I was born as what would probably now be considered "poor white trash". I didn't realize it at the time because my parents worked their butts off to provide for me and for my sister, and to see to it that we did well; it wasn't until I was an adult and living on my own for the first time that I really started to understand some of the sacrifices they made and some of the choices they had to face.
I have been poor. I have been soul-crushingly under water. I've had to do things I'm not proud of just to stay afloat. But now... I live comfortably, have a job with a decent salary, and have the respect of my peers.
Did that take a lot of work? Yes. Can anyone put in the work? Yes. Is that the only factor? Not by a long shot; the number of contingent factors along the road from where I started to where I am now is staggeringly huge. Much as I'd love to toot my own horn and talk about how I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, I know perfectly well how lucky I was, on multiple occasions, simply to be in the right place at the right time, or to make a decision -- on a whim, not on any sort of prescient wisdom -- that later paid off in ways I couldn't have imagined, much less anticipated.
I also don't know any "bootstrapper" who could honestly say anything different; achievement and advancement simply don't happen in a vacuum, and they don't happen unaided. I know it's popular in certain circles to pretend otherwise, but that's just the way it is, and posting demeaning screeds whose sole clear message is "it's your own fault if you're poor" always makes me think someone's ego has gotten in the way of actual understanding.
It's simplistic to think that "it's your own fault if you're poor" which is what tjic is implying.
I was irritated by the above post because I don't think the above poster has really been poor before. When you're 13 years old, with no home, no parents, perhaps in 70s Taiwan where government services were at a minimum, living off a bowl of white rice every day, trying to study and get into the best college because that's your only ticket out for 4 or 5 years, I don't think there is much you can do at all. To say that you can fix your situation in any state is insulting.
My father did get out. But he suffered for four years, which seemed like eternity. One bowl of rice, passing out because he didn't get enough nutrition. What would you have him do? Go work and forfeit a college education?
He didn't need anything, by the way. But to imply that there was more he could do about his situation is INSULTING.
When he said something like "Being low-class is not budgeting." You know he's just an ignoramus. He's never been poor and has absolutely no concept of what that means. He also doesn't know what it takes to claw and scratch your way out of poverty and I'd bet dollars to donuts that he wouldn't have what it takes to do it.
I have been poor. I have been soul-crushingly under water. I've had to do things I'm not proud of just to stay afloat. But now... I live comfortably, have a job with a decent salary, and have the respect of my peers.
Did that take a lot of work? Yes. Can anyone put in the work? Yes. Is that the only factor? Not by a long shot; the number of contingent factors along the road from where I started to where I am now is staggeringly huge. Much as I'd love to toot my own horn and talk about how I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, I know perfectly well how lucky I was, on multiple occasions, simply to be in the right place at the right time, or to make a decision -- on a whim, not on any sort of prescient wisdom -- that later paid off in ways I couldn't have imagined, much less anticipated.
I also don't know any "bootstrapper" who could honestly say anything different; achievement and advancement simply don't happen in a vacuum, and they don't happen unaided. I know it's popular in certain circles to pretend otherwise, but that's just the way it is, and posting demeaning screeds whose sole clear message is "it's your own fault if you're poor" always makes me think someone's ego has gotten in the way of actual understanding.