Being poor is so much more than the Webster’s dictionary definition “having little money or few possessions”. To me, being poor isn’t the lack of possessions, but rather a lack of important aspects, it’s not having what you should, whether it’s being poor in social interactions or even emotionally poor. Growing up, my parents did not have a lot of money when I was an only child, my dad just graduated law school and we were in debt and living off of wages from school jobs. Though we didn’t have lots of money, I never saw us as poor, I never thought we couldn’t get by with what we had, and that is because I learned from a young age that no matter how much you have of something, it’s how you see the world you live in that truly makes you rich.
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They were both living off of college jobs and had to be careful with how they spent their money since they had so little. They went to thrift shops and asked family members if there was anything they could use. It never got to a point where they needed to scrounge for food like Lars Eighner had to as he talks about in “On Dumpster Diving.” In college, they never wasted food like the students in Eighner’s essay (142). Nothing was every “daddy’s money” (143), so they never wasted anything. When I hear them talk about their first few years together, they never mention how poor they felt at the time. My mom made a joke about how poor they were when we were discussing how I would be paying for my house here during my college years. The neighborhood they lived in was together a poor area, but the crime was rather low, because they felt a sense of togetherness. Everyone knew that you shouldn’t take from your neighbor because like you, it’s all they have. It was similar to in Barbara Ascher’s essay “On Compassion” explains the feeling of compassion as one that “must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows” (48). In the community that my parents first lived in, everyone knew what it was like to be without necessities, either in their current conditions or in previous ones. The lack of material objects in the community taught my parents that no matter the amount of money you have, you can still be well off in your area if you have people that can help you out. Being poor in that neighborhood didn’t mean anything since everyone there was in the same
They were both living off of college jobs and had to be careful with how they spent their money since they had so little. They went to thrift shops and asked family members if there was anything they could use. It never got to a point where they needed to scrounge for food like Lars Eighner had to as he talks about in “On Dumpster Diving.” In college, they never wasted food like the students in Eighner’s essay (142). Nothing was every “daddy’s money” (143), so they never wasted anything. When I hear them talk about their first few years together, they never mention how poor they felt at the time. My mom made a joke about how poor they were when we were discussing how I would be paying for my house here during my college years. The neighborhood they lived in was together a poor area, but the crime was rather low, because they felt a sense of togetherness. Everyone knew that you shouldn’t take from your neighbor because like you, it’s all they have. It was similar to in Barbara Ascher’s essay “On Compassion” explains the feeling of compassion as one that “must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows” (48). In the community that my parents first lived in, everyone knew what it was like to be without necessities, either in their current conditions or in previous ones. The lack of material objects in the community taught my parents that no matter the amount of money you have, you can still be well off in your area if you have people that can help you out. Being poor in that neighborhood didn’t mean anything since everyone there was in the same