For all but the most fortunate, most people go up and down in terms of financial abundance.
This could mean things like Grad School, backpacking overseas, starting a business etc where the person lived on quite a low income for a while. It seems to me, at least looking in, that those experiences were FAR less brutal than others experiences with precarity, even if the living conditions and resources at the time were somewhat similar.
Would love to hear your insights, wherever you fall on the income spectrum!
Comments
I’m not familiar with all the things you’ve listed, but I should say no – putting yourself in a difficult situation by choice (and to come out better the other side) isn’t the same as being stuck in poverty with limited opportunities at upward mobility.
It’s nothing alike. Walking a tightrope with no net is very different than walking that same tightrope with a net.
On the surface it’s not that different but when you’re standing up there, it makes ALL the difference in the world.
It isn’t comparable. Not knowing if you will succeed at something is different from the existential dread that comes with poverty.
Not comparable at all. My parents were eating canned beans cold broke during med school. But they knew they would soon be making a lot more. 3 years after graduation they bought their first house.
It may be similar in the short term, but knowing there is an end in sight makes a world of different mentally.
It is entirely different when you have control of your situation. It is entirely different if you have someone to rely on in an emergency. And it is entirely different when you are a child and these things are completely out of your control, do not make sense to you, and you just have to do without.
I both grew up poor and have dropped out of life for spells.
When I was young I remember sitting in the back of a polo on two old tires as back seats because we couldn’t afford to fix them. My dad had two jobs and worked all hours just to give us some normality. We only ever went to camp sites on holiday but I have the best memories even though we had very little. Even though we were poor my dad didn’t seem stressed out or worried, he was just tired most of the time. We lived by our means but we were happy. I think losing a business would be devastating and losing all your money, if you had it, would probably be depressing. I guess they aren’t comparable really.
Out of touch. They’re not comparable at all.
Those are from comparable tbh. While I’ve never been rich I did spend a few years just barely above the poverty line, think “$50 per year was the difference between government assistance and being left to fend for myself despite not being able to”. If you can start a business, go backpacking/traveling, or can afford things like grad school you’re not living in poverty, you’re doing something you can afford if you make a few cuts.
I don’t think out of touch is a fair characterization, but it is certainly different. For one, childhood innocence does mask some of it.
I always knew I was poor, I got made fun of a lot for it. But I rarely felt poor, it was just normal.
Then my family started doing better and entered the middle class. Going to college on student loans and being on my own felt much more poor, though realistically, I was in a much better situation.
I think the dividing line for me is “Were you ever at legitimate risk of being homeless.”
Not even “If X happens I’ll have to move back in with my parents until i can get back on my feet” but, “If X happens I might be able to couch surf for a little while but I will be functionally homeless.”
There’s can’t compare those situations.
There’s also a crazy difference just between those things alone.
-Grad School- Paying for education, literally an investment in living low for a while in the hopes of a larger payout in future once you’ve completed your education
-Early Stage Startup-Kind of similar, taking a gamble on your business
-Residency (I’m assuming you mean like med school residency?) I’d kind of put this in a grad school type category where it’s still a “Actively working towards getting that higher pay in future
But “Backpacking”? That’s not really an investment per se. There’s backpacking in terms of “backpacking through Europe”, backpacking in terms of “I’m living in just my car to save money”, etc. But I’ve never actually met a “backpacker” who could only afford “backpacking”. Every “backpacker” I met had some…let’s just say fallbacks to be polite in case it didn’t work out.
We should learn to have empathy for anyone who struggles financially. Whether you grew up poor, middle-class, or relatively comfortable with periods of insecurity, you have much more in common with the people living out on the street than you do with billionaires.
The US middle class is being systematically hollowed out, with the vast majority of people becoming less financially secure over time, and only a smaller number joining the “secure” class.
The emotional toll of chronic financial insecurity is absolutely different than a short period of struggle. But the systemic causes are the same, and we should focus on what we have in common and fight together to make our society more just and equitable.
It’s not comparable but I do think it makes you realize how hard it can be and makes one more empathetic to those without the opportunity to escape.
I came from poverty. Most of my family has or had what you just described. They think its easy for me to move around and do the things they’ve done. Little do they know I had to work in my household to get at their starting line. Not them realizing they were half way through life with all that help.
It is out of touch because those are situations they chose. Growing up poor with food insecurity and always getting utilities disconnected is a whole other animal.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Grew up poor, but my parents made it out and so I was exposed to both group A (grew up poor) and group B (did things which put them in financial scarcity).
Two big differences. First, obviously, is choice.
Second is that a serious chunk of the folks you’re talking about – grad school, residency, start up, etc – come from well off families. They may personally not be making a lot of money, but they don’t need to. Their parents can still help them out.
In my cause, my wife went into medical school. Before we got engaged, her parents paid for her apartment and all her stuff. When we got engaged, I paid for mostly everything and they contributed a bit for her rent. Since we got married, I covered everything, but my income had a good trajectory and I ensured she never felt “poor”.
Idk much about people who backpack, but in most of those other categories, many of them never experience any financial scarcity.
Completely out of touch. Not comparable at all.
an adult who is sacrificing for their goal versus a child being able to have food, clothing, medical care, and shelter are two different universes.
Backpacking overseas really made the list? Willingly going on a trip without enough funds to sustain yourself is comparable to being less fortunate than people who can take a day’s meal for granted? Come on, what an insensitive thing to say
If they’re taking their four kids for 18 years on their financial scarcity journey, then maybe we could compare it
Don’t fucking pretend you went through the struggle of you didn’t. People like me who actually did go through it don’t think pretending to be us is flattering.
Like it’s not enough to be able to go to grad school or have a startup, you have to pretend to have been poor too.
Even the things you’ve listed aren’t comparable to each other. Backpacking is a holiday, but graduate school is hard work for a training pathway.
I grew up middle class but was kicked out at 15. After being homeless off and on for a few years, I started getting my life together. I spent the next 15 years being two disasters away from being homeless again. I felt accomplished that it would take two. There has always been the threat of poverty. Every financial decision I have made has included dread.
Five years ago, I married into an upper middle class family. I still live paycheck to paycheck but I have security. Now I have no stress. Now I can make gambles with my future because it’s no longer all or nothing. I’m allowed to breathe. It’s a massive difference.
I’m probably in the minority that’s both grown up poor (actually poor, including as a kid and later sleeping rough etc not just people pretending to be poor because they didn’t holiday one time or had second hand clothes). And grad school.
The endlessness and emptiness of being poor-poor is much much worse, it’s constant without distraction, like the world just stretches out.
I also became very stressed about money in grad school, and it impacted my mental health, but I had grad school to keep my head busy and there is an element of determination and pride attached. While still a sucky experience to be skint, it at least felt like it had a purpose and end. But being money poor, feels different to be poor if that makes any sense?
Go listen to the song ‘common people’ by Pulp, it’s basically about this exact thing.
“If you called your dad he could stop it all”
Obviously not in all cases but most of those people have people who are a guaranteed safety net.
I’m not even from a truly middle class family (parents fairly low income) but they’d bail me out if I needed.
My dad lost his job when I was like 13 and we had nothing for a few years.
When I was 45 I spent 6 months living on the street (more or less) by choice.
There is no correlation at all, the 6 months were fun, the childhood experience caused lifelong damage.
Not comparable at all.
First of all, growing up poor has deeper implications. Be this worse (“trauma” for sock of a better word) or “better” (being used to it) would be debatable bit it is certainly not the same.
By comparison, those periods of scarcity are often sought after as an adventure, a price on independence, and you know it’s temporary, you are with your friends and could always just go back to your parents (usually) so the weight it’s not really there. Same with backpacking and the sort.
So no… No when it is a choice, temporary, and you don’t really have responsibilities like debt, health issues or a family that relies on you
It’s completely out of touch. You could call it poverty tourism. Listen to the song “Common People” by Pulp and you’ll get the idea.
Depends. Having to live frugally can be quite similar but depends on the safety net/ support network and savings that you have. Specifically thinking of university studies here.
Lmao. the examples you shared are usually done by people who are not poor, but choose to try since they already have a degree of financial freedom.
Way out of touch.
The difference is if you grew up poor it literally defined how you see the world, what you thought was possible, how much time you had to put towards striving for excellence versus just living another day and especially how people treated you.
I was raised poor and have secured a different life for myself. I went back to school as an adult and lived at the federal poverty line during so I could get out without debt. The two situations were nothing alike. One was self inflicted and had an end date, the other I had no control over and for a long time I didn’t know any other way of life existed.
I’ll put it another way. My dad was raised relatively well off with lots of generational wealth. He fucked all that up and in my childhood we were only getting fed because of food stamps and had a roof over our heads because his mother let us live in her house. We were all living the same poverty experience but my dad and I were not experiencing that poverty the same way. At any time he could have chosen to get a job or change our life but he chose not to. It was more important to him to try and be his own boss and make a quick million dollars. I had no way out until I was old enough to fend for myself. And I was clueless about how to overcome my situation. I had to build it all myself.
It depends on if those people think its the same thing.
Like, its okay to talk about being skint so long as you don’t make the mistake of thinking thats like living in poverty.
There’s also like a huge spectrum right? Like there’s being poor with a support network and being poor with no support network. Like you can be pennyless but have rich friends or family who put you up and look out for you, and thats also a different thing.
Being poor is different, because usually people doing those things have a kinda out. They can go back to their parents, or they have a safety net. Not all the time, but a lot times they do.
Being poor there is no safety net. You think how am I going to get out of this, and for most people if you don’t have a mechanism for school ,you aren’t in a trade, or you are unable to do military service, there isn’t a lot of options for you.
When I was in school, a lot of my classmates complained that they had to ask their parents for more money.
At that time, I had to send my parents money.
Even at their porest they simply never had to be poor.
It all depends on what kind of support system you have around you. Scrimping to go to grad school when you have parents who won’t let you be destitute is not at all the same as not knowing where your next meal is coming from.
Completely out of touch. Poverty is not a choice.
The examples you’ve given, generally people have a financial cushion and choices in those situations. I’m not gonna knock on people who’ve done extensive studying in a field they are passionate about or started a business from scratch because that is hard work. But the experience is like comparing apples to oranges, because what’s at stake is different and therefore the decision making process is different.
I wouldn’t say I grew up poor but middle class. But my dad was made redundant when I was in high school. I had to make a choice and choose a course that would get me a stable job with decent salary post graduation. A lot of my friends went on do their masters, exchange programs, start a business etc. But I couldn’t take that risk because I needed stable income.
I think the line between these is ‘choice’. One chooses school, residency, or starting a business. I am not ackowledging the backpacking option.
No one chooses poverty. They may choose austerity with the hope that it is temporary.
It is completely different. If you’re privileged enough in life to have been backpacking or running a start up you’re on a different plane than people who grew up in actual poverty.
It’s not just about what we went through as children and adolescents in poverty but how growing up genuinely poor disadvantages you in so many ways later in life.
Not comparable.