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How many of you grew up poor?

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lower middle class, probably until the time I was in high school when my dad landed a job on wall street and I got shipped off to prep school.

my parents hid that kinda stuff from us, but looking back I strongly suspect that they were living paycheck to paycheck... clothes came from budget department stores, my parents never went on vacation (my sister and I spent every summer with our paternal grandparents in Quebec and they took us places, but it was all on their dime including our plane tickets out there and back home), never had a new car, etc.

my parents got screwed over by my mom's siblings... they packed up everything and relocated from Oregon to NJ to live and help care for my mom's dad after he came down with lung cancer and their father signed a letter saying that we could live in his house for 10 years rent free (he had a 2-family house; he lived on the second floor and we were on the first). he died a year after we moved, though, and her sister/brother strong-armed my mom into selling the house.
 
I lived middle class growing up with my mother's grandparents. We would have been dirt poor but our mother's death gave us military benefits (Social Security, Chapter 35 Healthcare, Veterans Assistance, and Life Insurance) gave us the financial structure to live a life that I'd say was rather spoiled. I own many things from my crappy shoes to my Burberry sunglasses because of the sacrifice of my mother. I only make try to honor that by continuing the course of my education, and getting as good of grades as possible in my major..
 
Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort. "Farewell
to Thee" being played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.


Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine,
ay Gessiah?

Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.

Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
o' tea.

GC: A cup ' COLD tea.

EI: Without milk or sugar.

TG: OR tea!

MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a
rolled up newspaper.

GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
doesn't buy you happiness."

EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to
live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one
room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the
floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
fear of FALLING!

TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a
corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a
palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
live in a lake!

TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty
of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TG: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down
mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home,
out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in
the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad
would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox
at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.
We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump
of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill
owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't
believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..
 
I was, and still am poor. If it wasn't for free wi-fi and the laptop I robbed from that old lady across the street, I couldn't even post on ATOT anymore. 🙁
 
edro said:
My parents could only afford to give me a 3 Series when I turned 16... so yeah, I grew up poor.
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You think that's bad? Shit, when I turned 16 my parents could only afford to give me a 3 year old FOUR DOOR 3-series. I bet yours was at least an M3..
 
Grew up poor. Mom came to when I was 5 and asked me if I had to choose who would I live with ? So they divorced and I stayed with mom for a few years till she got sick and couldn't work. I was 9 years old then. We lived in a house that was abandoned and full of fleas. I remember walking around and having to use my hands to wipe my legs the fleas were so bad . I would sneak out after dark carrying old plastic milk containers to neighbors houses to get water . I remember she sent me to the store to try to get some food with a couple dollars she had and I bought some bread and a piece of candy and got yelled at for wasting money on candy.

She got sick and one night told me to go get help. It was about 2 am and I went to a neighbors house, knocked on the door and the guy that answered told me to get away , stop bothering him, before I could explain what was wrong. I went to three houses and all of them acted the same way. That still pisses me off today. If a 9 year old comes to your door saying his mother is dying don't send him away , I don't care if it is 2 am. I ended up having to go to a 7/11 and the guy their finally called for help.

Things stayed pretty much the same, parents went back and forth, I went from one to the other till I turned 17 and joined the Navy. Got out made my own way and haven't looked back, but still can't forget living in that fugly house with those fleas.
 
I grew up upper middle class, but was friends with really poor kids. They appreciated more, were much nicer and generally more mature (that's what happens when life makes you grow up - having to take care of younger siblings, etc).
In 8th grade I walked home with a kid named Tommy. He was huge and lived in a house the size of my living room and I never saw his parents nor went inside. I'm not sure they existed. I think he may have gone to school just for the free food. I doubt he ate at home. He was hilarious when he opened up, but that was rare.
Some of my other friends lived "across the tracks" and stayed alot of nights at my house just to get away. Some had abusive, drunk or absent parents, some were just too poor to do anything fun like video games.
We had food and space and didn't mind sharing.
Most of them fell by the wayside, whether dropping out of school or moving away, or in one case dying young, but I am still friends with a kid I met in 7th grade and we've been friends ever since. He had to join the military after high school, but it gave him more opportunities than staying across the tracks and now he's doing just as well as I am.
I had other friends that had money, and alot of them turned out to be nothings.
I remember going back to the town I went to high school in years later and seeing our valedictorian (stuck up rich kid) working at Foot Locker there.
I don't look down on poor people, I look down on people who won't even try to look up.
 
Yeah, grew up poor myself.

Raised by a single mother who didn't work much - just received welfare checks and food stamps.

Welfare checks and food stamps don't go very far, though. Me and my mother went without food regularly for many years - from a few days to two weeks at a time.

The money and food stamps always ran out quick - had to go without food for maybe 3-4 weeks once - when the welfare checks suddenly stopped out of nowhere.

A mentally ill parent is great, eh?

On the bright side - my dismal childhood gave me a strong desire to be independent. After many, many, years, I was able to earn enough money to start supporting myself, and to tell SSI to go screw themselves.

I'm still fighting now to better myself and my life.
 
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don't think I necessarily grew up poor, but I'm pretty sure I did grow up cheap although that's also the reason for not growing up poor
 
amdhunter said:
I was, and still am poor. If it wasn't for free wi-fi and the laptop I robbed from that old lady across the street, I couldn't even post on ATOT anymore. 🙁
Click to expand...

You are morbidly obese and an Indian, if you don't have a computer it's because you ate it.

Stop trying to act as if you were a black man, you're as black as a Japanese woman and probably drive like one too.
 
Raduque said:
You think that's bad? Shit, when I turned 16 my parents could only afford to give me a 3 year old FOUR DOOR 3-series. I bet yours was at least an M3..
Click to expand...

I got thrown out of my parents house at age 13 and lived in the street.

The reason was because after my confirmation i was overheard saying that i didn't really believe in god but they wanted me to do it, i was honest that night and thrown out.

I lived on the streets of London for a good week before my grandparents picked me up and brought me to their apartment in Brixton, if hell has a name it's Brixton. I joined up when i could and never looked back.
 
Modelworks said:
Grew up poor. Mom came to when I was 5 and asked me if I had to choose who would I live with ? So they divorced and I stayed with mom for a few years till she got sick and couldn't work. I was 9 years old then. We lived in a house that was abandoned and full of fleas. I remember walking around and having to use my hands to wipe my legs the fleas were so bad . I would sneak out after dark carrying old plastic milk containers to neighbors houses to get water . I remember she sent me to the store to try to get some food with a couple dollars she had and I bought some bread and a piece of candy and got yelled at for wasting money on candy.

She got sick and one night told me to go get help. It was about 2 am and I went to a neighbors house, knocked on the door and the guy that answered told me to get away , stop bothering him, before I could explain what was wrong. I went to three houses and all of them acted the same way. That still pisses me off today. If a 9 year old comes to your door saying his mother is dying don't send him away , I don't care if it is 2 am. I ended up having to go to a 7/11 and the guy their finally called for help.

Things stayed pretty much the same, parents went back and forth, I went from one to the other till I turned 17 and joined the Navy. Got out made my own way and haven't looked back, but still can't forget living in that fugly house with those fleas.
Click to expand...

The military is a good way to get out of a bad situation, i'm glad we both had that choice.

There are things that stick, i was pretty abused by my mother, the good Christian in a village filled with other Christians who looked up to her.

I don't know what happened to my parents and i won't check for it either.

I took my sister out of there as soon as i could but she had to stay in a hospital for a week or so and had a complete lower body cast for three monts, she'll tell me what happened when she's ready to, i know my parents would have rather seen her dead than brought to a hospital and if i hadn't fixed that i wouldn't have a sister today.
 
Kudos to everyone on here who is making the best of it, despite having a rough childhood.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

-Myself included. 🙂
 
We had a solidly middle class home. I grew up in a bedroom community next to a town with some poverty in it, but I was isolated from that. Both my folks worked and made sure that we could go to college and had braces. Those were the priorities it seemed.
 
Raduque said:
What you replied to amdhunter with was funny, John, but you seriously need your sarcasm meter checked.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that, i'm in Afghanistan and a bit jumpy, i don't really read everything i respond to and try to figure out original intent.

I should have gotten that one though, it was obvious, sorry about that.
 
Soundmanred said:
You have to admit that it explains alot about him.
Yes, I'm serious.
Click to expand...

Not as much as you think, i reply the way i do becuase that is how i am IRL, i talk to my men in that way, it's not exactly easy being me and doing what i do so you'll have to excuse me if you don't get a "pretty fucking please" with ever reply.

So no, it's not because i am bitter or angry because of any of that because i am not, i'm bitter about one thing only and that has nothing to do with my childhood nor my ex wife.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
Not as much as you think, i reply the way i do becuase that is how i am IRL, i talk to my men in that way, it's not exactly easy being me and doing what i do so you'll have to excuse me if you don't get a "pretty fucking please" with ever reply.

So no, it's not because i am bitter or angry because of any of that because i am not, i'm bitter about one thing only and that has nothing to do with my childhood nor my ex wife.
Click to expand...

It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
It's. Not. Your. Fault.
 
Yeah, I did. I remember eating cheap dinners out of cans. Always wore second-hand clothes, cheap shoes. Pants were always too short. I wore pants with patches on the knees. Furniture was second-hand. Almost never ate at a restaurant. Out-of-town vacations were few and the ultimate adventure. Mostly traveled by bus to visit out-of-state relatives.

I guess putting 4 kids through private school meant sacrifices. I didn't really think I was poor but I did notice other kids had better clothes/shoes.
 
There's a lot of baggage in this thread...

But we were lower middle class in the beginning (5 siblings in the burbs of minneapolis)...then my dad got a decent job actually, so middle school-high school was actually pretty decent. We went on a fair amount of road trips, granted we still got our clothes at good will/hand me downs...but who cares, everyone wore purple jump suites in the 5th grade...right?
 
Lower middle class in third world country. I didn't own any luxuries except a Sega Genesis with 2 games and a Boom Box. Oh, and a microscope.

I read a lot, and played soccer almost every night.
 
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