There was indeed a brief time when Mom and Dad had money coming in. Mom and Dad often tried to make our situation seem like an adventure (“Kerosene lamps are fun!” “A wood stove provides more heat than a furnace!” “We don't need a TV! TV rots your brain!”) but in retrospect, I know now they were doing whatever they could to make ends meet. There were times we relied on the church “relief society” for food. Mom bought our clothes from the discount rack. When he was working, Dad didn't make much money - but he was often out of work. I've talked before about how my family was poor when I was young. (Well, except for the demonic tentacles wrapped around the house and car…) Growing Up Poor Look at this mobile home from Stranger Things it's very, very similar to the one my parents owned:Įverything about that image feels like my childhood to me. If you've been watching Stranger Things season four, as we have, the trailer houses in that show remind me of ours too. I could imagine the inside: shag carpet, thin wood paneling on the walls, faded linoleum, colors like Avocado and Harvest Gold on every surface. “Yes it is.” The trailer was a beat-up 1970-era single-wide. I pointed out the tiny windows and the sagging roof. That is almost exactly like the one I grew up in.” Here's the trailer I grew up in: “But look at that trailer house right there. “We're in the poor part of town,” Kim said. Coming home, we cut through a trailer park. We let Tally lead us on a walk through town one rainy afternoon. Rather than wake in the middle of the night to drive out, we rented a small place in Tillamook and took the dog for an adventure. She's been taking foraging classes, and she had an early morning workshop on harvesting sea vegetables one Sunday. May be time for a database restore.Ī couple of weekends ago, Kim and I enjoyed a short vacation on the Oregon Coast. I can see them in the database, but they're no longer tied to their posts. It's the comments on every article on the site. Update: Holy cats! It's not only the comments on this article. They're still in the database, but they don't appear on the site. We have/had a good discussion going here, but something happened to nearly all of the comments. You know how to survive on very little.Hey, folks. Here are 9 ways that being poor makes you an awesome person: You’re tough. These are lessons that continue to be useful as an adult, no matter what my financial situation is. The upside to growing up poor is that it teaches you valuable lessons about money, value, and survival. The biggest tragedy of children living with less than they need is not, for the most part, the material things they go without-it's having to prematurely take on the worries and concerns of adults. As a child, being poor was difficult, not only because I lacked certain things, but because I was often worried, just like my parents, about how we were going to make it to the end of the month. Once upon a time, I was one of those kids. Many Americans living in poverty are families with children. At least 45 million Americans live below the poverty line according to the US Census Bureau, and millions more live technically above the poverty line but are still struggling to make ends meet.
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