I grew up in a very poor family (although Canadian poor is global rich by some measure, that didn't comfort me). It's an experience that I seldom comment on because I've discovered that many people simply cannot understand. They really can't.
Being really poor is more about a lack of hope, opportunity and options than the more obvious lack of resources. It's impossible to play poor -- you can't cut your budget as an exercise in restraint and then assume that you've experienced what it's like to be desperately poor.
The few luxuries we did have were grossly irresponsible luxuries.
I remember a period shortly after our dog died of malnutrition -- when the infrequent bath was facilitated by my older brother using a blow torch on the hot water heater, and boiled hot dogs comprised about 80% of our diet -- and my father blew the few dollars he got on a laser disc player.
Here we were living miserably, living in a toxic environment as our only indoor heat was a kerosene heater (that we didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning was courtesy of the gale force winds that would blow through the uninsulated house), and yet we had a very rare laser disc player for our shitty little second-hand television.
I don't begrudge my father it, though. Life had become such a trial that it was simply an escape and gave him something to feel pride about providing. It was irrational, but it gave me perspective that judging the poor is a fool's game unless you can empathize with the situation.
Being poor was thinking "what's the point" about almost everything, because fate had a way of conspiring against you. Or at least that's what it felt like when every initiative or enterprise relied upon layers of fragile proppings.
Where a flat tire was economic destruction.
Now I sit in the top 1% of earners. Though that is purely a result of natural interests and natural abilities (thank you genetics), and was no herculean motivation to escape the situation of my parents.
I grew up in a very poor family (although Canadian poor is global rich by some measure, that didn't comfort me). It's an experience that I seldom comment on because I've discovered that many people simply cannot understand. They really can't.
Being really poor is more about a lack of hope, opportunity and options than the more obvious lack of resources. It's impossible to play poor -- you can't cut your budget as an exercise in restraint and then assume that you've experienced what it's like to be desperately poor.
The few luxuries we did have were grossly irresponsible luxuries.
I remember a period shortly after our dog died of malnutrition -- when the infrequent bath was facilitated by my older brother using a blow torch on the hot water heater, and boiled hot dogs comprised about 80% of our diet -- and my father blew the few dollars he got on a laser disc player.
Here we were living miserably, living in a toxic environment as our only indoor heat was a kerosene heater (that we didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning was courtesy of the gale force winds that would blow through the uninsulated house), and yet we had a very rare laser disc player for our shitty little second-hand television.
I don't begrudge my father it, though. Life had become such a trial that it was simply an escape and gave him something to feel pride about providing. It was irrational, but it gave me perspective that judging the poor is a fool's game unless you can empathize with the situation.
Being poor was thinking "what's the point" about almost everything, because fate had a way of conspiring against you. Or at least that's what it felt like when every initiative or enterprise relied upon layers of fragile proppings.
Where a flat tire was economic destruction.
Now I sit in the top 1% of earners. Though that is purely a result of natural interests and natural abilities (thank you genetics), and was no herculean motivation to escape the situation of my parents.