{"id":4325,"date":"2025-12-27T10:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=4325"},"modified":"2025-12-27T10:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:04:09","slug":"a-poor-person-with-pocket-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2025\/12\/27\/a-poor-person-with-pocket-change\/","title":{"rendered":"A poor person with pocket change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Poverty-related trauma isn\u2019t nice or fun or quirky. When people think being poor is just a quirky thing you do, it creates a narrative where you are poor because of your own personal failures and not because of circumstances out of your control.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to get out of the poverty cycle, especially if you were born into it. I grew up in a low-income household. My Aunt Julie made fun of Mom and me because we couldn\u2019t escape its trappings. Julie had everything and the government handed her social security money to help her get ahead after the unfortunate passing of my maternal grandfather. She never lifted a finger to help anyone, including her own mother. Mom gave of herself in myriad ways because she knew the grind of never having enough, never being enough.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t make a decision to forego studying for a college exam so I could work an extra shift. I needed a roof over my head and the difference between a B and C doesn\u2019t pay the rent. I\u2019ve made the decision between food and medicine. I\u2019ve eaten sleep for dinner. None of these things were moral failings.<\/p>\n

The trauma associated with poverty remains within me. I still feel guilty when I have some luxuries, like a new dishwasher. The thought always runs through my brain about what happens when there is no money for food. Everything that is me associates an item’s cost to \u201can electric bill\u201d or \u201ca week\u2019s worth of groceries.\u201d Those lessons are ingrained in the fabric of my being. They can\u2019t be ripped out, torn, or unraveled. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll ever be anything more than a poor person with a few bills tucked away for an emergency. <\/p>\n

I have never been able to escape poverty. I didn\u2019t leave it behind as I got older. You look at my house and the things I have, but the poverty is still there. \u201cMake do and mend\u201d as the British say. My family lived it. I have a bit more because of Paul. He grew up in a country with safety nets I didn\u2019t have. Still, he knows how to sew and darn socks. <\/p>\n

The poverty remains if you look close enough. I do not think I will ever feel like anything else other than a poor person with some extra pocket change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poverty-related trauma isn\u2019t nice or fun or quirky. When people think being poor is just a quirky thing you do, it creates a narrative where you are poor because of your own personal failures and not because of circumstances out of your control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[454,377],"class_list":["post-4325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-poverty","tag-trauma"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4327,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325\/revisions\/4327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}