going to teach them?

Poor means no savings, no retirement, no future planning because the bills are (really, truly) NOT getting paid today, and probably not tomorrow.

I'm NOT talking about the Nordstrom or private school bill, I'm talking about how to put food on the table tonight. Will it be rice or spaghetti yet again? Well, the spaghetti is 50 cents, and the rice is a dollar, so the rice is out. The heat can not go above 62 in the dead of winter, because last time they shut it off for nonpayment and it can't go to $24. this month, because we don't have it.

Not everyone milks the system. I know this is lost on some people. Which is what enrages me.

Wow, I can't believe how clueless and entitled some of you really are. With a straight face. You have no idea, but you want to claim you do? Really? Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad losing his job right before Christmas with 4 kids at home including a baby; and some nice lady delivered a bunch of toys for Christmas.

My mom scraping together some change to buy some scrap chicken bones from the local butcher to boil down and make soup for us to eat.

Mixing one can of Cambell's condensed soup with 2 cans of water. I thought that was how you made soup. Now I know that is how you stretch a can of soup to make lunch for 5 kids.

Sleeping 4 girls in one 9x10 room with 2 bunk beds, but everyone slept on the floor during the summer because it was so hot without AC

My mom borrowing my babysitting money to make the bills, house payment, electric, etc.

Getting McDonalds once a month was a treat. So was the week we got to pick out the cereal.

Things ebbed and flowed between poverty and not so poor depending on whether or not my dad had a job. I remember during one of the "up" times, my best friend's mom was going through a terrible divorce from her truly awful husband. She had no money; no food, and 4 kids. I had a sleepover at my friend's house, and when my mom picked me up she came with about a month's worth of groceries. I remember my mom and older sister bringing in bag after bag of food, while my friend's mom cried and her kids climbed on the table, pulling out food, shouting with excitement. My mom didn't make a production of it; no one besides us and them knew she did this.

I think those who have experienced poverty themselves have a special empathy and compassion for others in the same position that people who have never wanted for anything will ever really understand. I try to impress this compassion on my kids, but when you live a comfortable life that is a difficult lesson to learn.

Your story made me cry. I haven't posted about my poor childhood, but I will. This is the furthest I've read in this post and just wanted to say that you should seek publication for this. It's beautiful.

[Anonymous]

"I think those who have experienced poverty themselves have a special empathy and compassion for others in the same position that people who have never wanted for anything will ever really understand"

Wish this were true, but it's not always the case.