I recently posted a picture of where I grew up on
Facebook—half of a cramped cinder block house with about as much insulation as
the average butterfly. I noted that my childhood SES (socioeconomic status)
was working-class poor. This prompted Heather, a friend and former student—how
I love to type that phrase!—to comment that she knew what I meant, but that I
probably wouldn't have been considered poor in China, where she has lived.
Heather is absolutely right. Except, of course, we don't
measure our wealth vis-à-vis the Chinese. Poverty is always relative. We
measure ourselves by what we have, lack, or desire within the small circles in
which we rotate, not those far away on this spinning planet of ours.
Metaphorically speaking, we either are the Joneses, better than they, or envy
them. Sadly, no matter how far down the pole we slide, there's always someone lurking
below who envies what we have. As the old film The Gods Must Be Crazy humorously revealed, in a world of handmade
tools, a Coke bottle makes you a king.
Poverty can be parsed, and it also changes over time. My
memories are of being poor in the 1950s and early 1960s. Let's call the Joneses
"middle class." My family wasn't desperate; we were, if you will, the
upper strata of the poor. But the Joneses certainly reminded us we weren't their
equals. Here's what I recall:
Food: The middle
class ate nutritious food and plenty of it; the desperate poor relied upon
Salvation Army meals and government surplus food. In the days before food
stamps, welfare was government-issued bags of dried beans, powdered milk, tins
of corned beef (with congealed fat), and paving-stone slabs of American cheese.
My family sometimes had to rely on these, but usually we were a small cut above
in the "buy food and make it stretch" category of thin stews,
macaroni-based casseroles, and Ramen noodles in salty broth. There were no elementary
school hot-lunch programs, so my
two brothers and me walked to a neighbor's house at noon—both of my parents
worked. She fed us toasted white-bread Velveeta sandwiches that sometimes contained
a piece of fried Lebanon bologna. I later surmised the bologna added protein to
our diet, as Velveeta has almost no nutritional value. (Look it up—in a kinder
society it would be banned!) We seldom went hungry, but we seldom felt
satisfied. Poor food is high in salt, fat, sugar, and filler powders, hence the
great irony in America that those who have the worst access to food are often
pudgy—like I was around 6th grade.
Housing: Middle-class
people owned their homes, we rented, and those even poorer lived in
hellaciously awful "projects" run by slumlords. The local
"project" was called Cardboard City, which should tell you all you
need to know! But at least there weren't many homeless people in those days.
Not enough money: For
the middle class it meant they couldn't afford orthodontia*; for us it meant
bills piled up, necessities were purchased on installment, and mom asked the
landlord for a few weeks grace. The really poor moved a lot. (*To this day, you
can tell the childhood SES of people over 50 by their dental work/non-work.)
Broken: The
Joneses tossed it; we patched it. Torn jeans later became a grunge fashion
statement, but for us it was reality. My first year of junior high school, I
owned two pairs of school pants and when I burst the seat of one, it was sewn
up the backside with heavy thread. No baseball bat was ever scrapped. If it
split, we drilled screws into the barrel and taped it. Ditto baseballs, which
were properly "tape balls."
Shoes: Middle-class
kids had $10 Chuck Taylor Converse; we had sneakers from Endicott Johnson that
were a buck a pair. And they came in colors that embarrassed the hell out of
us: yellow, red, green, and bright blue. Yeah—those are cool now too. Not then!
Like baseballs, sneakers didn't wear out until tape no longer held them
together. Holes in the soles? Stuff cardboard inside and repeat as often as
necessary. Pray for dry weather.
Desires: Instant
gratification was for the Joneses. We got new stuff three times a year:
Christmas, birthdays, and back-to-school sales. My parents were exceedingly
generous and often did without to indulge me and my brothers, but the top three
or so items on one's "dream" list were pretty much out of the question.
A new bike was usually your brother's old bike. Really poor kids just walked.
Lessons: Middle-class
kids had music, riding, sports, and dance lessons with private coaches. My
world was public: school, playground, and ball fields, where I learned by
observing. I learned to hit a curve ball by watching one of my not-so-bright friends
repeatedly lean the wrong way and get hit by pitches. (I never did learn how to
hit fastballs very well.) I also learned tennis and guitar by watching. And, yes, I bought a Sears
Silvertone on installment–one of the models not
destined to become a collector's item.
Other Stuff:
Middle-class kids wore fancy clothes and went to proms; we wore jeans to dances
at the YMCA. Middle-class parents took showers before they went to work yet came
home looking clean; ours took baths when they came home covered in grime.
Middle-class kids went on vacations to exotic-sounding places; we went to
Worcester to see my paternal relatives. Until I was 16, the most exotic place I
had ever been was Atlantic City.
College: Guidance
counselors assumed middle-class kids would go to college and that working-class
kids might attend trade school (or
enter the military) before entering the workforce. SES came into play even if you
decided college sounded like a good idea. If you were rich, you looked at Penn.
Middle-class kids went to Penn State, and my kind never bothered to think
beyond a local state college. (No regrets—I got an amazing education at
Shippensburg University, but I was stunned I was when my buddy John decided to
go to whole way to Philadelphia to go to college.) Need I tell you that no guidance
counselor ever advised me to go to college? (Fair enough—I had exactly the
attitude toward them that they encouraged.)
I ask for no sympathy. Mine wasn't a Dickensian childhood—it
was what I call a "paper cut" existence: small indignities that
irritated and rubbed the wrong way. By the time the Sixties rolled around, it
didn't bother me—partly because materialism was on the outs and people dressed
worse than I by choice. Poverty
also stopped stinging when my friends and I reached our teen years, secured part-time
jobs, and earned pocket change we spent on records, food, camping, and hanging
out. Poverty taught me perseverance. I admired how much my mother did with so
little. But I was always aware I wasn't a Jones.
Maybe I never will be. I've got plenty of dough now and, as
an educator and writer who owns his own home, has cool toys (guitars, cameras,
books, computers), and extensive travel under my belt, I'm objectively a member
of the upper middle class. But I still don't understand middle-class people.
They often seem vain and shallow. Mostly they seem selfish, heartless whiners
who utter pious banalities, moan about their taxes, and hate the poor. They
don't have the slightest idea of what poverty means. Just like I have no idea
what it means to be poor in China, or be a slum dog in Kolkata. Like I said,
poverty is always relative. But I still have a hard time equating a lack of orthodontia
with deprivation.
Rob Weir
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