If you grew up poor...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Food Stamps were the worst!

Did anyone else's mom ever send them to the grocery store to buy one or two things with some food stamps?

I was so freaking embarrassed. I would try to time my entry into the line so that no one got behind me to see me using the food stamps.

It was awful.

Ditto. Many, many times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food Stamps were the worst!

Did anyone else's mom ever send them to the grocery store to buy one or two things with some food stamps?

I was so freaking embarrassed. I would try to time my entry into the line so that no one got behind me to see me using the food stamps.

It was awful.

Ditto. Many, many times.

I did the same thing and prayed I wouldn't run into someone I knew. I was SO jealous of the people who paid with cash or credit card.
I wonder if this is why I hate the grocery store now. I find grocery shopping so depressing.

[Anonymous]

When I eventually got to see various teem movies from the 1980's -- like Pretty in Pink -- I thought, well they got that part about how many of the rich kids treated the poor kids right, but I don't recall poor being so cool when I was in HS. Really, Duckie had some cool clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food Stamps were the worst!

Did anyone else's mom ever send them to the grocery store to buy one or two things with some food stamps?

I was so freaking embarrassed. I would try to time my entry into the line so that no one got behind me to see me using the food stamps.

It was awful.

Ditto. Many, many times.

My parents refused to get food stamps when my dad was unemployed for a year. We really could have used them but it was a total pride thing for him. He was working with a headhunter so he could go out and do odd jobs for food money while the job search was on. I was 10 at the time and I remember being so mad at him for talking my mom out of going and applying for food stamps.


Later, working in a store, I would get mad at some of the parents who would send their kids in with food stamps. If you spent a $1 stamp you could get your change in "real" money. So these parents would send their kids in to buy ice cream bars, repeatedly, so they could get enough change to buy a pack of smokes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I eventually got to see various teem movies from the 1980's -- like Pretty in Pink -- I thought, well they got that part about how many of the rich kids treated the poor kids right, but I don't recall poor being so cool when I was in HS. Really, Duckie had some cool clothes.

We had cool clothes like that. We would take old sweatshirts and turn them into bolero jackets and we got some great thrift store finds as well as inheriting grandma's old costume jewelry.

[Anonymous]

I think food stamps (or snap) is now provided with a debit card, so hopefully this diminishes some of the shame for people (kids and adults).

Thank you all, this is incredibly generous of you to share your stories. Hopefully someone may be faced with an opportunity to reach out to a help a child and having this context may make a difference.

My parents grew up working poor, to my knowledge never am issue of not enough to eat. I think I was rather oblivious to it as a child, as in I lived in a very well off community in California and would spend a good chunk of my summers with my grandparents who were wonderful but working poor (they immigrated to the US from Canada because my grandmother wanted my grandfather to do something other than coal mining). My mother was so happy to buy her parents a home in their later years. Education changed my parents' lives. It makes me sad that that ladder is getting harder and harder to climb.

[Anonymous]

I'm the c/o 2000 DC poster.
When did everyone else start being ashamed of being poor?

I realize that up until middle school I just assumed everyone lived like that. Most of the kids in my elementary school had similar situations and stories. I went out of boundary for middle school which is when I started to notice differences. By high school I was in class with kids driving their own cars to school. I think that's when the disparity really hit me. I wouldn't accept rides from people out of fear that they'd ask to come in my house to use the bathroom or something.

One time a guy showed up unexpected because his mom forced him to come to me for tutoring. I couldn't let him in because I was just too ashamed of my house. He kept saying, "I thought we were friends and you won't even let me come in for tutoring. I'm gonna fail." It was raining so we couldn't just sit outside. It was the hardest thing in the world to pretend I didn't care. But I was so afraid of other people in school finding out or him telling his mom and her calling child protective services or something (it happened once before).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another post-poor here:

I've posted a few above and last night read all the pages and then reflected on what I read.

I want to make two points:

1. What I think people don't really get about growing up poor is the thousand little humiliations that we go through. Let's take for example the mom cut. Yes, if we are solidly middle class and have clean clothes that fit and aren't too worn, a little mom-cut is fine. When your hair is dirty b/c there is no shampoo, and your clothes are not clean b/c there is no detergent OR you are wearing your only shirt, the little mom cut just adds insult to a million injuries. (not picking on mom cutter..I am a mom-cutter). There was a time when I was 13 (I'm female, imagine this) I had 1 shirt, 2 pants, 1 pair of socks and 1 pair of undies b/c my mom left our clothes at the laundry mat over night. (crazy woman, no drugs involved).

2. This past can make us feel out of place at times. For example, I was dining with neighbors who were talking about poverty. I *Started* to tell them about a life of poverty and got through maybe 2 examples (like the stuff upthread) when their faces changed and I stopped talking. I could tell they did not know how to relate. It seemed odd and foreign to them. You could see them wondering how it could be true; how did I "rise above" ect. Anyway, I tell a little at opportune times but even my husband has yet to hear all of the stories.

Gads, I'm getting weepy again.

I've never been homeless and to those above who have been, I can't even imagine and hope that your life has improved as much as mine has. Happy 4th!

Finally, ours is a land of opportunity. I got out of poverty through education, public education, financed by low-interest, Stafford-backed loans and pell grants. I also went to a pretty cheap undergrad school and NIH research grants paid for my doctoral degree. So thanks all your public servants who keep those programs alive!

Land of opportunity, sure, but such poverty should not even happen in a country which is a democracy and has such a military budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being poor boils down to one long saga stretched over the course of my life: Tampons

1.) running out of tampons on the 19th of the month, 11 days till the first.
2.) being sooooo stressed i was going to bleed all over my clothes so i went to the nurse and asked for some tampons
3.) my mom finding out the nurse had tampons and refused to buy me some from that point on
4.) over hearing the nurse complain to another teacher in the hallway that i am taking too many tampons from the school and i should be ashamed
5.) feeling very ashamed so i started stealing tampons from the drugstore from that point on
6.) becoming a 6th grade teacher and going to cosco and buying huge boxes of tampons and pads, I was so proud to tell my female students i will always have plenty of tampons and pads for everyone
7.) feeling extremely touched and emotional when one of my students trusted me enough to ask if she could take a box home for the summer because they were too expensive to put on the grocery list.

This makes me want to start a school tampon fund. They are indeed expensive. I never realized how they could be such a source of trouble.

There are organizations that purchase pads for girls in third world countries so they can go to school during that time of the month instead of being stuck at home. So glad you shared your experience with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being poor boils down to one long saga stretched over the course of my life: Tampons

1.) running out of tampons on the 19th of the month, 11 days till the first.
2.) being sooooo stressed i was going to bleed all over my clothes so i went to the nurse and asked for some tampons
3.) my mom finding out the nurse had tampons and refused to buy me some from that point on
4.) over hearing the nurse complain to another teacher in the hallway that i am taking too many tampons from the school and i should be ashamed
5.) feeling very ashamed so i started stealing tampons from the drugstore from that point on
6.) becoming a 6th grade teacher and going to cosco and buying huge boxes of tampons and pads, I was so proud to tell my female students i will always have plenty of tampons and pads for everyone
7.) feeling extremely touched and emotional when one of my students trusted me enough to ask if she could take a box home for the summer because they were too expensive to put on the grocery list.

This makes me want to start a school tampon fund. They are indeed expensive. I never realized how they could be such a source of trouble.

There are organizations that purchase pads for girls in third world countries so they can go to school during that time of the month instead of being stuck at home. So glad you shared your experience with us.

Yeah, maybe that money could be well spent at home! Meaning, it's a shame US is like a third world country in this respect...

[Anonymous]

"By high school I was in class with kids driving their own cars to school.""

Ditto. There was a Student Parking Lot! And the school had a tennis court!

Incredible. A totally different world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I eventually got to see various teem movies from the 1980's -- like Pretty in Pink -- I thought, well they got that part about how many of the rich kids treated the poor kids right, but I don't recall poor being so cool when I was in HS. Really, Duckie had some cool clothes.

We had cool clothes like that. We would take old sweatshirts and turn them into bolero jackets and we got some great thrift store finds as well as inheriting grandma's old costume jewelry.

What those movies didn't show was that the really poor kids stank - no deodorant, no toothpaste, no mouthwash, and no tampax/pads.

Stinky kids in high school are never cool, nor treated right by the rich kids.

[Anonymous]

Something I always remembered from childhood is hitting yard the sales the first weekend of the month to coincide with welfare payday. To this day, if a friend is planning a yard sale, and has no dates mandated by an HOA, I always recommend the first weekend of the month. They always ask why, because they have no idea about first of the month payday. I also worked in a small neighborhood grocery store and our "10# meat sales" were always the first week of the month. Things like 10 packs of hot dogs & bologna were bagged in a large bag and priced at $1 ea. And family size packs of inexpensive meats, chicken legs, ground beef, were always sold in bulk at this time. Lots of bread & milk sales then too.

[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.

We did this with plastic bags, slippery.
But come to think of it, my kids wear snow boots all of about 45 minutes per year (average)

[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.

I ctied when I read this. Your mom and her sister were angels.