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[quote=Anonymous]I'm 51, born in the Midwest in 1964, and I grew up in a working-class/lower-class/poor community that was predominately Catholic. The community was still largely segregated, even among whites. Most white people lived in neighborhoods that their great-great-grandparents had settled, all based on ethnicity and what Catholic church had been founded by that particular ethnic group. Black people lived apart in certain areas, and Mexicans in others. People rarely mixed in those days and I thought nothing of it as a child, because that's all I knew. For the most part, I suspect the black & Mexican kids had it even harder, because their neighborhoods were even poorer.

My mom was a widow and I was (thankfully) her only child. I have no idea how we would have managed if there had been more than 2 mouths to feed. I never went hungry, without heat or clothes, so I cannot call myself a "poor" child. I'm sure we were viewed as "poor" in the larger community, but I never knew better. I *did* know that my mom never bought anything for herself - only things for me. While she worked, my grandpa took care of me if I wasn't in school. He also helped my mom financially, or we probably wouldn't have made it. I attended Catholic school, but my mom refused to accept a discount (based on income), so she paid full price and that was probably a huge financial drain.

My mom drove a really old, beat-up Volkswagen bug that made all sorts of loud noises. I remember other kids teasing me mercilessly about how run-down it was, and the noises it made, whenever she dropped me off at school. I remember how much I dreaded drop-off if we were running late, because many children would have already arrived to see & hear her car. For years, the driver's side door would not close and my mom didn't have the money to fix it. So she drove with her left hand on the steering wheel and her right hand holding the door closed. The car was a stick-shift, so she would have to reach over to shift gears with her right hand...and then her driver's-side door would fly open. How we managed to never get in an accident, or cause an accident in all those years, is beyond me.

The Catholic schools in our community would accept any student whose parents were members of the church, and tuition was income-based, so there were some very poor kids who attended my particular school. One still stands out in my mind, and her story is the one I want to share - because I think about her to this day.

I'll call this girl "Nativity" because she was born on Christmas Day, 1963, and her parents gave her a name that means "Nativity." I went to school with Nativity from first-grade through senior year of high school, and I liked her. Nativity had few friends, but she had 13 brothers and sisters. She was the second-youngest, and was basically raising herself and her younger brother as far as I could tell. Nativity was very bright, but she was often dirty and wearing a school uniform that was unclean (a hand-me-down from one of her older sisters, no doubt). She and her siblings were all quite thin (though her parents were NOT), and I now realize that she probably didn't have enough to eat as a child. Her hair was always greasy, even in high school, and it's likely she didn't often bathe. In high school, she had bad acne, and I bet she didn't have the money for Clearasil (or whatever we used in those days).

It never occurred to me that I shouldn't be friends with Nativity because of her poverty, but - looking back - it obviously was the reason she had so few friends. Our classmates included some of the meanest, cruelest people I've ever known in my life, and our school was very class-based. Again, as a kid, I didn't think anything about this...other than I wished I could have some of the "rich" kids as my friends, too. I was probably viewed in the same general light as Nativity and the other "poor" kids, though I didn't have it anywhere near as bad as they did.

Nativity lived a long way from school in a run-down old rental house and she + her siblings (basically one in every grade) walked to/from school each day. The girls had to wear uniforms with skirts - no pants for girls in those days - and I remember Nativity complaining about how cold that walk was in the Winter. I went to her house a few times and it was very small - smaller than my small house - and most of her siblings still lived there. I recall her saying that not everyone had a bed, so children took turns sleeping on the floor. The house had one bathroom, so the boys urinated outside whenever possible.

Nativity's house backed to an alley. She had an almost non-existent front yard with a busy street running right in front. Her backyard was much larger, but we couldn't play there when I visited. Nativity said her mom forbade her to play in the backyard because there were rats back there, the size of cats. One had bitten her younger brother at some point. So Nativity stayed in the house most of the time, I guess. I remember how much she liked to read, so I suppose she read to pass the time - when she wasn't doing any of the 100 things required to care for herself and her little brother.

Nativity's mother was mean (but having 14 kids could do that to a person). Her father was a laborer or something. I only ever saw him at church - and he definitely did not look happy. He always scared me, but I'm sure he had a very hard life himself.

Of all the stories about Nativity, this one still makes me the saddest: Because her parents were so poor, Nativity and her siblings only got 2 presents per-year, birthday & Christmas. Since Nativity was born on Christmas Day, she only got one gift each year. When she was old enough to notice, she apparently asked her father why she couldn't have two presents on Christmas, one of which would be her birthday gift. He said it would be unfair to her siblings if she opened two gifts on Christmas, but everyone else only had one to open. Then she asked for a half-birthday gift - just so she could have two gifts each year, like everyone else. Nativity's father apparently told her that giving a half-birthday gift to any child would cause resentment among all the other siblings. When she protested, Nativity's father "beat" her. So she never asked for two presents again, and she confided this story to me one Christmas when we were in early grade school. I can still see her telling me the story, and hear her telling it to me...including the use of the word "beat," which made an impression on me. After all these years, that memory is still crystal-clear.

Growing up in the 1970s in a Midwestern Catholic community, any girl who got pregnant out-of-wedlock was considered "bad" and "scandalous." Any white girl who got pregnant out-of-wedlock, and delivered a baby that was obviously from a black or Mexican father, brought incredible "shame" to the entire family. (Anyone else who grew up in this era, in a similar community, will know what I'm talking about, and I mean no offense to anyone by sharing these details, because they provide context.) One-by-one over the years, Nativity's older sisters became pregnant before graduating high school. Moreover, each father was black. Everyone was "shocked" by this and the family was "humiliated" over and over again. It was really a huge, giant deal every couple of years. Nativity was shunned even more by this series of events, though I always tried to keep up with her and talk to her as we advanced through grade school and high school, even if we weren't in the same classes. In hindsight, I can't help but think that each of Nativity's sisters had a point to make to the family, and to the world. Nativity once alluded to this, as well. But she was smart enough to know that while teen pregnancy could bring "shame" to her horrible parents for a time, *she* would pay a price much higher than they ever would.

I had always hoped Nativity would follow her dreams and break the cycle of poverty. She was an honors student in high school and I knew she wanted to attend college. Unfortunately, she became pregnant by our senior year and left at semester. I was quite young for the grade, totally naive, and completely clueless. I had no idea she had been pregnant until someone mentioned it when Nativity didn't return to school for second-semester of our senior year. As an adult, I wish with all my heart that I'd found a way to contact Nativity. At the time, it didn't even occur to me. I just felt awful for her, because she *almost* made it out. But she didn't.

Years later, I heard that Nativity and the father of her baby had married, owned a small business, and had no other children between them. I really hope this is true. I hope Nativity found happiness, or at least contentment, and that she made it out of poverty in the end. I'm sure her childhood scars will never heal, but I hope she has found some peace.

I'm a lapsed Catholic now. But whenever I read about the Church's stance on artificial contraception, my blood boils. Nativity's story is just one of many I witnessed, all largely due to the fact that people were trying to raise 8, 10, 12, 14, etc. children in one household. Those were really the last days of a large Catholic family being a sign of religious devotion, and a point of pride, but I witnessed them in all their glory. My mom & I made it through because she could care for one child (with some hard work, sacrifice, and family help). My peers with just a 1-2 siblings (mostly families who had adopted because of infertility) did far better than anyone else in school. Families with multiple kids were much more likely to live in poverty & unable to scale various obstacles along the way.

Sorry if my post is too long. I thought Nativity's story was worth sharing. I live a nice life in my mid-50s, with children of my own, and I'm grateful to have made it to the other side.[/quote]

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