re: "He/She came from nothing..."

Naive?

None of the above encapsulate it perfectly.

My grandfather for example was the son of a sharecropper. His mother didn't work. Income was minuscule, probably less than $10,000/yr. Didn't go to college. However intelligence and drive isn't created at a school. His parents didn't have a dime to give him to start his life. Yet he became incredibly successful, he is almost an idol to me.

Still today $50,000 can be a comfortable existence depending on where you live. My wife and I are stuck(workman's comp) making around $37,000 and are doing just fine.

Single parents can produce successful kids, it is simply more difficult. Not going to private school, and paying their way through college in no way means someone came from "nothing". Option D can definitely have an impact, doesn't automatically mean they came from nothing though.

To me, I have always associated it with hyper poor. Old south sharecroppers like my great-grandparents for example. Those who truly seem to have/had no opportunities outside of a public school education to make something of themselves. Or not even that.

Of your 4 choices, I guess "D", as the other 3 can still provide you with "something" basic to help get you on your way to becoming successful.

But really "coming from nothing" to me also means having to worry about where your next meal is going to come from, or if you'll get evicted or have the electricity shut off this month. Hard to concentrate on schooling and getting out of your shitty situation when you gave to worry about the basics of living day-to-day.

If anyone has ever read "The Glass Castle", I think you'd agree that Jeannette Walls came from nothing. But that also was the driving force for her to make her life better.

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D. Parent(s) were reprobates and did little to enhance their upbringing.

this is "coming from nothing"

go out to the ghetto and see what some of these kids have to deal with, and i don't even mean kids with addict parents

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I think of the family from Shameless when I think about #4

Now THAT is coming from nothing

Errbody thinks they came from nothing. Donald Trump considers himself a self made man, even though his father was the biggest real estate developer in NYC.

A-C also easily apply to me. We grew up pretty poor. Lived in North BR, but when growing up....more white families were on our street back in the 80s than black families, whites all started moving out in the 90s. I think my dad made maybe 25-30K a year back then with 4 kids and a wife to support. But...I still think there is a big difference to growing up pretty poor and "from nothing". We still had most of our basic needs met, got gifts for Christmas and birthdays, had bday parties, new clothes for school every year, took vacations growing up(even Disneyworld), etc.



And it's funny that you are trying to say that not attending private school means you are coming from nothing. As already posted...there are places that have excellent public schools. I'd say it's more common nationwide for cities to have decent public schools than for them not to have them.

D would be the closest.

I guess it would be where they have nothing to fall back on. Most people on here and most people that I know or you know are people that if they failed at some point they had something to fall back on. Absolute worst case scenario they could move back in with their parents. I guess the coming from nothing would be someone who just did not have any sort of safety net.

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None of the above encapsulate it perfectly.

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Right, because it doesn't apply to the present, even factoring in shifting quality of life factors. There's a fairly easy path to middle/upper middle class today if you have any drive or ambition at all. This wasn't always the case.

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In East Baton Rouge parish it's not good to attend a public school.

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Well I know that, it was going that way even when I was in school. True all magnet schools are what saved me from having to attend Istrouma or Glen Oaks HS.


Just was saying that the situation in EBR Parish is not the norm in most cities.

A little bit of all of them.

Really "They came from nothing" means they had a lot less growing up than the person(s) you're talking to.