re: The moment you realized you were poor growing up

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That sucks man. I can't imagine growing up with a shitty step parent.

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It was the cause for a lot of anger in my life, if I hadnt got away from all of that at a young age and had stayed in that environment..I fully believe I would be sitting in jail for murders or executed already. I'm so glad that I had other options in life with other family that were great people.

I got around good family and was able to pull myself together. I grew up strange, extreme urban on one side then extreme rural on the other.. But I learned a lot about both sides of life and a lot in between by the time I was in jr high.

Now I can look back and often laugh, as my life is kinda like a Neo-western dark comedy. You have to be able to laugh at things.

My mom raised six of us by herself working as a secretary. Knew I was poor every morning when the teacher would give me and the other poor kids our green plastic token for our lunch. Donut and cupcake day was another reminder for the poor kids waiting in the classroom while the other kids went and purchased their snacks. No complaints, just the way it was.

When I was in elementary school the church donated a car to my mom because we didn’t have one.

I was so young I didn’t realize not having a car meant we were poor. But when a bunch of people at church pitched in money to buy us one, it opened my eyes

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It was the cause for a lot of anger in my life, if I hadnt got away from all of that at a young age and had stayed in that environment..I fully believe I would be sitting in jail for murders or executed already. I'm so glad that I had other options in life with other family that were great people.

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I technically have a step dad but he married my mother when I was 24 and she and I hadn't spoken to each other for over a decade when they got married. He's a very nice guy and has always been awesome to me and my family.

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Hand me down school uniforms and finishing all the food I put on my plate were the biggest for me.

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Ya'll act like this practice makes you poor...

Our kids go to Catholic school in Metairie.. The school has a uniform exchange every year, my wife's usually hits the first one so we can get our kids unis.. They grow so fast, screw buying new uniforms...

and we make our kids eat all their food, what the frick is wrong with that...

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Now that I think about it I haven't seen a pair of patched jeans in years. We all had patches when I was kid.

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We had Toughskins from Sears & Roebuck. In fact virtually everything we had other than groceries came from Sears when I was a kid.

One thing about my momma though is even though we were well off (not rich, just well off) was she was born in 1920 so she grew up in the Great Depression. She would do things like save old pie pans and use them as lunch plates. She never threw anything away and always found some sort of use for whatever it was.

Like on Boy Meets World when Eric told Sean “Sean’s poor”

I guess when people just come out and say it

I thought only rich people had two story houses

We definitely used the government blocks of cheese and powdered milk.

In summer if we went on vacation to Biloxi it was the greatest thing in the world (going to “the beach”) but other than that the highlight of the summer was going to Blue Bayou for a day.

I can’t even remember at what point I realized that wasn’t the same for everyone. Not that it really matters, I grew up with both parents happy and they kept us focused on the importance of school and grades which I now realize is the real blessing in life

I feel like this thread is way more honest than the "how much do you make and how big is your house" threads.

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if you had a dad & mom that loved you enough to feed you and put a roof over your head you weren't poor.... They might have been broke and short on cash at times but you were far from poor.

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That is truth.