If you grew up poor...
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Anonymous
NP here. It really is amazing. I worked in social services for the state. There truly is a culture of poverty in that adult children expect to be able to live off the government (in poverty because 'welfare' is nothing near livable) because that's how their parents and grandparents live. I had a mom once explain that her son is an adult now, so she expects him to provide for himself...which is why she brought him down to the food stamp office to get his OWN damn food stamps. A young pregnant girl once said, when asked if she had daycare arrangements, "what do you mean, daycare? I'm not going to work when the baby is born. My mom never worked and she's fine." |
Anonymous
I'm a third poster who grew up this way, and like you, I was in Florida. I struggle with spoiling my daughter just like you and the first PP. She's still little and the things she really wants are so inexpensive, and I just can't help myself. I know I have to get this under control. I rarely buy anything for myself other than essentials. I'm also like you in that I hoard toiletries too. When I finish the last bottle of my stash, knowing every drop was used and none was wasted, I get the most incredible feeling of satisfaction. I time it for big sales, then go and buy another 8 bottles. When I see how much money I saved, again, immense satisfaction. |
Anonymous
| I hope a lot of people read this thread. DCUM needs it. |
Anonymous
| I'm the pizza tray as a sled poster. Both my parents came from very large immigrant incredibly poor families. My father enlisted in the navy when he was 17 and never finished high school. My mom worked her way through college. There was never even a question in our house that my sister and I would get good grades and go to college. Zero tolerance for bad grades. It was this commitment to education that has made me who I am today. |
Anonymous
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PP here who grew up in huge, poor family, in Deep South with an awesomely heroic mama.
Was just talking with DH, who also grew up poor in the 'hood, in a big family, in the Deep South. They lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house that often had no hot water. They warmed up water on the stove and sometimes used the oven for heat. A treat was mixing sugar into water and drinking what they called "sweet water." The neighborhood was really rough so they weren't allowed to stray far from home. Once in middle school a group of boys called his big brother a nerd and beat him so badly that the he was in a coma for a week. He remembers his brothers and sisters always coming up with creative games when they played outside. His mom used to go what she called "rambling" and got huge grab bags of clothes and stuff for $5 from the thrift store. His mom had a great singing voice and played piano in church. Several of his siblings picked up this talent and they would sing in harmony for entertainment. Eating at McDonald's a few times a year was a huge treat. My DH and I met in hs, attracted in part by our similar life experiences. We're now upper middle class and live in a nice home. We often are stunned that things like a twice monthly housekeeper and gardener are part of our experience. His dad was a groundskeeper on a segregated golf course for a while and both of our mothers cleaned other people's toilets to help make ends meet. We want to provide the best for our daughter and little one on the way, but it's important to us that she also remain humble and grounded. She has some new things but lots of hand me downs from our large families. We want to do more volunteering. Her daycare is a nice place in the 'hood. She'll probably take dance classes at THEARC and we swim at a community pool in a mixed income neighborhood. Her experiences will be her own, but hopefully we can help provide balance and help her appreciate people from all walks of life. |
Anonymous
Yes, but the over the top birthday parties for little kids will go on! |
Anonymous
| I will always remeber powdered milk, stale bread, and scraping mold off of jelly and other things. One of the worse things about being poor as a child was how some of the "rich" kids would treat you in school. The kids would act like they were better than me because their parents where successful or inherited money. There was a Cosby Show episode that really spoke to me. One of the daughters was complaining that kids were making fun of her for being rich and she told her father that it would be easier if she was not rich. Cosby explains that he and her mother are rich, she is not rich, she does not have a job and has not earned any money. |
Anonymous
| We weren't super poor but there was one point where we did have trouble finding a place to live (long story), I had a lot of home-made clothes and super cheap clothes, we had the oooogliest hand-made curtains, and home-made food. I remember I had a rich cousin who told me that we lived in an ugly tiny apartment because we were poor (up until that point it hadn't really occurred to me that our apartment was ugly or tiny). At one point we rented an itty bitty little house, all I remember about it was it was yellow and I LOVED it. To this day my mother remembers me going on and on about how it was the most beautiful house in the whole world. Kids don't really need that much. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Grew not gee |
Anonymous
Oh, I'm sorry about that. I was referring to the first quoted poster, who talked about living in Texas and Florida. I sort of mixed it up in my post. |
Anonymous
Don't forget the huge blocks of government cheese. Oh, and the thanksgiving basket the church would deliver. Yummy. I never remember going to bed hungry. Never. I do however remember the torn shoes, hand-me-down polyester pants and the mean kids. oh goodness, I cannot believe how much this thread has retrieved some memories that make me cry. I also remember the wonderful teacher who showed up one day and handed me a bag that contained two new blouses and a pretty new skirt. She i have never forgotten. She became a vice principal income of the middle schools now closed in DC. |
Anonymous
Oh yes! I had a flashback to this a couple of months ago when I actually did that at Behnke's since I'd told DH that I'd keep the expenses to a certain amount and was already 50% over! |
Anonymous
NP here. You are absolutely a good mom, a great mom. The thing that makes you a great mom, though, is the commitment to protect your son from the things that harmed you as a child. It is the desire to do so that is wonderful and loving, the stuff itself is just stuff. As long as your son has enough, anything more teaches lessons of excess that HE is going to have to spend his lifetime understanding and trying not to pass on to his children. I am truly sympathetic, as I am in a similar boat, with food particularly. I would say that my entire challenge as a parent is to try to see my son truly for who he is and what he needs in this moment. It is often so much less than I worry he needs and hardly ever what I fear from my own childhood. In some ways, what he needs spurs me to get out from under really old habits. He needs to live in a space where clutter is not falling down on top of him: it's what I needed as a child and what I work to provide now. He needs enough clothing so that it's not a big deal if something gets dirty, stained, or torn while he's playing and doing normal kid things; he doesn't need so much that he has to root around in an overflowing drawer looking for a pair of shorts. He needs food, yes, but more importantly he needs the space to figure out for himself when he's hungry and how much he wants to eat. He is a child, he's not capable of practicing moderation with junk food, he needs his parents to model and encourage healthy habits. I could go on and on, but over and over again in my own experience I see that the thing I crave to fill the holes left from my childhood are the opposite of what a child actually needs. If you and I had had just enough as children, we would be fine. We would still appreciate treats and splurges, but we would not be driven by this fear of there never being enough so we would not be drowning in "too much." What your child needs more than ever is your love, acceptance, and faith in him. He needs to know that you will do anything for him. Not buy anything for him, but do whatever needs to be done to keep him safe and whole. Like you say, a child's need is driving you, and what your child needs is an adult to be making the decisions that will create a safe and healthy childhood for him. |
Anonymous
| 12:26, thank you for that very helpful post. I've been struggling with this a lot recently. I personally seem to go overboard in the opposite direction with about half of the "issues" i dealt with growing up (especially no food and no clean clothes) and then I'm falling into the trap of repetition with the other half. Intellectually knowing how to do it better is, for me, only part of the solution. |