5 Life Advantages You Acquire from Experiencing Poverty
2) Having been poor really helps you appreciate NOT being poor.
To this day, I still remember walking through a furniture store in Myrtle Beach, looking at a huge, carved, exotic looking stone bench that cost $2000 and thinking, “I could BUY THAT if I wanted.” Did I buy it? No. Should I have bought it? No. But just knowing that I had the option to be able to buy it felt really good. A small, simple thing like that gave me a feeling of accomplishment and security. My brother has told me he had the exact same feeling about being able to buy a set of tires for his car without having to pay them off over a few months’ time.
Could it be any other way? After all, how can you really appreciate being full if you’ve never been hungry? How can you ever appreciate being happy if you’ve never been sad? How can you ever appreciate having money in your wallet if you’ve never been down to lint in your pocket?
It also helps to know that humans can go without food for a week to ten days with few ill effects, except for those who have cancer or diabetes, or, of course, those who are still-growing children. The old fashioned word for it is fasting, and the hunger pretty much disappears on the third day. Once you’ve done it, you put things into a more realistic perspective and have more confidence.
Thanks for this helpful observation.
Unfortunately I’m a cancer patient who has diabetes because they took out half my pancreas to get the primary tumor (there are still those pesky secondary ones).
@dave in St. Louis…..
I know EXACTLY how you feel brother!
I was born & raised poor and started to EARN my allowance at the tender age of 4.
I got to cut the grass in my yard with a push mower and I was not even as tall as the handle on it!
After holding my arms above my head and pushing that torture device as hard as I could for two hours that nickle sure felt good in my grubbie little hands!
I have worked very hard for my money ever since and never felt bad about it until I came down with cancer at the age of 40. They took my spleen out half way through it and did not let me recover fully before starting the chemo back up.
The results were I went from a healthy man working 40-50 hours a week manual labor to a broken man that gets winded walking up ONE flight of stairs within 11 months.
I did not know what true poverty was until big pharma made sure I stayed destitute with their outrageous costs for medications that carry more harmful side-effects than ANY benefits provided.
Once you are caught up in the medical slavery system it is nearly impossible to get out of it without stopping ALL of your meds at the same time because the more meds you take to treat the “side effects” of previous meds, the MORE side effects keep cropping up that “require” more meds.
If it was not for medicare forcing me into poverty until I could not even pay there outrageous co-pays, I would still be in that never-ending cycle of pain.
I tell everyone the same thing:
STOP TAKING ALL YOUR MEDS FOR ONE MONTH AND SEE HOW GOOD YOU FEEL WITHOUT THEM!
Then try eating NON-GMO foods, NON-GMO drinks, and stick with a balanced, healthy, LOCALLY GROWN ORGANIC FOODS, and you will see amazing results that big-pharma does it’s best to keep you ignorant of.
I take issue with your father for asking you about the school lunches. As a parent it’s my job to figure out how to feed my kids and since they’re growing, going hungry isn’t a better choice than swallowing pride and accepting help.
Otherwise, good points all around. As someone who’s been poor most of her life (and is once again) I am one of the most resourceful people I know.
Sounds like you’ve never really been poor. If you don’t have the common sense to involve your children in these kinds of choices, if you don’t have the sense to involve them in their own life, then you aren’t much of a parent.
I’ve been on both sides of that conversation. I grew up extremely poor (no refridgerator, no A/C, no heat, no T.V. – living out of a cooler for our milk and eggs poor). I lied about my age so I could work full-time at 15. By age 16 I was paying my own way for everything (toiletries, clothes, car, gas, insurance) except utilities and rent. I thought I’d reached quite a level in my life.
Then I got married too young and had kids. That’s when I learned what struggling was. We’re in a much better place today than 17 years ago, but it was a hard slog for the first 10 years.
We discussed our situation with our kids. They knew why they couldn’t have candy each time we went through the checkout lane. They also knew that sometimes they could. Asking was always acceptable, but whining never was.
Pretending your situation is something other than it is “in order to protect your precious babies” isn’t doing them any favors, nor you.
I grew up in a family that had to watch our pennies. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t real rich either. My mother had come from a more prosperous family and the fact that her siblings and relations were financially better off was a problem for her, so she would never admit that our finances were limited. There was very limited money for “luxuries” which included most toys. I used to get told by my mother that the thing I wanted “wasn’t worthwhile” rather than the real truth that we really couldn’t afford it. The unintended consequence of that lie was that I grew up thinking my desires were somehow unworthy or shameful, and that there was something wrong with me for wanting these “trashy” things. I’d have had fewer self-esteem issues if my mother had been honest and said “we really can’t afford this” rather than condemning it as some how valueless. The truth of your situation should NOT be hidden from your children; you owe them the truth about it. For one thing they need to learn that being poor isn’t something to be ashamed about; it isn’t necessarily a blot on ones character to be poor. Heedless spending when there is no money IS something to be ashamed about, however.
There is nothing special in encouraging or approving the choice of your children to go hungry rather than accepting help when needed. That’s pride at its lowest. Child-neglect is nothing to be proud of.
And accepting free food when needed (which is what “jmarie” took issue with) is *not* a case of,
“Pretending your situation is something other than it is ‘in order to protect your precious babies’ isn’t doing them any favors, nor you.”
Do you begrudge those who turn to food pantries as well?
I’m guessing about 10% of the current population can learn those lessons and be happy and productive, no matter what life may bring their way.
The rest will scream about how unfair everything is and demand that someone else rescue them. If, as seems possible, the economy and world events collapse, most will simply whimper and curl into a ball.
When Mrs. Obama did her little speech about how it was so hard back when she and Barry were in their 20′s and SO VERY poor, my thoughts were, When you’re in your 20′s, EVERYBODY is poor! Is part of the plan. Most of us fledged out of the nest anxious to experience that 5th floor walkup and the car that didn’t run and surviving on Top Ramen for months at a time so that we could be FREE. And we did it and had fun anyhow, and look back on it as a great learning experience and better stories to tell now that we’re in our dottage.
But she made it out to be horribly difficult and unfair. Same attitude she’s carrying today.
The thing about being poor in one’s 20′s is that there is the hope- actually, the assumption- that it’s a temporary state of affairs. I could handle being poor in college and grad school because there was light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure how nostalgic I’d be if it was a permanent state of affairs. That would be frightening.
Terminological nit-picking: the author’s talking about being BROKE. Which is having no money. There is being POOR — having no hope, determination, or ability to get out of it. Not the same thing.
Agree, having no money and being poor are not quite the same thing. I worked my way through college and funds were very tight my last year, I had about $2 a week for food. I could afford a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs and rice. Sometimes I’d have enough for a small bag of M&Ms. I had to sell my high school ring, it was that or I wasn’t going to eat.
I’d like to say the experience stayed with me and when things got better I was always appreciative and never wasted money again. I’d be lying. I’ve had to be reminded a couple of times about the difference between wants and needs.
Thank you for this article, it’s about something far more important than “binders of women”. JeremyR, aharris, and others, I hope things are better for you, my heart goes out to you.
WRONG. Being poor is not without hope unless you live in a rigid society based upon socialist utopian ideology.
Being poor is not a lack of determination it is a starting point in a child’s life and can be overcome if the child wants to do so.
Being poor has no effect upon one’s abilities or their ability to “get out of it”.
How do I know this?
Because I grew up in a dirt floor house without indoor plumbing.
Because I grew up a child of a single mother.
Because I grew up picking up bottles along the roadside to get the deposit back to buy something to eat.
Your statement is not only untrue but is the basis for so called liberals to make judgements about something which they have no knowledge and cannot hope to understand.
I am successful in spite of people like you.
Very happy you made it out, JF. You’re a person to look up to.
Moronic nonsense from someone who’s never been poor. You think you can find shades of gray between broke and poor?
Freaking idiot.
I’ve often said: I’m always broke and never poor. Poor is a frame of mind; a condition you develop when you have given up because the rich, the whites, the Republicans, etc. are all against you. But mostly because you do not trust God.
My Dad always said that we were broke, “Which means right now we don’t have any money.” Poor, or PO, as he always pronounced it, was a mindset that meant you’d NEVER have any money. We were brought up to make no difference between us and our friends who had more of something than we did: what they had was what they had, and what we had was what we had. We enjoyed playing with our friends’ toys, and we enjoyed making up our own games without any props — Fleeing Convicts On A Train was one of our favourites, requiring only four chairs in a line and some sound effects (and our dolls wrapped in blankets, sometimes). We didn’t know what convicts were and had never been on a train, but so what? Later in my life I was able to travel the world — staying in cheap rooms and converted railroad cars and dormitories, sleeping on the train, and once coming home from England with 12 cents in my pocket. I could do it because Dad taught me how to be happy with what I had.
I graduated in May with an engineering degree. I can’t find full-time work. I took a part-time job on weekends and am considering picking up another while I continue to send resumes without response. I sleep on the floor in my parents’ basement in a house that we nearly lost to foreclosure two years ago when my dad was unemployed. I have learned how to fix damn near anything, including everything on a car. I earn my keep by replacing head gaskets, changing the oil, replacing starters, replacing brakes, fixing things around the house, etc. because I can’t afford to help out with the bills. I hate explaining to people that I live with my parents, because everyone gets the false impression that I’m lazy and a deadbeat. But I’d work 60 hours a week if given the chance. Hell, I worked two jobs my whole 7 years through school because mom and dad couldn’t even help me pay for gas to drive home during the holidays, and bills had to be paid regardless of how little financial aid I was given, you know, being a “privileged white male” and all. I couldn’t even get enough in student loans to adequately cover my expenses each year.
Basically, I’m writing this to plead with all of you…Please vote this anti-capitalist clown Obama out of office in two weeks by voting for Romney. Sorry, a vote for Gary Johnson won’t cut it.
Exactly!! A vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Barack Obama. Why would you place such a high bet on someone who will absolutely lose!
You don’t have to explain anything to anybody. That’s what family is for – a support structure. And if family members are happy living together, then so what.
Since you mentioned family, I should note that I’m the oldest of three. My younger brother works part time at a gas station, and my sister is unemployed. Yes, all of us live with mom and dad (hence my sleeping in the basement).
Among my immediate friends, one also lives with his parents while working a job for which he’s overqualified. All of my friends’ siblings are living at home, too, and working part-time jobs or are unemployed.
Come to think of it, the number of people that I know who are my age and are employed full-time commensurate with their skill level are a small minority.
I’m not looking for sympathy, just trying to give people a picture of what’s really going on (things that the official unemployment numbers don’t show). And to show just what an exercise in futility it is to attempt to “make college more affordable”, enticing millions more young adults into mortgaging careers they don’t have, only to be given a piece of paper and move back in with their parents.
Studious Citizen:
Off topic, but you say you have an engineering degree and can’t find work. I don’t know your entire situtation, or what type of engineering you went to school for, but have you looked into using your degree in the oil and gas industry? I know several engineers in that field, all making close to 6 figures a year, and many companies are scrambling to hire more.
Unfortunately, when I signed up as a freshman and chose my major (Computer Engineering), the economy was not totally in the crapper and they were projecting $70k-$90k starting salaries for Computer and Electrical Engineering. 60% of graduates from my school had job offers before graduation day, and 90% found work within 6 months of graduation. Today, those numbers are much worse – if you ask for $60k, you’ll get laughed out of the interview. The people I know who can find work are taking starting salaries in the $40k-$50k range. If I’d known that’s the return I’d get on my mountain of debt, I’d have skipped college and gone to trade school or straight into an entry level job.
Today, I know multiple people who are working part-time hourly jobs after graduating. I know people who graduated, got jobs with companies like Caterpillar or US Steel, then got laid off (being the newest hires) and went back to school to get their masters because the job market is so terrible, hoping it’ll improve by the time they give their dissertation.
I have a friend still in school in the Mining Engineering department. He’s currently on what would normally be quite a lucrative co-op with a blasting company, but they’re having such a hard time getting contracts that he’s been effectively laid off for the past couple of months and has taken a part-time job, too.
I know there’s a few companies on a growth trend like Peabody (mainly because of their good positioning in southeast asia), and in general I wouldn’t mind working for them, but I’m trying to avoid major relocation if I can help it. I’d like to stay close to my current area because this is where my network of contacts is, and I plan on starting a business or two a couple of years down the road. There’s other companies like Boeing that do a lot of consistent CpE/EE entry level hiring, but they’re in a position to pick only the absolute top GPAs, and since I had to work my entire way through school, I’m nowhere near that top. The smaller companies that would be less selective are virtually all in hiring freezes. You may recall Romney mentioning a guy that owns an electronics company in the first debate – I tracked that guy down and sent him my resume – he replied and said he doesn’t even have enough work to keep his current staff busy.
As desperation sets in, my willingness to relocate and/or take really crappy “computer” jobs (like java developer, IT help desk, etc.) will gradually increase.
It sucks being trapped like this. I have absolutely no capacity to finance my business venture ambitions, not even the basic prototype ideas I’m bouncing around, and yet I can’t find a job working for someone else to start building up some capital to do that. And all the while, that student loan repayment date looms ever closer.
Studios Citizen , if you[‘ve got some ideas and just need the finance, draw up he best versions you can and check out crowdfunding websites. Work out which one fits your project, put up your project and if it’s good enough people will help you fund it.
Google “crowdfunding websites” to get started.
http://www.kickstarter.com is one. Good luck.
This brings back so may memories.
I grew up in the projects and even worst neighborhoods.
So poor I remember wearing sandals in the snow to walk to school.
My wife never did so it’s a big problem.
She’s never been poor so she doesn’t really believe it could happen to her.
I’m always savings for emergencies because I understand that I have nobody to go crawling to for help if I screw up and need money.
I’ve worked my up to being an engineer and now making decent money, but inside I’m still the kid wearing rags to school and saving my pennies for months just to go to a movie.
I once changed my clutch in a restaurant parking lot because I couldn’t afford to tow it home much less take it to repair shop.
Great article.
The problem I see with much of today’s poor is that instead of wanting to work and get out of poverty, poverty is a great way to make a living.
Between food stamps, section 8, earned income tax credit etc. etc. Today’s leisure poor live better than the working poor.
I personally know a woman in her 30′s now that at the age of 14 declared that working was for fools and her plan was to have a few kids out of wedlock and go on welfare.
She did and the government has paid her way through life.
Try to wrap your mind around that for a minute, choosing poverty as a career choice.
Multiply her by several million and you see why we have the dependency problem we have in this country.
I wonder who she’ll be voting for next month?
Yes, single motherhood as a career choice. It’s come to that.
There’s also single motherhood as fraud. Have the babies, complete with perhaps rotating, perhaps live-in boyfriends. If the boyfriend has income, all the better, especially if it’s off the books.
You got it. I’m quite acquainted with these single mothers on Section 8. Invariably they have a live-in boyfriend. Often he has a decent blue collar job or sells drugs. So we see decent car, cable TV, flat screen TV, cell phone, cigarettes, tattoos, etc. because his income is almost completely disposable. The gov’t turns a blind eye to this fraud. In fact, these apartment managers often suggest to these women that they get a “boyfriend” to move in, just so they really don’t have to experience poverty.
Yeah, I had a relative who worked in installing phones in Section 8 housing projects. The situation is accurate – non-working men, never-married mamas, crime, but all the apartments had multiple TVs and other goodies.
Right on, smg45acp.
That’s similar to my experience. My wife’s parents weren’t rich, but they never really struggled, and they tried to protect their kids from the realities. It caused so many problems with our marriage for several years as she would spend money we didn’t have.
In the case of the woman you know, we only have ourselves to blame. Every person you know who says “Well, we have to help people who really need it.” is to blame for that situation.
Ah, yes, those days. We lived for three years in a one-bedroom, rent by month apartment. It had one working drain. We carted our dish water out to the curb to dump it. The sewer would sometimes back up in one of our other drains. My husband would do odd maintenance jobs around the place because we could send in the receipts and charge $5/hour and take it off our rent which was only $250. We did this so we could live on $20K/year + my part-time wage while he looked for serious work and I finished up school without further loans.
We only made it because I paid all our bills and divided the rest up between all the days of the month. We made ourselves live on that daily amount which could be anything from $10-$25 (if we were lucky that month). All our food for the day, gas, etc., had to come out of that amount. It meant shopping for food every day, and I walked everywhere. If we had to make a big purchase, I divided it up and subtracted from every remaining day’s total leaving a bit less. Anything we managed to save at the end of the month went into a savings account to sat on against emergencies.
Did I forget to mention we did this without health insurance and I had chronic migraine? So our health care was killing us. Funny how I still don’t think socialized medicine is the way to go.
We learned how to fix every fixable part on a car during those years. We learned quite a bit about home maintenance. We also learned a lot about cooking, something neither of us had any skill with. We also learned how to do without a lot of things most people take for granted as necessities, some of those things we still do without.
God bless you, American citizen.
Nothing has changed, EXCEPT for the fact that there are no longer any opportunities in the US to better oneself other than through fraudulently latching onto the government teat.
I’m not a glass half full/glass half empty type of person. That cliche was bogus from the get-go. I’m looking around, and I can see that there’s no glass. No glass at all.
Those of us who are employed, but at very low-paid jobs, cannot make ends meet no matter how frugally we live. To survive, many of us are dipping into what was supposed to have been our retirement savings. Sure, we’re working, in the sense that we are expending our time and effort, often at unpleasant and physically demanding tasks. But we aren’t getting paid enough to live on, nor do we have adequate insurance coverage. To count us as “employed” in any meaningful sense is to stretch the truth past the breaking point.
Don’t romanticize poverty. You do us all a tremendous disservice.
Much more here.
“But we aren’t getting paid enough to live on, nor do we have adequate insurance coverage. To count us as “employed” in any meaningful sense is to stretch the truth past the breaking point. Don’t romanticize poverty. You do us all a tremendous disservice.”
You don’t say whether you have children or not, and don’t say that you’re disabled. If not, I’d say nobody is “romanticizing poverty,” but you are victimizing it, unless you’re working 18 hrs. a day on “not enough to live on.” Even with a child I had to deliver to nursery school and pick up after work I’ve worked 8 hrs, plus all the overtime I could get, and with a hour’s drive to and from work, while my husband worked as many as 3 jobs, 1 full time, 2 part time, while he went to school at our own expense at the same time. So, it’s true that “necessity is the mother of invention,” when necessity is all that is available. Where there’s a “government teat,” for self-imposed victimhood, the drama is different. How many people have the integrity, were a thief to offer them a bag of gold with, “I robbed a bunch of people of this, but I want you to have it because you deserve it” would turn it down? How many of those same people would fail to feel indigantly abused, were that thief to take their own money or other personal property? Nothing “makes” anyone become – or be – anything. We make ourselves, one way or another, and one way or another we have a choice between being stuck with ourselves, or choosing to change who we become. Someone once said to me a truism I’ve never forgotten, “No matter where you go, you take yourself with you.” This is why divorces often fail to work. Divorcees simply make the same mistakes with subsequent partners, sometimes repeatedly.
You are one sick cat.
C,mon, dude. Get off your a$$. By the Grace of God, you can do it.
I’ve been through poverty. I worked at fast food for years. I’m not really ambitious, but I’ll tell you a few things that will get you out of poverty.
If you are already struggling, stop having children.
Don’t buy things you don’t absolutely have to have, like a cell phone or cable.
Go to work every day, don’t call in sick constantly. Be punctual.
Learn new skills on the job and volunteer to take on new responsiblities.
Work hard while at work even if everyone else seems to be slacking off. Bosses do know who the good workers are and often try to help them move ahead.
Treat every job as important, and do your best at it. Treating a job as beneath you is a major reason why you never advance.
Keep looking for a better job while you work. Often all you need is a good work track record to move a step up the ladder.
If you do get a raise or promotion, resist the urge to immediately up your lifestyle. Put the extra money in to pay off credit or save it up to buy with cash instead of credit.
If you do these things consistently, barring a health problem or calamity, you will slowly work you way out of the poorhouse. You may never be able to afford a boat or summer cottage, but you will probably be able to own a house, a decent car, pay your bills, and even take a vacation once in awhile. Or you can refuse to change the reasons why you don’t move up the ladder and bitch because the government doesn’t give you a bigger handout.
What nonsense; of course there are still plenty of opportunities to “better yourself” in your country; why else do you think so many people immigrate? They’re not all going there to take advantage of “the government teat.” They’re going there because they know they can make a much better living and a better future for their children than they can hope to do where they came from. Yes, the minimum wage in some places is appallingly low. But who is expected to live on the minimum wage all their lives? Minimum wage is a starting wage. Even in companies like McDonalds and Walmart people can get ahead if they really want to. I’ve met McDonalds managers who were making more money than I do as a teacher. What strikes me about this constant “I work so hard but still can’t make ends meet” refrain is the passivity and hopelessness of it. Is half or more of your income going to rent? Maybe you should move somewhere where rents are lower. Or share with someone. The high-rent city where I live is full of working people sharing houses or apartments because that’s all they can afford for the time being. Can’t afford to put gas in your car? Give it up and use public transport. Or a bike. Just do something. Stop whining about how nothing is ever done for you. People who succeed in life do not expect others to do anything for them. The get off their a**es and do for themselves.
I don’t believe in glass half full/half empty either. Instead, I look around for the pitcher. Or, as my oldest son said the other day, you know there’s a faucet somewhere in the house.
There’s no such thing as hopeless unless you give up hope yourself.
Nothing has changed, EXCEPT for the fact that there are no longer any opportunities in the US to better oneself other than through fraudulently latching onto the government teat.
So true.
Drinking the Kool-Aid again, I see.
Thanks for another fine piece of thoughtful writing, John Hawkins.
The only nit-picking fault I can find with this is with the title. It should either be, “5 Advantages you can learn from experiencing poverty,” or “5 Advantages possible to gleen from poverty,” or some such qualified title, because acquisition of learning any attribute from experience, whether virtue or vice, is a choice. Consider the many women who choose one abusive husband or boyfriend after another. Consider those who think that laboring without a college degree is beneath them, even though they may subsequently work in a capacity that does not require or use their degree, and although many skilled tradesmen make much more money. I recall a Ph.D. in microbiology graduate who bought a machine to paint stripes on parking lots and thereby earned his living. A “mind is a terrible thing to waste,” but so is an education; for we are all these days forced to pay for everyone’s education, many of which are never completed, nor used in any pay-back capacity.
I don’t think that’s really true though. I was homeless and had to live in my car for a while. I was down to under 100 lbs (and I’m a hair under 6feet tall). I don’t think I could handle that again. It took me years to get over some of the things I experienced, and I still have nightmares.
Beyond that, a lot of it is because you simply don’t have a choice. A lot of people are unemployed not because they don’t want to work, but because there are no jobs. You mention a temp agency, but that’s not an option for most people. For a lot of people, there are no options.
This is the kind of glib, phony article by someone that have never known true poverty or homelessness that gives Republicans/conservatives a bad name.
I mean, seriously, cheap dates? That’s your idea of poverty? How about not going to the doctor for 20 years because you can’t afford? Not being able to afford the dentist to have your wisdom teeth extracted, so having to suffer through them coming through? How about losing so much weight because you had no money that you could no longer sleep on your side because your pelvis poking through the skin was too painful…
‘..a lot of it is because you simply don’t have a choice’. – what a load of garbage.
YOU don’t live in old Eastern Bloc, U.S.S.R. or North Korea.
How are temp agencies, ‘Not an option’? I too worked Labor Ready and a myriad of other in-between jobs.. and I was a college graduate, military vet in a sought after white collar field.
It comes down, for me in how HUNGRY emotionally, physically, physiologically etc., to BETTER my situation.
I’ve lived in my car whereas I would go to work early to use the shower facilities or go the gym afterward and THEN shower.
I wanted to eat healthier foods, again I exercised regularly though lived off of Subway’s BOGO days and $1 menus at fast food haunts for ~ 7 months.
I’d had pets that I ‘loaned’ to friends because I initially kept them when living in my car in an old box car. Though winter (it being Colorado) approaching I didn’t want them to suffer from the elements, wild/ stray animals etc.,
I recall in the 90′s, to get the Labor Ready job, to be in line BEFORE the place opens.. ~4:30 a.m. For as long as it took until you were considered reliable THEN the Labor Ready or the MANY other agencies employee(s) will fill-in your name for you when you arrive at the late hour of 6 a.m. if not assigned already to a multi-day job.
Oh, oh then you pull the ‘Republican/ Conservatives..’ shtick. Whatever, dude. Poor, destitute etc., KNOWS no political affiliation. Your ‘party’ nonsense is just that.
I’ve worked on 5 continents, including Antarctica. Twice, the ’03 and ’04 Austral Summers, respectively.
What I find ‘funny’ about Illiberals is their hypocrisy. They revel in it! When people leave ‘the ice’ at the end of the Summer season, ~ mid-February many are seasonal workers in the states. Carpenters, landscapers, clearing park trails etc., whereas there’s ~ 3 month lull between leaving the ice and working their Summer gig.
So you know what my ‘free spirited, independent’ hippy friends on the ice do? They file for unemployment, of course. EVERY YEAR. And since the pay on the ice is quite reasonable in most fields, they draw the HIGHEST unemployment benes for 3 or so months.
With this ‘extra’ money they’re on a 3+ month vacation. All over Austral-Asia usually. Camping, surfing. Bicycling Asia you name it.
Yep, JeremyR. These are the same folks who believe Raytheon only does science exploration. Here’s your sign..
If YOU couldn’t see a doctor for ’20 years’ because you ‘can’t afford it’ – you are f’in up in not only your financial situation, friend.
You couldn’t get your finances in line in 2 decades?
The author spoke of the, ‘I had to walk 5 miles..’ and you, YOU used the very same ‘..never known true poverty..’ spiel. The opening line, heck the ENTIRE op-ed is COMPLETELY lost on you.
You opened your comment with, ‘I don’t think..’ – I won’t go into that for niceties sake.
Though said it seems you’re in a better place, present time. Good for you. Truly. Though you seem to blame, well everyone else for your 2 decade debacle. Sadly it seems to not have made a better person of you nor you have you decided to own up to much of YOUR strengths, weaknesses.
Good luck with the latter.
What about Medicare? I’m Canadian so am not sure how it works in the U.S., but if you were homeless surely you would have qualified. There are all kinds of federal and state programs. Try being poor and homeless in a place like China, where I have lived. There is no social safety net to speak of. Most hospitals will not treat you if you don’t hand over money upfront. And even primary school education is not free. I give money to street beggars there, at least the ones that aren’t aggressive, because I know that it may be they only thing keeping them from starvation.
I just want to say Amen.
Gee Hawk, don’t some of your five contradict others of the five?
For example, isn’t this:
“1) Once things have been really bad, you’re not as frightened of tough times and risks.”
contradicted by this:
“2) Having been poor really helps you appreciate NOT being poor.”
and this:
“5) Being poor makes you work hard not to be destitute again.”
Those aren’t contradictions. Experiencing poverty will obviously be unpleasant, while at the same time, having suffered through it, you may be tougher and less afraid of what the future holds.
It sounds like you are just looking to quibble for the sake of quibbling.
Strike one.
No, a contradiction is when one statement categorically excludes another one. “It’s black.” “It’s white.”
I’ve been poor. I know how bad it can get, and how much worse it could have gotten. Because of this, I know I can survive poverty, and I know how to pinch pennies til they scream. I do not fear tough times, but I sure as heck want to avoid them, and I’m sure glad I’m not poor any more.
If you still think Hawkins’ article is self-contradictory, perhaps he should simply quote Walt Whitman:
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes.”
(And also, sweetie, if the pitcher could call his own strikes, there would be a lot more perfect games, don’t you think? In other words, you don’t get to call the strikes. That’s what the readers here are for.)
Nope. Wrong. I want to avoid being as poor as I have been in the past, but I do not fear being poor. No contradiction at all.
I think one is likely to view poverty differently if they grew up in poverty, as apposed to going through a very rough time as an adult/after becoming accustomed to better things.
When we were growing up, poverty was all we knew. Without the people from the church I do not know how we would have survived. They gave us hand-me-downs clothing. I don’t think we ever had a Thanksgiving turkey that was not given to us in a food basket from the church.
Our circumstances may have been a little unusual. My parents both valued education and encouraged us to love learning. The circumstance that led to us living in a housing project was due to their physical disabilities made more challenging by my father being bipolar.
Living in the project we were surrounded by families that had lived on government assistance for generations. My siblings and I saw that side of life, yet our parents relentlessly encouraged us. Today we are all very hard working middle-class tax payers.
When I volunteer in our food pantry and people are embarrassed to accept help from the church I tell them don’t be embarrassed. We should help each other. The person who needs help today may be the person in a position to give help tomorrow.
If I were to face poverty again, I know how to make a very little go a long way. I am not afraid of poverty, but I would rather work even harder now to try to avoid it. And yet I know that the unexpected can change a person’s circumstances in a heartbeat.
I saw how government bureaucrats dehumanized the people living around us. From what I witnessed growing up, the kindness from the community as apposed to the demeaning behavior of bureaucrats, my views were shaped.
If the state had it’s way we would have been placed in a foster home. We may have received new clothing and more food, but we would have been deprived of the parents who taught us to stand on our own.
If poverty was necessary to be raised by my parents, I have no regrets.
Excellent comment, personal asides. Thank you for sharing.
If you haven’t nor know the background to FoxNews financial contributor and WStreet financial advisor/ owner Charles Payne, his background is much like the 1 you’ve provided. Great stuff.
That said, America’s poverty types is NOTHING like those experienced, seen in much of Africa, SE Europe, M E, India, much of the Philippines etc.,
Though as you’d written, if growing up in poverty conditions it’s all the more satisfying in your ‘making it’.
Again thank you for your comment and continued much success for you and your family, friends.
Just a short bit from my childhood. I remember running from house to house trying to borrow enough “starter” for a batch of bread my Mother was hoping to make, to feed 8 youngsters. Because we didn’t have 3 cents to buy a cake of yeast with which to make it rise. Now, that is poverty !! Did it hurt any of us? Never !! A good article, thanks.
Thought provoking article. The effects of and how to deal with poverty is a complex topic.
Like others who’ve commented, I grew up poor. We literally ate beans and almost nothing else as I grew up, and wore used clothing mended numerous times. We walked everywhere. Yet we didn’t think ourselves poor nor did we resent those who had more. Probably the hardest part was going to public school because some the more affluent kids hated the thought that we were allowed to go to their school. From 4th to 12th grade, I had fights almost every day whether I wanted them or not.
As an adult, I’ve traveled a lot overseas, and have seen poverty that makes our poor look like rich bankers. Yet, again most people somehow survive and find happiness in their own way. I’ve met people who have traveled the globe with nothing but the clothes on their backs, working their way doing whatever menial jobs they can get, who are happier and have more wisdom and life in them than most of us.
Yet, I agree that there are homeless in the US who are seemingly helpless and despairing of their lot in life. I would categorize them into two groups, the mentally ill and those who can’t or won’t find whatever work they can get regardless of their former employment or station in life. For the mentally ill, we need to find a way to better find and help them than currently exists in our society. For the other group, I submit they need to get a swift kick in the pants to quit feeling sorry for themselves and find work, any work, no matter how menial, part time, or low pay it is. You can’t move up the economic ladder of life unless you start climbing at whatever rung you find yourself at. If you fall off, get back up and start climbing again.
So … as it becomes ever more apparent that Romney will win the Presidency and start rolling back some of the entitlements that are bankrupting us, what the hell are we going to do with the millions of unemployed / unemployable people who are depending on falsified social security claims, food stamps, free phones, and all the other “free stuff” we’ve conditioned them to expect for simply breathing the last decade or three?
You can see the rage — and fear — building up in that cohort through posted Twitters promising to assassinate a President Romney and to paint the White House black in retaliation. Thankfully, these have-nothings appear to be exactly as competent and industrious as their mostly-white Occupy counterparts, so I’m not too worried about them being able to get to Romney, nor to even figure out where the White House is to attack it.
I do sort of think we may be looking at rioting in the streets, however, as they destroy and burn down their own neighborhoods again. I also think we’ll be seeing more black-on-white crime, as public transportation is used to effect quick raids on places where the money is.
But we’re still looking at lots and lots and lots of people who, literally, cannot feed or house themselves. Are we prepared to let them starve to death in the streets?
I’ve personally had a pipe dream for several years now: offer them a Grubstake. For anyone who’s been unemployed for over two years, offer them $100,000 to go somewhere else. Anywhere else on the planet. With the proviso that they can never, ever, come back to America. Ever. Most countries will let in someone with $100,000 and if they choose right, they can go somewhere that the cost of living is miniscule and live on their grubstake the rest of their life. They might even discover they have some Peace Corps-type skills and can help their new country into an easier 21st Century.
How many people could we grubstake to a new life with $16 trillion dollars? And break the cycle of ignorance, welfare-dependency and fatherless children.
How patronizing, once had to change a fan belt eh? Wow…
Just last Spring I did the water fast thing. I lasted twenty-six days without eating a bite or drinking anything but water. Amazingly, my strength and stamina never dipped below 85% of normal. I was up all night with diarrhea on day three and I was astonished at the sodium-retention water weight I pi$$ed out during the first week (we really DO eat waaaay too much salt). I kept hearing from the YouTube clips posted by others about this subject that the hunger pangs were supposed to abate after a while but they never did. Every hour or so it would wash over me. Pure torture. All those desert island and holocaust survivor stories came back to me.
I cooked up a storm and watched the food channels endlessly. I spent hours on the recipe websites and I walked through supermarkets and delis, examining everything; seeing it all for the first time. I stood staring down at a squashed squirrel for ten minutes once, wondering what it would taste like. I could not walk past the wastebaskets in front of the local 7-11 without looking inside. Finally, my skin started itching worse and worse, after it passed over the pain threshold I called it quits. I did indeed lose a ton of weight but–like almost everybody else who does this–I gained it all back in a few weeks.
Fasting to lose weight is the stupidest thing anyone can do. Your body just goes into “famine mode” and changes your metabolism, so that when you start eating again you store more fat and gain weight much faster than before. This isn’t just some wild scientific theory; it’s fact, and I’ve seen it happen to many people close to me, including my sisters and my best friend, all of whom had slight weight problems in their youth, dieted obsessively (including fasting or virtually “calorie-free” diets), then became very overweight later on and battled with that until they eventually learned how to eat sensibly.
Our bodies are smarter than we are, people; they are hard-wired for survival and if they sense there is a sudden food shortage they change to adjust to that. You can’t explain to your body that “I’m just trying to lose ten pounds so I can fit into my great new dress.” Your body doesn’t think in terms of how hot it looks in that new LBD. It thinks in terms of how it’s going to keep functioning on 50 percent less calories than it’s gotten used to. And it assumes, quite rationally, that the reason there’s less food coming in is because there’s a famine, not because you are simply not eating what’s available, because in terms of nature, that’s just plain dumb.
These 5 points are exactly spot on.
As Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, “Being poor is nothing to be ashamed of — but it’s no great honor either.”
(Quote from memory, so be a mensch if it isn’t exact.)
Over the years I’ve known quite a few small business owners and farmers who were flat broke and far from poor. It’s called a liquidity crisis. Currently businesses who deal with several state governments are experiencing this big time. Try being a medical practice or a nursing facility that pays its staff ever two weeks but has to wait 120 to 150 days to be paid by the state for Medicaid patients. If you survive it makes you a better business manager.
“Now I was poor.”, “No, I was poor.”, “No, I was poorer than both of you.”, “No you weren’t, I was the poorest of all.” …sheesh.
Well, I grew up blue collar, my father was Teamster. We were very comfortable, but as my late mother put it before she died: “Bobby, Englewood [CO] really wasn’t much was it.” I had to agree. What was lacking was good company.
My key lesson was not some hooey about lacking things it was that if you are in such a situation, you have to be very careful or your plans get destroyed. I knew too many who talked tough, but blew it. Others, got a lot of second or more chances because their family could buy it for them.
Me? I like having poise and self-control, and believe that there is a lot of contributory negligence in bad luck.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hawkins.
The one thing I disagree with from the article is the fear part. That never goes away. It sneaks up on you all cold, high in your gut.
And I think the argument about being broke, vs. having stuff but no current income, vs. being poor… went off the rails.
One key aspect brushed past is the key element of hope. You can lose all your stuff, have not current income, and yet have things lined up in a way that is promising, that you can see your way out of it.
And then there is the condition when you’ve tapped out all of your resources and still see no way out. Well, no honest, ethical way out. When every option you come up with, or other people suggest (well-meaning people are great at coming up with notions that you can’t leverage) is curretly a non-starter. (“Isn’t it ironic?”) You just can’t get there from here. You don’t have the car, or the bus or plane fare. You don’t have a telephone. You don’t have the contacts with which to “network”. You can’t just up and traipse 3000 miles and show up all fresh, groomed and mentally alert in a suit for an interview, crammed for that particular firm’s trivial pursuit test.
When I read or listen to stories about wealthy people having come from nothing, and then start asking questions, it NEARLY always turns out that they had considerable resources, not available to most, that got them started. E.g. a specialized media empire founder says he worked so hard, for some other publisher who didn’t want to go into tech areas, and how he had nothing… except for a fancy used car worth several times what a new family economy car of the era was worth, that he sold and used as funds to get his own firm started. No word on how he happened to have such an expensive car. Maybe he did scrimp and save what he’d earned for 6-10 years. Or another’s uncle H hired him to work in the family restaurant which they turned into a major chain. Uhhh, how did uncle H happen to have the bread to start that first restaurant? How did he pay for all the business and restaurant licenses, taxes, and permits, to buy the special, government-approved equipment, etc.? Such a building would cost several hundred thousand dollars, today. How did that milk-shake mixer salesman earn enough money to buy out the McDonald brothers? How did Colonel Sanders dodge the regulators, taxers, and inspectors when he was selling chicken out of a cooler along the roadways? And they fail to mention that Bill’s mother arranged for the private school to have access to computer time or how that led to other opportunities to learn to program and work with it, or that she was on the IBM board or had connections on the board (or how he and his colleagues butchered the software of the firms they took over). Or the fellow who came over from India to attend US universities, learned the ropes, got work at a US telecomm firm, went back and adapted what he’d learned of the intellectual property of the US firm to make the circuits to totally build/rebuild India’s telecomm system, and then had to come back to the USA when he got sick. How much of that was funded by US tax-victims and stock-owners of the US firm? How did grocery salesman Nicolaus Otto, whose father died when he was very young, have the spare cash to hire a machinist and start experimenting with engines? Those are the parts of the stories I’d really like to hear.
I wouldn’t recommend fasting for more than a day or two. Past that, it negatively affects your mental acuity.
A. People who criticize the poor are scum.
B. I have to thank you for this imbecilic essay which proves why we have to endure Dumbocrats every 8 years every other 8 years.
Now, let’s see:
) Once things have been really bad, you’re not as frightened of tough times and risks.
Well, this is the statement of someone who never saw the concentration camp photos.
2) Having been poor really helps you appreciate NOT being poor.
Most poor people stay poor. And yes, often people appreciate a roof and water.
3) It’ll give you something to brag about later.
Why would a poor person brag to another poor person about starting out poor? Next time you eat at a restaurant go ask the dishwasher if she wants to brag about not being poor. Ask your grocery checker.
4) You learn new skills.
Did you get paid to write this??
5) Being poor makes you work hard not to be destitute again.
You’ve never seen people work hard, have you? Most low income people work very hard from childhood until death. The jobs are hard. Period.
Maybe I will vote for that idiot. Keep talking Republicans.
No, most poor people are in their 20s, and they don’t stay poor. Those who do stay poor are typically the ones who did not work hard and/or did not learn new skills. They lack motivation. They are poor mentally, seeing no way out of poverty, or they are simply lazy, preferring to work the basic minimum-wage or slightly better job instead of doing a bit extra to better themselves.
Poor, in a lot of ways, is a matter of attitude. I grew up poor; to this day, I have trouble managing money well, and I’m scared to death of success. Those are the bad things you learn. But working temp through my 20s gave me a host of computer skills that serve me well to this day, as well as a pretty decent work ethic I really didn’t learn as a child.
John Cheese at Cracked.com writes some excellent articles in this same vein. You might like his take better, since Cracked is a neutral-to-liberal site, but I warn you: he says almost exactly the same things that John Hawkins here said. That’s because truth is truth, no matter where you are.
You made me laugh. Where I grew up, grocery checkers were middle class! Still it is not like traveling the Middle East where in the shadow of a 4 star hotel you see cardboard shacks for homes.
News flash for you, Mr. Hawkins: Soda and peanut butter ARE luxuries.
Soda is a luxury, all right. Nut butters are not necessarily luxuries, if the nuts are plentiful in that area.(Roasting nuts and grinding them into a butter are very simple tasks.)
Almonds and pecans were luxuries where I lived, but walnuts were plentiful. We used to trade boxes with some relatives who lived where almonds were plentiful but walnuts would not grow.
Peanuts grow very well in some parts of the country; in those locations they would be “poor people food”. Salmon and crab are plentiful here and the federal gov does not allow grazing in the local forest, so poor people eat a lot of seafood and cheap beef from the store is a luxury.
I have been broke a few times in my life but I have never been “poor”.
Being broke means one doesn’t have money.
Being “poor” is a state of mind. It implies giving up and excepting being “poor”.
Being broke is a great motivator. Being “poor” isn’t.
It is actually QUITE difficult to actually starve to death in the USA.
Even the most destitute can scrounge $5-20 a day scavenging recyclables.
$5 buys lots of potatoes or tortillas*
* The fact that “Green” recycling programs have become sub-minimum wage jobs for the destitute is a total different discussion.
Love the pics that illustrate the story.
Very interesting information! Perfect just what I was searching for!