re: The moment you realized you were poor growing up

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plus a plus-sized jar of Flinstone Vitamins

I would eat those like candy they never made it to Monday

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maybe this explains why youre built like barney rubble.

Clotheslines
Hand me downs
No TV
Double patched pants
Lots of time spent picking vegetables
Shopping with a calculator

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When the other children pointed it out. I realized I was poor when someone told me I was.

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Fact.

For me it was high school at age 16. Everyone started getting cars. My parents were divorced. Mom worked three jobs raising three kids. Dad was in sales and always on the road. He bought my first car for $400. I was 2 years older than the car, a 1976 Dodge Aspen in shite brown.

I was happy rolling up to the high school in that thing. Taking my little brothers to school was another duty for me in my role as brother/dad. I'll never forget the mocking that one of my classmates gave me that day. Starting LB on the football team with the cheerleader gf. Dad was in sales and mom was a dentist. He was driving a brand new 5.0 Mustang. Something I'll never forget.

Met my wife in college. Her dad is a doctor and she grew up in a well-to-do part of town. She went through the debut process in Birmingham. It was a bunch of formal balls with tuxedos, country clubs, and alike. I didn't know a soul and realized quickly that these people and I didn't have a lot in common. I met another guy there in the same boat. Dude from Mississippi was dating a doctor's daughter too and had been drug to these. He and I would find a place at the bar and hangout and drink until it was over. Still friends with that dude to this day.

Also, I don't understand why yall are hating on the poverty dishes. To this day, I still relish eating fried bologna sandwiches, fried spam, banana sandwiches, ramen noodles, etc, etc. It's a touch stone for me about where I am from and where I am.

Mom patched me a pair of jeans last year. She always sewed our clothes for us (I thought everyone's mom did this). Think I'll wear them this week as I am working at home anyway.........

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I grew up in the 60s and early 70s, my dad, and most of my friends dad’s were engineers (moms rarely worked). I felt we were solidly middle class, but anyone under 40 today looking back at our lifestyle would think we lived in poverty. We had one car, one black &white TV, no clothes dryer, one phone in the hall, vacations were tent camping, mom made dad’s sack lunch every morning, we ate out maybe once a month.

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But it’s impossible to live a normal life these days!!

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I think too many on here are comparing today to 40/50 years ago...

It wasn't unusual to grow up in a house with one phone or car or TV.

We weren't poor by any standards, growing up my parents had 2 phones in the house one wall mount in the kitchen, with an xtra long cord, and one in my parents bedroom.

We did have two cars, didn't eat out a lot and eating at McDonald's was a treat... Standards have changed so much over those years..

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I think too many on here are comparing today to 40/50 years ago... It wasn't unusual to grow up in a house with one phone are car or TV. We weren't poor by any standards, growing up my parents had 2 phones in the house one wall mount in the kitchen, with an xtra long cord, and one in my parents bedroom. We did have two cars, didn't eat out a lot and eating at McDonald's was a treat... Standards have changed so much over those years..

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Bingo

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quote: I wish I still had that bike. mine got stole

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Mine got stolen too, from the front of my apartment in Kenner - learned a valuable lesson that day, don’t trust no one- they will still even the crappiest piece of shite bike out there.

Still hurts to this day

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I remember looking forward to going to Sears with my parents because we'd play on the Atari for hours.

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I played intellivision baseball at Sears any time my parents went shopping , no worries about getting kidnapped or anything back then

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When you realized that Check soft drinks were not name brand

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There was an old couple that gave Check drinks for Halloween, we were always so happy to hit their house once or twice to get a can of Check.

Surely tasted better from the can than the 2 or 3 liter bottles

Just typical middle class, not lower, not upper, and as a kid we hadn’t have and couldn’t things but everyone you associated with (friends/family) was the same so you didn’t know the difference. One of my best friends dad was a physician with money and they had stuff but not that much different from everyone else except their house was air conditioned.

I do recall my mother saying when I was an infant, as a young couple with 3 small children where were times were a little tough she would lie awake a night crying because she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to pay their $55 house note.

After the movie Cinderella Man, set during the Great Depression, I asked my parents what they remembered from their youth during the depression, they were about 8 or 9 - during that period. My paternal grandfather worked for the railroad and always had a job during the Great Depression so they were better off than many.

My maternal grandfather was a trapper and carpenter in the off-season and always grew a very large garden so they weren’t too bad off. But my mother told a story of my grandfather going down a depot where they gave away free clothes to those in need as my grandfather needed a pair of work overalls, and though he had some money in the bank in a safe deposit box, bank were closed, accounts frozen, so he couldn’t access it. Asked my mother if she needed anything, she wanted a coat because it was winter and she was cold. He found the stuff and when he went to “check out” the woman behind the counter wouldn’t let him have the coat for my mom because she felt my grandfather wasn’t poor enough. Fast forward 20 or 30 years later, this same women shows up at my grandparents house wanting to hire my grandfather for some carpentry work. My.grandfather had a long memory and my mom said he tore her a new arsehole, cussing her up from head to toe, and he’d never do anything for her, pay or not, until the day he died, because she refused to give him that coat for my mom.

My maternal grandparents also lived a couple blocks from the railroad tracks and railroad depot, and my mother remembered hobos during the great depression knocking on the door looking for something to eat - though they were poor and had little, my grandmother would always feed them. My mother said those hobos would leave some type of mark outside on a sidewalk in front of the house as message to other hobos that if you stopped at this house and asked they’d probably feed you.

You didn’t notice the tag?