“Never fill up the gas tank all the way. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have gas in your car but no groceries.”
“You never brought the field trip permission slips home because you knew better than to make your mom feel guilty she couldn’t pay the $5–20 fee to let you go.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the food, clothes, shoes, toys, etc. Take it, say thank you, and be appreciative.”
“When Mom didn’t eat with us at a meal, and there was one single scoop of mac ‘n’ cheese or rice left in the pan on the spoon, don’t eat it because that’s all there was for her dinner.”
“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.”
“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. I got the same CD player for three Christmases and birthdays in a row…out of pawn for birthday, pawned again a month later, out of pawn for Christmas, pawned again by March, etc.”
“If you use the oven during winter, when you’re done, leave it cracked so that the heat warms up the rest of the house more.”
“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.”
“Not eating lunch because you either ‘just ate breakfast’ or ‘dinner’s only a few hours away.'”
“Take care of your stuff and keep it nice because you’re not getting more of it if you break it.”
“We knew the exact date of grocery shopping because that’s when the food stamps came in.”
“Add water to shampoo to get it to last longer.”
“AC was only for company. I lived in south Florida and didn’t know I could use the air conditioner without having someone over until I moved out of my parents’ home.”
“Money we got for Christmas, birthdays, and (from ages 14 and up) our jobs went to our parents for food and rent.”
“If someone buys you food at a restaurant, order as cheaply as possible even if they tell you to order whatever you want. Used to get death glares from parents if I ordered something $10 or over at a place where the average price was $10. If you can get a burger and fries for $8, you better be eating a burger.”
“We were lucky to go out to eat at all. To this day, I still hate ordering appetizers at a restaurant. It just goes against the grain for me.”
• Don't insult other visitors. Offensive comments will be deleted without warning.
• Comments are accepted in English only.
• No swearing words in comments, otherwise such comments will be censored.
• Your nickname and avatar are randomly selected. If you don't post comments for 7 days, they both are reset.
• To choose another avatar, click the ‘Random avatar’ link.
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:)