my experiences with poverty

[bhikkhu]

Not knowing a great more than what I have experienced, first and second hand, I was hoping I could post some things here and benefit from input.

As far as poverty vs wealth, my family followed what is likely a common trajectory. On the most coherent side (my mother's), ancestors farmed in Ohio as original settlers. I haven't any ready anecdotes, but its likely that it was back-breaking hard work with good years and bad years, quite romanticized after the fact. About 80 years ago the farm was sold to the city to make room for a new school, and the larger family scattered a bit. My grandmother married the son of a Belgian immigrant who had grown up working the fields, and wound up as a golf course greenskeeper and mechanic. It was a stable job, as many hours a day as it took, and a big rickety house on the course (where my mom and aunts and uncles grew up) was provided.
He got a deferment during WWII, having a large household, though his brothers served. All of my aunts and uncles and my mom went into the military, some staying to retirement, some (like my mom) getting married and then soon getting the boot out, as was the policy.

For reasons I don't recall hearing, everyone picked up and moved to California in the 60's, where my grandfather had a service station for awhile, then another job as a municipal greenskeeper until a decent retirement. My mother had 4 kids and divorced when I was very young, and my grandparents lived with us and helped raise us while she worked at a state office job.
I suppose we were poor, but only in the way that everyone I know was back then. For instance, my siblings and I would always have one pair of shoes each, and those were our shoes until they wore out. We were expected to care for them and keep them in good shape. We wore mostly hand-me-downs, as we had some older cousins, and both my mom and grandma knew how to sew and make clothes. We all learned how to use the sewing machine, and I remember sewing new t-shirts for myself. The most fun was making our own stuffed animals.
Growing up we always had enough to eat, supplemented by an ever-present vegetable garden. We took no big vacations except to visit relatives, and no new cars or things like that. In retrospect our house was small and crowded and kind of run-down, but it never occurred to me at the time. If something broke or was needed that we didn't have, like a washing machine or something, the first thing was to call others in the family. Somebody would always have an extra or know how to fix an old one, or know where one could be had....

Without going too far at the moment, I understand that many of the current problems of poverty are not like the above because of the support of my extended family. Having that network or relatives, I don't know that it occurred to any of us that we were poor or that “something needed to be done about it”. Since the late 70's, all of that has changed - every one of my extended family has attained relative prosperity - stable jobs or retirements and so forth, property. Everyone is also scattered around the country and I haven't spoken with any of my cousins in years...

[bhikkhu]

1. One thing missing there, coming forward to the present:

with my own experience in mind thinking about poverty, particularly against the "current issues" backdrop of climate change, water crises and energy crises, I tend to think of it more as a solution for the future than as a sign of individual or societal failure, as it is often seen.