Anonymous
07/01/2013 17:51
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:High school - I had two pair of second hand jeans and two second hand sweaters to start the year. It was hot and I wore those ugly sweaters anyways. I was so mortified.
No toilet paper - we would use an old towel. No feminine pads - I would roll up toilet paper at school.
Wouldn't eat all day or eat a hot dog for breakfast and come home and find NOTHING.
Junior high - My first bra was from Goodwill. I was mortified and cried and refused to wear it. I got a new one eventually.
If you lost a jacket, which I once did it was gone. I got a garage sale replacement - a handsewn jacket that people teased me for. To this day I can't bear to buy second hand things for my daughter. Kind of irrational, as I accept hand me downs. But I just can't.
Elementary - I would panic when we had to bring a lunch for a field trip. We did not have extra money to buy extra food.
I would panic when I needed a book cover. I would have to beg for DAYS to get it.
Having to bring soda for a schoolmate's party and CRYING at the register because I only had $2, not enough for the tax. I had already begged desperately for that money. The cashier took a quarter out of his pocket and paid it. It was $2.13.
Living on liver, oatmeal, government cheese, peanut butter, "yellow brand" bread, and ramen. People would put things I hated in the free boxes like lima beans and creamed corn.
So many things....
After seeing and having to eat what is donated for canned food drives, I buy the best/high quality canned food I can for food drives.
Anonymous
07/01/2013 17:16
Subject: If you grew up poor...
High school - I had two pair of second hand jeans and two second hand sweaters to start the year. It was hot and I wore those ugly sweaters anyways. I was so mortified.
No toilet paper - we would use an old towel. No feminine pads - I would roll up toilet paper at school.
Wouldn't eat all day or eat a hot dog for breakfast and come home and find NOTHING.
Junior high - My first bra was from Goodwill. I was mortified and cried and refused to wear it. I got a new one eventually.
If you lost a jacket, which I once did it was gone. I got a garage sale replacement - a handsewn jacket that people teased me for. To this day I can't bear to buy second hand things for my daughter. Kind of irrational, as I accept hand me downs. But I just can't.
Elementary - I would panic when we had to bring a lunch for a field trip. We did not have extra money to buy extra food.
I would panic when I needed a book cover. I would have to beg for DAYS to get it.
Having to bring soda for a schoolmate's party and CRYING at the register because I only had $2, not enough for the tax. I had already begged desperately for that money. The cashier took a quarter out of his pocket and paid it. It was $2.13.
Living on liver, oatmeal, government cheese, peanut butter, "yellow brand" bread, and ramen. People would put things I hated in the free boxes like lima beans and creamed corn.
So many things....
No toilet paper - we would use an old towel. No feminine pads - I would roll up toilet paper at school.
Wouldn't eat all day or eat a hot dog for breakfast and come home and find NOTHING.
Junior high - My first bra was from Goodwill. I was mortified and cried and refused to wear it. I got a new one eventually.
If you lost a jacket, which I once did it was gone. I got a garage sale replacement - a handsewn jacket that people teased me for. To this day I can't bear to buy second hand things for my daughter. Kind of irrational, as I accept hand me downs. But I just can't.
Elementary - I would panic when we had to bring a lunch for a field trip. We did not have extra money to buy extra food.
I would panic when I needed a book cover. I would have to beg for DAYS to get it.
Having to bring soda for a schoolmate's party and CRYING at the register because I only had $2, not enough for the tax. I had already begged desperately for that money. The cashier took a quarter out of his pocket and paid it. It was $2.13.
Living on liver, oatmeal, government cheese, peanut butter, "yellow brand" bread, and ramen. People would put things I hated in the free boxes like lima beans and creamed corn.
So many things....
Anonymous
07/01/2013 16:35
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:I don't know if we were poor or if my parents were just really frugal. I spent part of my childhood overseas. We lived in company housing and I went to a fancy private school (payed for by my dad's company). We always had food to eat but I always felt like the poor kid at my school. Never ever had new clothes - always hand me downs or home made. Never had more than two pairs of shoes - shoes for school and flip flops for home. I remember once in 4th or 5th grade when I wore a whole through the toe of one of my shoes and my mom refused to buy me a new pair. I was so embarrassed by it. We never had toys. My dad would bring home scrap photo copy paper from his office and we would draw a lot. I also remember making toy binoculars and toy cameras out of toilet paper rolls and tissue boxes. I guess not having much made us pretty creative.
PP, my guess is, your parents must have been pathologically frugal. Someone who works overseas in a professional capacity should be able to afford more than 2 pairs of shoes for his daughter..
Anonymous
07/01/2013 15:35
Subject: If you grew up poor...
I don't know if we were poor or if my parents were just really frugal. I spent part of my childhood overseas. We lived in company housing and I went to a fancy private school (payed for by my dad's company). We always had food to eat but I always felt like the poor kid at my school. Never ever had new clothes - always hand me downs or home made. Never had more than two pairs of shoes - shoes for school and flip flops for home. I remember once in 4th or 5th grade when I wore a whole through the toe of one of my shoes and my mom refused to buy me a new pair. I was so embarrassed by it. We never had toys. My dad would bring home scrap photo copy paper from his office and we would draw a lot. I also remember making toy binoculars and toy cameras out of toilet paper rolls and tissue boxes. I guess not having much made us pretty creative.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:48
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Grew up in DC. Graduated high school in 2000.
*No gas so no heat or hot water
*Sleeping in layers of clothes during the winter
*Making calls from payphones (no house phone)
*Walking 6 miles to my out of boundary HS when I didn't have money for bus tokens
*Carrying textbooks in grocery bags when my backpack ripped
*One pair of shoes
*Two pairs of jeans, 3 shirts (always repeated outfits during the week)
*Washing clothes in the sink with dish detergent, a bar of Ivory soap, or shampoo
*Rats and roaches everywhere.
*Changing the 8 buckets under the leaky ceiling in my bedroom every hour or two during heavy rain
*Canned "welfare" food with white labels and black USDA lettering
*Heating water on a hot plate and pouring into old 2 liter soda bottles to keep warm under the covers at night
*Automatically knowing that any school related activity that cost money was a firm "no": bake sales, book fairs, class trips, etc
*Every Sunday evening my grandmother and I would go around the neighborhood looking to see what items people sat out for trash pickup
the next day: Toys, clothes, furniture.
*Not having an air conditioner until my junior year of college.
Brilliant!
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:47
Subject: If you grew up poor...
I was raised by my grandmother, and we were poor, but not as poor as others posting here. Most of the time, we had enough to eat (government or church assistance), although it was not nutritionally varied. I was not ashamed of getting free lunch - in the town where we lived many kids qualified and received it. The thing that stressed me out the most was our housing situation - me, my grandma, and her two disabled siblings in a one-bedroom unit. I could never get homework done because it was always noisy and I didn't have a second to myself.
I remember when I began to need a bra and she didn't consider it to be the best way to spend our limited resources (rightfully so), I went to a department store, put two on under my shirt in the changing room, and ran out of there.
I also recall wearing a donated coat that was really itchy, too large, and not very warm, and having to fix a broken shoe sole with glue.
Overall, though I was not unhappy, probably because I was surrounded by many kids in the same or far worse situations. b
I remember when I began to need a bra and she didn't consider it to be the best way to spend our limited resources (rightfully so), I went to a department store, put two on under my shirt in the changing room, and ran out of there.
I also recall wearing a donated coat that was really itchy, too large, and not very warm, and having to fix a broken shoe sole with glue.
Overall, though I was not unhappy, probably because I was surrounded by many kids in the same or far worse situations. b
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:16
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:If you grew up in poverty, do you resent your parents for it? Why or why not?
I try hard not to let these feelings bubble to the surface, but yes, I do resent them. There was always money for cigarettes and beer. They were callous about taking small amounts of money from me (like birthday gifts) and never returning it, even though they knew they were just going to fritter it away and it could have brought me some happiness. They were absolutely incapable of budgeting so that things could have been just a little bit more bearable. I begged them to let me handle things like grocery shopping and they refused.
What I really resent today, though, is that they let me believe our suffering was all because of a lack of money. I worked like crazy to get out of there, to make a life for myself, and to earn a lot. And I've done that. But now as I grow older and parent my own children, I realize we were missing so much more. The damage inflicted through causing us to grow up in poverty pales in comparison to the damage inflicted through abuse and neglect.
These posts make it very clear that poverty and neglect are very different things. Neglect is so much more damaging than poverty.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:13
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:First page, second PP here. There are so many things from my childhood I resent my parents for. Physical, mental and sexual abuse being among them. My mother looked the other way for 14 years while I was my fathers personal play toy and when he tried to kill me it became, to my mother, my fault. These are the things I blame her for, not for being poor.
I am so sorry you went through that. I also had a childhood filled with abuse, but I did not suffer repeated sexual abuse and not at the hands of a family member.
The things that destroyed my relationship with my mother were also betrayals of trust, failure to protect me, and always (to this day) choosing my abusive father over her children.
Being poor was embarrassing at school and left me with some food and hoarder issues, but that legacy is nothing compared to what the abuse did.
To address a different PP, my parents got knocked up as teens and were Catholic in the early 70s. So they got married, had a kid, had a birth control failure and had another one, and proceeded to be complete and total disasters for the next several decades (and counting).[/quote]
Interesting, PP. Mine were kind of wayward hippies.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:12
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:If you grew up in poverty, do you resent your parents for it? Why or why not?
PP whose DH grew up in the south and Mom stole from welfare.
Do I resent my Mom? No. My Grandmother was nearby and she helped when she could, often watching me while my Mom worked. When Mom and my first step-dad divorced, the entire family (5 of us total) moved back to the midwest and moved in with Grandma. I remember going to church with her and thinking going to Ponderosa for dinner on Sunday was the most awesome thing ever.
The person I do resent is my Dad. He picked me up every other weekend, took me to his parents house. They had land with multiple houses in a very rural area and I remember their house being the most beautiful home. Dad always had a decent home, a nice car, money for a motorcycle, camper and certainly plenty of money for his beer. Yet he paid a whopping $80/mo in child support. One of the reasons Mom lied to welfare is because he was supposed to carry me on his medical insurance and it was always a struggle to get things covered. Never once did she take him back to court for more $$. I still have a lot of anger and resentment towards him to this day.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:11
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Grew up in DC. Graduated high school in 2000.
*No gas so no heat or hot water
*Sleeping in layers of clothes during the winter
*Making calls from payphones (no house phone)
*Walking 6 miles to my out of boundary HS when I didn't have money for bus tokens
*Carrying textbooks in grocery bags when my backpack ripped
*One pair of shoes
*Two pairs of jeans, 3 shirts (always repeated outfits during the week)
*Washing clothes in the sink with dish detergent, a bar of Ivory soap, or shampoo
*Rats and roaches everywhere.
*Changing the 8 buckets under the leaky ceiling in my bedroom every hour or two during heavy rain
*Canned "welfare" food with white labels and black USDA lettering
*Heating water on a hot plate and pouring into old 2 liter soda bottles to keep warm under the covers at night
*Automatically knowing that any school related activity that cost money was a firm "no": bake sales, book fairs, class trips, etc
*Every Sunday evening my grandmother and I would go around the neighborhood looking to see what items people sat out for trash pickup the next day: Toys, clothes, furniture.
*Not having an air conditioner until my junior year of college.
*No gas so no heat or hot water
*Sleeping in layers of clothes during the winter
*Making calls from payphones (no house phone)
*Walking 6 miles to my out of boundary HS when I didn't have money for bus tokens
*Carrying textbooks in grocery bags when my backpack ripped
*One pair of shoes
*Two pairs of jeans, 3 shirts (always repeated outfits during the week)
*Washing clothes in the sink with dish detergent, a bar of Ivory soap, or shampoo
*Rats and roaches everywhere.
*Changing the 8 buckets under the leaky ceiling in my bedroom every hour or two during heavy rain
*Canned "welfare" food with white labels and black USDA lettering
*Heating water on a hot plate and pouring into old 2 liter soda bottles to keep warm under the covers at night
*Automatically knowing that any school related activity that cost money was a firm "no": bake sales, book fairs, class trips, etc
*Every Sunday evening my grandmother and I would go around the neighborhood looking to see what items people sat out for trash pickup the next day: Toys, clothes, furniture.
*Not having an air conditioner until my junior year of college.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:11
Subject: Re:If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Seems like a small thing but some of you really make me want to setup a fund when my kid gets to HS to help classmates pay for events.
It may be a small thing, but it would mean the world to the kids who might benefit from it. It's not even so much the trips themselves I had to miss that bothered me, but not being included because we didn't have any money sucked. Missing out on the experience to make/strengthen friendships, and just being part of the normal crowd.
Start by writing to Congress and tell them not to do away with Head Start. This is often a poor child's only reprieve from a chaotic home life.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 22:04
Subject: If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:First page, second PP here. There are so many things from my childhood I resent my parents for. Physical, mental and sexual abuse being among them. My mother looked the other way for 14 years while I was my fathers personal play toy and when he tried to kill me it became, to my mother, my fault. These are the things I blame her for, not for being poor.
I am so sorry you went through that. I also had a childhood filled with abuse, but I did not suffer repeated sexual abuse and not at the hands of a family member.
The things that destroyed my relationship with my mother were also betrayals of trust, failure to protect me, and always (to this day) choosing my abusive father over her children.
Being poor was embarrassing at school and left me with some food and hoarder issues, but that legacy is nothing compared to what the abuse did.
To address a different PP, my parents got knocked up as teens and were Catholic in the early 70s. So they got married, had a kid, had a birth control failure and had another one, and proceeded to be complete and total disasters for the next several decades (and counting).
Anonymous
06/30/2013 21:57
Subject: If you grew up poor...
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.
Me too!
Ok I just want to add that I didn't grow up poor, but did grow up with absent or workaholic parents. My mom was an engineer. She also directed us to do this when we were kids because she couldn't be bothered to take us to get snow boots. So it's not just the people who grew up poor! Plastic bags and rubber bands solve lots of problems I guess..... Sorta like duct tape
Anonymous
06/30/2013 21:44
Subject: Re:If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I am missing two back teeth thanks to a time when we didn't have insurance.
There was a boy from this area who died because he couldn't afford dental care and his tooth infection spread to his brain. Awful, just truly awful.
That could have been me. One back top tooth had abscessed and by the time I was able to get to the dentist she was only able to pull out shards of the tooth. It was a tooth that the dentist was working on when my dad lost his job and the insurance ended. He had my tooth open and left it that way. My other tooth he had filled but he didn't clean the tooth before the filling so it rotted from the inside out. The worst part is that people back home talk about how much they love this dentist and how great he is. I stay up thinking about how I could still sue him and get him to pay for the bone grafts and implants I need and can't afford.
Anonymous
06/30/2013 21:28
Subject: Re:If you grew up poor...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Seems like a small thing but some of you really make me want to setup a fund when my kid gets to HS to help classmates pay for events.
Yes. But where/which one? Kids are zoned for Langley and go to a private. That hardly seems like an obvious choice. Anyone have a better suggestion for me?
PP with the swimming background: both kids heavily involved in expensive sports. This seems like a good place to put money that can help. Sounds like it helped you. Any thoughts?
Former swimmer here. Athletics was just something I happened to excel at, but not everyone will. The key thing there was that someone reached in for me. I mean, I did not know how to swim, and a coach saw something in me, some need, and taught me, brought me into the game. So, I think that was the thing that saved me. The action of the coach, caring for that kid. So I don't mean to dismiss your idea AT ALL, I think if that is the way you want to do it, that is a wonderful way (though I'm an oldie and my kids are too young for organized sports, so I really don't know enough about how they're organized now to know how to advise you. I just think that the fact that you want to make an impact is important. Some people can give with their money, and others, with their time, and others, just with kindness. People talk about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and all, and I respect that. At the same time, I did not pull myself up by my bootstrap. I mean, make no mistake, I hung on tight to the life raft that was offered, but someone - multiple people - pulled me up.
I think poor kids, particularly those kids who see nothing but the same poverty, neglect, and abuse for miles and miles, need someone willing to reach in for them.