A lot of these guilt-fueled, self-deprivation rules and anecdotes were common with those of us from older generations. Especially, if you had a mother that survived the Siege and subsequent Famine of Leningrad, the guilt trips never ended.
These are not about the parents, these are about the kids. My mom grew up eldest of a middle class family and never learned to do chores, and never worked a real job in her life to date. Meanwhile I had 6 siblings and lived winters with no water, toilet paper, and had to cut our own wood for fires, and give her half our paychecks because she spent all her money on her hoard of garbage because she would buy garbage like 40 on sale Easter buckets because they were just a dollar and she could "use them to grow food", or other "projects" she had zero skill or knowledge to Don and never did.
Growing up poor... clothes came from black bags people dropped off, food came from free school lunches with no breakfast or dinner at home most days, your responsibity was to raise all younger siblings, any paychecks go to mom and you got to keep a little for school materials or projects to try and get a grade rather than an F for not having it... oh and my favorite, no water or electricity because it's not legally required to maintain them.
“We would walk into a busy McDonald’s or Taco Bell and take as many sauces for our mom as possible to use to make our dinners more exciting. Instead of plain chicken we would add BBQ or sweet and sour sauce.”
A lot of these guilt-fueled, self-deprivation rules and anecdotes were common with those of us from older generations. Especially, if you had a mother that survived the Siege and subsequent Famine of Leningrad, the guilt trips never ended.
These are not about the parents, these are about the kids. My mom grew up eldest of a middle class family and never learned to do chores, and never worked a real job in her life to date. Meanwhile I had 6 siblings and lived winters with no water, toilet paper, and had to cut our own wood for fires, and give her half our paychecks because she spent all her money on her hoard of garbage because she would buy garbage like 40 on sale Easter buckets because they were just a dollar and she could "use them to grow food", or other "projects" she had zero skill or knowledge to Don and never did.
Growing up poor... clothes came from black bags people dropped off, food came from free school lunches with no breakfast or dinner at home most days, your responsibity was to raise all younger siblings, any paychecks go to mom and you got to keep a little for school materials or projects to try and get a grade rather than an F for not having it... oh and my favorite, no water or electricity because it's not legally required to maintain them.
These are not about the parents, these are about the kids. My mom grew up eldest of a middle class family and never learned to do chores, and never worked a real job in her life to date. Meanwhile I had 6 siblings and lived winters with no water, toilet paper, and had to cut our own wood for fires, and give her half our paychecks because she spent all her money on her hoard of garbage because she would buy garbage like 40 on sale Easter buckets because they were just a dollar and she could "use them to grow food", or other "projects" she had zero skill or knowledge to Don and never did.
yeah, with minimum wage, welfare, healthcare, and so on:)