Well, I grew up extremely poor, I'll give my take on what you see here...
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html
September 03, 2005
Being Poor
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
True, although I'd say being aware of even the smallest costs rather than saying "knowing exactly how much everything.." The poor do not know exactly how much it costs to put a faux river stocked with fish into your house, only the very rich like Bill Gates (actually did this) do.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Not true. Mom never got angry about it. She used it as a lesson in economics. We also learned not to ask and to enjoy much of what we had rather than wish for some of those crappy toys on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.
Very true, but this also became a lesson in economics as well as how cars work and how to fix them. We couldn't afford to take the car to the mechanic, I learned very early how to do things on the car and how to diagnose car and repair issues.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
True, and it becomes hoping that the cost will not be too large when you do finally have to go to the dentist.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.
Not true, the poor live among the poor, we had friends over all the time, and visited their homes. Some of the "richer" poor would have some better things, but we certainly had them over as well.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.
This depends first on how your parents work it. My mother always made us a lunch and did not accept the "free lunch", even though she was alone she payed for it in time and energy.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Sometimes true.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Rubbish. We had bags of cereal we couldn't afford the good stuff in boxes and we already fully understood that we couldn't waste.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.
True. No other way to say that one.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Duh. If we got "off-brand" cereal it certainly didn't mean we got Hot Wheels...
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Not so much. It is finding a place that has the heat as a portion of the rent though. Ours was hot water heating. It was shared by others in the apartments and was simply charged as a portion of the rent. While I could see this happening, there is usually a different solution.
Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Sometimes true. There are untrustworthy people everywhere, but you knew who they were. But you wouldn't be leaving a fiver anywhere anyway...
Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.
Being poor is hoping you don't have a growth spurt because you just got used to the mocking from your current hand me downs from a brother who was more than a decade older than you. This is seriously out of date stuff folks.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.
No way. My mother would have beat me within an inch of my life because I was wasting the food she was going to prepare for us, let alone if she had found out I had stolen anything, even a 5 cent piece of gum.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Sometimes.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Sharing bedrooms is not as bad as people think, other than getting people to shut up and let you sleep.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
LOL. I had shoes where they actually fell entirely off. Geez I remember this one. We'd run and there'd be three of us going "slap, slap, slap"...
Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Didn't have air conditioning anywhere but at the grocery store... However our texts were top notch.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Hellah. I remember when I got that much. I was definitely happy.
Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.
Only if you are dependent on the government. We learned to deal with what we had, not what would be given us.
Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
Where are there places of work without florescent lights? Night shifts are not solely reserved for the poor.
To be more accurate I'd say that it is bringing your kids to help you clean the offices so you don't have to take all night at the second job.
The thing that sucked the most was cleaning the ashtrays with a wet sponge. You couldn't imagine how disgusting that sponge smelled.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
LOL. Being poor is actually seeing your father about a decade after he left because the statute of limitations on whatever he had done had run out.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
I never saw that anywhere.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.
Yup. And usually you would find the lamp because you were looking through the trash for cans to begin with.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
We never had roaches in our apartment. But Colorado is not big on those things anyway.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
I wish. Being poor meant that my mother wouldn't let me out after I got my GED when I had tutored a friend to get his when I was in 9th grade and his mother paid for me to go and take the test at the same time that friend did. I passed, the moron didn't. The chances are 99.9% that if I ever tell you a story about a stupid friend, it is about this guy. Anyway, I wanted to be done with it. My mother wasn't going to take that in any way. No fricking way. And I never saw it different for any of the people around me.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Not angry, but certainly suspicious.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Not an option. And I still won't tell you the stories. No way.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Sometimes.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.
No probably about it. I usually only spoke to girls that approached me first.
Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.
Not usually. I have an allergy to potatoes. Poor people eat a danged lot of potatoes and I would force myself to eat them and become sick. I hated it when we ate anywhere but at home.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Don't remember this. Usually the glass was in the parking lot area.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Not usually. Being poor is when people are shocked you can speak clearly because they think you are stupid because of your clothes.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Yup.
Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.
Yeah, but assumptions just wind up making them look like asses.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Mom found ways.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Never in front of the kids... Not my mom.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Usually much harder.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.
Went over this one.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.
Hmmm.... Usually they assumed I would be willing to do far worse work than other people. Lazy never seemed to be the assumption.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Nah, mom worked in a hospital, we had pretty good insurance.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.
I would say that you were "proud" when you bought something that somebody else hadn't bought first, not that you never did.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.
Hellah. And buying them when they were on sale in bulk....
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.
That is being "poor" in mind. Being a human is knowing that no matter how bad it gets you can begin anew. It was one of the few lessons that being poor really taught me.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
It would be foolish not to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you're being judged.
Being human is knowing you are being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Usually a single set of tinker toys from that Santa. But being poor is knowing Santa doesn't exist because it was one of the first lessons you got when you became poor. Santa doesn't bring toys, mom buys them and we can't afford it.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Don't forget the phones.
Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Wouldn't know. Mom never made that compromise.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
We didn't have money for the lottery. Nothing so frivolous as that would ever have been purchased by my mother.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Yeah.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being smart is continuing to suggest that a different path is possible when they finally realize that you were right.
Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.
Don't remember this.
Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Hah. We couldn't afford to rent any of that. Being poor is "finding" good furniture. Usually when people threw it out.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Again something my mother wouldn't do. We did without because that extra $50 was simply too high of a cost. We needed it for food.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Or a stint in the military. My sister went the night school route, I did the military.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Or a crappy air mattress. I had this chair thing that folded out to be a mattress. It never worked as a chair though, it wasn't solid enough to hold a person when it was in chair formation.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
That is being homeless. Not all poor are homeless.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
True. It is also somebody giving you what you didn't know to be good advice when you are eight that you won't understand until you are about 24. But thankfully you remembered it.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
It is also knowing that it isn't impossible.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Hmmm... In the US, not so much. It is, however, knowing that you often had to overlook opportunity because you had to go to the second job that put the regular money in the pocket.
Being poor is running in place.
Are you kidding. I didn't waste energy like that.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.
Domestic abuse is wondering that, many women who are not poor are often asked that same question. This assumption is a poor one...
And there you have it. Directly from somebody who lived it.
