From walking for hours to attend school or to buy groceries because owning a car was too expensive, to living in total darkness some days because electricity pays were too expensive to pay, impoverished children share the shocking realities of growing up in that kind of environment that rich kids will never know.
(Content has been edited for clarity)
No Money, Not Even For A Ride
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“Moving past all the usual material stuff, one thing that sucked for me growing up was that I couldn’t just up and go places when invited, even if it was free or their parents covered the cost of the activity. My mother was always broke and though we had a car, gas was reserved for the work commute only. I couldn’t just ‘get a ride’ from my mom and she never had spare change for the bus. Every dollar was accounted for.
I got a lot of ‘come to the movies with us and don’t worry, I’ll pay for you. Just be across the city by 5:30.’
It sucked having to explain, yet again, that no money meant no money for anything, even a ride.”
A Series Of Difficulties
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“I tried to cook and serve dinner loud enough to cover up the sound of my mom crying in her bedroom because she can’t afford to pay the electricity this month. I put on a cheerful face and acted super chipper for my younger siblings as I packed our bags to stay at a roach-infested motel because no electricity would get us all taken away by CPS. I have walked five miles round-trip to buy dollar-store groceries on our food stamps because my mom couldn’t afford a car or the bus. I have walked seven miles round-trip to see the Medicaid doctor after being without medication for three months because that’s how long it takes to get an appointment. I had to pack everything I’ve ever owned into two bags, trying to decide what portions of my life can go in the garbage can because our landlord died and my family got evicted.”
Summer Times Were Not Spent In A Fun Way
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“My parents ‘borrowed’ money I had saved up to pay the bills. Living paycheck to paycheck is an actual thing. If there were late payments, we had our cell phone/electricity/water cut off. I often visited Cash Advanced stores with my parents. I spent a lot of time unsupervised and growing up. Both my parents worked all day and couldn’t afford summer camp or anything like that. In the summers, I would just hang out in the house, alone, or with the other neighborhood kids while the parents were at work. We also had no money for Christmas trees/fireworks/Halloween costumes to celebrate holidays.”
Money Can Be Scarce
“When I was young and super poor, my rich friends would get mad at me for not having the money to do things with them. From their perspective, I was just ditching them all the time.
More recently my significant other (who comes from a wealthy family) and I have been making common law official, moving towards being ‘married,’ and he totally freaked out about the fact that I have student loans. Apparently, he didn’t realize that a kid who grew up below the poverty line wouldn’t have school paid for them in full.”
Seeing Mother In That Condition
“Rich kids can never understand the pain, humiliation, helplessness, and sadness of seeing your mom walk in the door with a box of food that you know she had to beg the food-bank to let her have.
Thinking about this now makes me upset still, but when I was a kid, it was a fact of life that I was too young to embrace the burden of. Times like that made me grow up way too fast. While other kids might’ve just complained and whined about frivolous stuff, seeing my mother go through that really left me feeling upset and helpless.”
At Least The Kids Are Still Grateful For What They DO Have
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“I hate that my kids have missed out on so many things because we simply didn’t have extra money to pay for it (sports, camps, school t-shirts, school photos, after-school programs, school trips, pool passes, etc). It sucks. For us as parents and for them. I’ve seen their friends (and their friends’ parents), who have more money, just not understand at all as if we can just pull an extra $100 out of thin air. Sure, we could, but then there would be no food that week.
The flipside is our kids are extremely grateful when we can do something extra, and I have seen some of their friends be ungrateful brats because they just expect to be able to do whatever because money isn’t an issue. But it still sucks.”
Poor People Stick Together
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“How being poor drains you of motivation and self-respect, and makes opportunities harder to take. How eating bad food and living in a terrible place makes you feel like horrible and how hard it can be to break out of that.
People who have always been rich have never felt that, so they assume that being poor is just the same as being rich without having money and that if they were ever poor, they would just work their way out of it while remaining chipper. But it’s not that easy, having no money is insidious and it affects your whole outlook and personality.
On a more positive note, once you get some money, you have an iron determination to never be poor again, which can make you work harder and better than the rich kids. Being poor can also give you respect for the value of money, and stops you from wasting it.
Also, when I was poor, I was somehow closer to the people who I lived around. We were poor together and we partied together in squats with cider.”
Kids Can Be So Mean!
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“When I was a kid, all the clothes and sneakers I owned came from cousins or from the thrift store. I remember when I got my first pair of sneakers from this outlet store that was brand new. I was the first person to wear these and would have to break them in myself and I was so excited to wear them to school.
Well, unfortunately, the first person I saw was this kid, Miguel, who loved to pick on me for various reasons, including my clothes. He walked up to me, looked at my shoes and said, ‘Nice new old shoes. I had a pair of those last year.’ That just completely ruined my day and excitement.”
The Funny Yearbook Photos
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“I remember in 6th grade we had yearbooks and everyone in my classroom had one but me. I remember it like it was yesterday, everyone was laughing at the pictures and I was just sitting at my desk with my head low.
My teacher was super nice though and saw that I was upset and tried to comfort me. My friend at the time came up to me and showed me the funny photos.
The shame is deep at the age of 22.”
No Fallback Plan
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“Just the general sensation of not having a fallback plan. I don’t begrudge my friends who live in houses their parents bought for them, or go on trips on their parent’s dollar. Good for them. It’s just when they so casually drop it into the conversation that I’m reminded of the stark difference between us.
If I’m out of money, that’s it. I am broke. The concept of having this nearly unlimited piggy bank you can access whenever is so alien to me it might as well not exist. I wouldn’t even impose upon my parents for an expensive meal, let alone replacing my car.”
Acute Suffering Through Everything
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“The suffering of needing something you can’t afford: medical treatment, new clothes/shoes, adequate nutritious food, etc. Growing up, you may feel you ‘need’ a lot of things, but when you REALLY need something, you know, because when you don’t get it there is acute suffering. That suffering is walking to school in shoes with no soles that you repatched with duct tape, not because it was cool, but because you literally had no other option. Try going through winter with a coat that was cheap when first bought, second hand, two years ago, and doesn’t really fit now so you can’t zip it shut. Living on school lunches (at least when I was a kid, they were horrible but they were free, now kids don’t even get this so…) and coming home starving and feeling lucky to eat ramen. Losing teeth because your parents can’t afford to get them fixed. Suffering in sickness because you can’t afford medical care. I’ve seen both my mother and my sister almost die of disease: pneumonia and scarlet fever because we couldn’t afford medical care.
Children suffer the most from this kind of anti-humanity legislation prohibiting universal healthcare. Adults have fully formed immune systems and rationale. Children don’t and they don’t understand what’s happening to them or their parents and they don’t understand why their parents can’t stop the suffering.”
Debt In Medical Expenses
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“Ok so I guess this is only in America, but:
Getting a serious injury and trying to make it look like no big deal so you avoid people asking stuff like ‘How long did your doctor say it would take to heal?’ Because you don’t have insurance and the smallest medical expense would put your family in debt, so you never got it checked out.
Seriously, I’ve broken my foot and not even gotten crutches. I could barely walk but I had to tough it out and look like nothing was wrong.”
Some Things Just Can’t Be Replaced So Easily
“I went to high school with a ton of rich kids. One girl, in particular, seemed to have it all. She was thin, tall, beautiful, dressed nice, drove a Porsche, had friends, and got good grades. But she lacked all common sense. One day, she came in saying she stole her mom’s emerald bracelet because she wouldn’t let her wear it. She was flaunting those dark green jewels to everyone. Fast forward a couple classes into the day, now she was saying the bracelet fell off and she couldn’t find it. She said it was going to ‘teach her mother a lesson,’ for not letting her wear it and that her mother would just ‘have to buy a new one.’
When I was 15 or so, I was hanging out in a park with my friends. I ended up losing a bracelet my mother bought me as a birthday gift a few years prior. That bracelet was $40 which was a lot of money for my mother to spend on a gift. I was used to not getting anything for my birthday. We got back to my friend’s house around midnight and I didn’t notice the bracelet was gone until around 3 am. I marched my butt back to the park and searched for that bracelet until dawn broke and I finally found it.”
Walking Everywhere Is A Way Of Life
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“I used to walk two miles along countryside roads to school and back from the ages of 4 to 16. Then I used to walk five miles to the sixth form from 16-18. EVERY DAY IS LEG DAY. Being on ‘free school meals’ and everyone in your class knowing because they made you use a separate dinner queue (granted, this was 20 years ago). Likewise, having hand-me-down school uniforms that are five sizes too big that you never grow into, but just make more ragged over several years. Parts of your house falling down or things being broken and it’s not getting fixed, even when you have the money because your parents are too depressed to do anything about it. I had a rich boyfriend who just did not understand this. He came over for Christmas one year and complained constantly about how cold the bathroom was (it’s outside) and why wouldn’t we fix it? We really couldn’t.
Not asking for toys or presents ever, even on birthdays/Christmas because we knew not to expect them, but being insanely grateful when we did get anything. Choosing between walking two miles to the shops and affording a little food, or paying for the bus to the food bank. No holidays or vacations, ever. One time we went camping in Wales and it was the farthest I’ve ever been from home. To this day, I’ve never been on a plane. School holidays meant my mum crying in the bathroom with the door locked because she couldn’t afford to feed us all when we were home from school for six weeks. I never learned to swim or ride a bike because we couldn’t afford lessons, or bikes, or entry to the pool.”
Zero Understanding Of Why The AC Is Off
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“My cousin grew up rich (I grew up poor to lower middle class) and he was a pain in the butt.
For Christmas, I would ask for something and if I didn’t get it, I knew it was probably because my parents couldn’t afford it and I’d just try to enjoy what I did get. I’ve seen my cousin throw a fit because what he asked for wasn’t in the first few gifts he opened. He also once threw a fit because he didn’t get enough presents, and told his uncles he was going to close his eyes, and when he opened them he wanted more presents. His family just laughed. If I had done that every gift I got would have gone back to the store.
He took it for granted that when they went to the store he’d get a toy. I knew not to even ask for a toy unless we were at the Dollar Store.
He would constantly tell us our house and cars were worse than the house and cars his parents had. He asked why my parents couldn’t just get good jobs and buy better stuff.
On a family vacation, he and his older brother asked to fly to their summer home in Virginia because they didn’t want to go on the long car ride. So their parents bought them plane tickets.
On one occasion he wasn’t being terrible, just genuinely confused. It was a really hot day during the summer and he was at our house. He asked why we didn’t have the AC on and we explained running the AC was expensive, so we only turned it on when it got into the upper 90s. He couldn’t understand why we didn’t just pay the bill.”
The Lack Of Social Life And Energy Is So Real
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“I had to work overnight shifts at a fast food restaurant for three months during my senior year of high school because I had school fees and other bills to pay. I was working 40 hours a week, 10pm-6am with no breaks, then going to school from 8:20-2:40.
I had friends that would constantly complain that I was ‘ditching’ them because I couldn’t afford to go out.
I was unable to do my homework because my parents couldn’t pay the bill for the Internet.
I completely panicked when my car was off the road for two weeks because it needed a major repair. I already couldn’t afford it, and now I had to figure out how to get to work.”
He Grew Up As A Rich, Poor Kid
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“I grew up in a very wealthy family. My grandfather built enough wealth for the kids to all live comfortably.
Not me though. My parents never paid for anything nor used the money for anything other than charity. And when my wealthy aunt would buy me a nice present for Christmas (like a new bicycle, watch or motorcycle) I would go with my father to donate it to ‘kids who weren’t as well off as me’… because every poor kid needs a new Rolex.
We lived in a broken house where nothing ever worked and my father worked as a soldier until he died complaining about electric bills, car payments, and other crap. When I mentioned that maybe he could use some of the seven-figure money he took in annually on his interest, he shouted that the money wasn’t ours because ‘we didn’t earn it,’ and threatened to send me to live with one of my cousins to live on a farm. My mother was just happy being married to a rich guy who was so ‘generous.’
When I got accepted to a good university I had to work full time since I didn’t qualify for anything due to my family’s wealth. To top it off, my father made some kind of deal with the dean that he would donate a large sum if they were able to flunk me or kick me out for any valid reason. Luckily only half of my professors seemed to participate actively, the rest treated me like I was an obstacle between them and their dreams.
When my father died, all of his money was granted back to the family charity where I was named a trustee and he left me $250,000 in a non-transferable, irrevocable trust that will become available when I reach the age of 75 unless I wished to donate it to one of six approved charities beforehand. The trust is actively managed so I might have a million in there by the time I die.”
No Money For Any Fun
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“The stinging realization that no matter how hard you try to be the cool kid that everyone likes, you just can’t afford to be.
You can’t catch a movie or go to the football game. You have food at home. You won’t see a name brand unless it comes from a thrift store and is years out of style.
You don’t have the money for makeup or accessories.
Thankfully my parents managed to get amazing careers out of the military, but until I reached high school we were not well off. Being enlisted doesn’t pay as well as you’d be led to believe. Add in one parent being deployed, costs go up. So does care for a sick and dying grandparent.”
Savouring Every Little Thing
“Drinking sugar water to stay alive. Showering at the middle school because the water was shut off. Mayo and mustard sandwiches. Overeating at the pizza place my sister worked at because that would be our only meal of the day. Being SO excited to be able to spend TWO WHOLE DOLLARS at the dollar store. ‘Oh my God! Do I get two toys, or two candies, or a toy AND a candy?!’ And so, so many other things. I had to explain to my significant other early in our relationship that not everyone buys perm tags for their license plates, and that poor people renew them every year.”