Growing up, my family was kind of poor. Imitation Kraft Dinner poor (the food bank only ever gave out boxes of No Name Macaroni and Cheese Dinner). Watching Roseanne and being jealous of how nice a house they had, poor. Bi-Way and Bargain Harold’s and donated clothing poor. No money for school trips so I always had to stay behind with the one or two other poor kids, poor. Zellers was the “fancy” store poor. Mother’s allowance poor. Welfare poor. Living in subsidized housing poor.
In retrospect, I don't see any of this as objectively negative. We had a caseworker assigned to do home visits, sure. I never owned my own books until I became a teenager, but libraries are awesome places to go when you're poor. Public school was alright. I made friends and further hardened my soul there. I shared a bedroom with my little brother; at least I was never alone.
None of these are necessarily bad things for a child to experience, but hell, did I ever think I had it bad!
Some of the other kids in my co-op may have felt the same. I’ll never know. All I recall are the shenanigans we got up to in our ample free time:
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