People who grew up working class have more stories than a canned line like, "My mom scrubbed toilets." I'll tell ya what it's like actually going up poor in America. First, you're ashamed to have friends come over to your house. Shame is a theme of growing up poor...
-
-
Four kids and two adults in one house with one bathroom.....My dad made $8.50 an hour at a trailer assembly plant. He had been making $12.50 an hour at a factor. "The factory closed." If you don't deeply feel what those words mean, you didn't grow up poor in flyover land.
Show this thread -
Our small town had a local pedophile. He never touched me or my friends, but he got away with a lot. (Though poor, most of my friends and I had intact families.) In a small town, a little money can be thrown around in a lot of ways.
Show this thread -
The town pedophile would donate money for parks and even to schools. The he would "volunteer" to watch children in the locker room. He'd hand them towels. Everyone in a position of power knew he was a pedophile, and no one every did anything. This was pre-Internet.
Show this thread -
When you grow up poor, you FEEL the elite's mistakes before anyone. My dad aced all of the tests for the Illinois State Police. He was denied a job due to racial discrimination. Our lives would have been fundamentally different if he had got this job.https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-10-02-9710020230-story.html …
Show this thread -
The worst part about growing up poor is other poor people. You leave your bike out, it might get stolen. Your windows might be broken. You might get jumped. There are a thousand annoyances like this, large and small.
Show this thread -
When you grow up poor, you don't glamorize it. These new socialists, mostly spoiled white kids, claim to feel solidarity or some shit. It sucks. But poor people aren't bad. The problem is being poor damages your entire body and mind. Sapolsky is right:https://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/march7/sapolskysr-030707.html …
Show this thread -
When you're poor, you're stressed. On edge. Life sets you off. Physiological level stuff. Multiply that across a neighborhood and you have a lot of street fights, domestic violence, drinking, smoking. That was when I grew up. Then people turned to meth and now opiods.
Show this thread -
The thing about being poor....Everyone gets is wrong. My dad was high IQ, but there weren’t any jobs. Start a business! Selling to whom? Everyone was broke. These are complicated issues, I have an education, I lived in poverty. And the answers? I legit don’t know.
Show this thread -
I do know that my life would have been different without Christianity. Poor people have the same problems, but poor Christians avoided the vices like drinking and smoking, and philandering. They had hope. Probably that’s why I’m such a pro-Christian...who is not a believer.
Show this thread -
Marx called religion the opiate of the masses (though there is more context to what he meant). Poor people lost religion and found....opioids. Religion offered hope of another life. We can empirically see what post-Christian America looks like. A stadium of overdoes a year.
Show this thread -
Factories closed. Towns fell. You know what saved a lot of small towns? Prisons. Small towns began competing to become the home of a new prison. (One reason decriminalization arguments don’t land is because crimes are prisons are jobs.)
Show this thread -
Whenever you talk about poverty, people jump in to remind you it’s worse elsewhere. Why? Because poverty isn’t something we’re supposed to notice in America. It’s the forbidden topic.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
$186, family of 6. Three boys, one girl. Today; A Fortune 500 NA Dir of Tech, A very successful business owner, A Dir of Tech for a major University system, a fortune 500 Manager of Technology & Infrastructure. They sent us to school and paid attention to what we learned.
-
#RichDadPoorDad love to hear of families succeeding and crushing it like this! God bless your hardworking family! Happy New Year everyone!
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
You are causing some major flashbacks and making me remember things I’ve not thought about in a long time. My eyes r getting watery. God bless America.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
When I was married I supported a family of 4 on $1700 a month. My wife stayed home; we though that was a better investment than child care. My ex was very thrifty. She always had dinner on the table and Friday was "kids night" she'd go out with the girls and I'd take the kids out
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Family of 8...
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
I was raised by a single mother, who raised 7 of us on $200 a week! Idk how she did it, but we all went to catholic school n had a pool in the backyard. I never knew her internal struggle n what she faced every day, but I thank God for her n all she did. She is a miracle worker
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
This Tweet is unavailable
-
This Tweet is unavailable
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.