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In reply to the discussion: Who among us wore bread bags on our shoes while growing up? [View all]ladyVet
(1,587 posts)Six kids and no money for more than one pair of shoes per school year meant no fancy extras. I remember many years going barefoot during the summer to save our shoes for the next school year, because my father couldn't afford to buy all of us new shoes at once. We also got one new outfit to wear, if we were lucky; everything else was stuff from the year before, and the occasional hand-me-down (very rare event!). Most of our relatives were in the same boat, and simply didn't have anything to hand down to us.
At least one year I didn't go to school for days, until my father got paid and could buy me a pair of shoes, and once I went to school with shoes that were falling apart because he was getting paid that day, and he brought me a pair of shoes to change into.
I remember the bread bags inside our shoes when we went outside to play, but not to wear to school. We got shamed enough for being poor without that.
When my boys were younger, though, I would put plastic store bags over their shoes and hands -- often in socks because they didn't have gloves or mittens -- when it would snow so they could play outside without getting too wet and cold. We couldn't afford galoshes or boots, so we made do. But I made sure my boys had decent clothes and were fed, no matter what I had to do without (even when it pissed off the now-thankfully-ex-husband because he did without, too).
A lot of years when free school lunches (no breakfast in those days) was the only big meal we could count on, with cheap sandwich stuff, or stuff like "minute" steaks, maybe some canned beef stew. My mother didn't bake because she was (and is) a lazy person. And a bad cook. We would have been better off if she'd bothered to learn from her mother and cook for us, rather than depending on canned food and the cheapest meat possible.
We got surplus food (which she didn't know how to use) and food stamps. Back then they were coupons that you had to juggle until you could buy your food and only have less than a dollar more on a "stamp".
I know poverty, and was no fun, nothing to be proud of, and certainly nothing anyone should wish on another person. I bake bread (when we have it), cook from scratch, and make plain, good, filling meals because I'm still poor. No matter how hard I've worked, I can't get ahead. And thanks to people like this woman, and her corporate masters, my kids won't be able to, either.