Childhoods sans basics get an airing
When I go to my iPhone’s news app, chances are I’ll give in and peruse one or another crazy Buzzfeed.com list that pops up among my reading choices.
Usually these lists are lighthearted, laugh-inducing, culled-from-social-media compilations whose entry numbers are often announced in their clunky titles — i.e., “19 People Who Got Roasted So Bad They Should Delete Their Account”; “16 People Who Are Definitely Hated by Their Boss.”
But a Buzzfeed bird of another feather caught my eye the other week. “People Are Revealing Their Unwritten Rules of Being Poor, and It’s a Must-Read if You’ve Always Lived Comfortably,” trumpeted the title of this offering, posted Feb. 9.
The list was borrowed from Reddit, one of whose users asked a question of those who’d spent their childhoods in poverty: “What were the unwritten expectations of your world growing up?”
Before I began reading I flashed back to my own childhood, which — especially during the years my mother spent as a divorcee after relocating with me, and five of my seven older siblings, from Rolla, Mo., to her birthplace — included some notable elements of lack.
The submissions with which I could somewhat identify included No. 5: “If you use the oven during winter … leave it cracked so that the heat warms up the rest of the house more.” My earliest memories of school mornings were sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the Dearborn gas heater in our drafty, unfinished Jim-Walter rental home in rural south Little Rock. Yes, an open cooking stove was a welcome feeling.
Then there was No. 7: “Going to the doctor isn’t an option until your fever is sustained at 104, a bone is broken, or the tooth rotted and won’t fall out on its own. I am in my late 30s with full insurance and still have a hangup about going for medical care.” Same here. I didn’t grow up going to the dentist; what dental work I had was through school-district charity. Same with my first pair of glasses when, in fifth grade, I began to complain about my inability to clearly see the writing on the blackboard.
And, No. 29: “Not being able to wash your clothes until you could do a full … machine. Getting a stain on a fresh shirt meant scrubbing it with soap over the sink.” At least that person (apparently) grew up with a washing machine in the house.
No surprise that some submissions were downright depressing: No. 3 — “Hide money or it will be
‘borrowed.’ Also, don’t get attached to anything, because if it’s any good it’ll be sold in a yard sale, and if it has any value it will be pawned.” This person received the same CD player for “three Christmases and birthdays in a row”; the machine would repeatedly be taken, pawned, retrieved and presented again as a gift. The person submitting Item No. 8 was a trailer dweller who was invited to a fourth-grade classmate’s birthday party … until the party girl’s parents found out where this particular invitee lived. “That was a new thing I learned I was supposed to be embarrassed about,” the submitter writes.
According to the person submitting Item No. 12, extracurricular activities that cost money were out of the question. And a real need was pooh-poohed by a parent, who, I speculate, was trying to joke away his empty-pocketed embarrassment/helplessness: “My dad once said I wasn’t really in need of glasses, that I just wanted to look like all my four-eyed friends.” Again, it was thanks to the school district that I got the glasses I needed. And thanks to Tammy, a classmate who donated her old uniform to me, I did get to be a Brownie Scout. I also was privileged to receive a little allowance money to save or blow (No. 18 — “Money we got for Christmas, birthdays and … our jobs went to our parents for food and rent.”) and my mother valued my getting an education over having a job (No. 27 — “You get a job when you’re 15, and it becomes more important than high school.”)
The absolute most depressing was Item No. 6: “Telling anyone in your household/ social strata about your plans to get out and do better may be met with bitterness and downright ridicule. People will call you uppity for wanting to go to school or stupid for having a career goal that isn’t … dead-end.” The old “crabs in a barrel” treatment, which had to hurt coming from family.
Fortunately, the entries weren’t all dismal. There were a couple smile-inducers. Such as No. 4: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the food, clothes, shoes, toys, etc. Take it, say thank you, and be appreciative.” And No. 24: “If your neighbors were in need — you helped them. “
Those two we could all stand to remember. And bearing the latter in mind, we can certainly lend a helping hand to any youngsters living today with unwritten, poverty-fueled expectations.
Got memories of “rules”you’d like to share for a no-names-given sequel to this column? Hit me at:
hwilliams@adgnewsroom.com