Negative effect of ............

The negative effects of the things I grew up with as a child are what I fight most so that they do not subjugate me into a state of ineffectivesness. There are many patterns of my childhood that now as an adult I have ascertained could have had effected me negativly but I have turned this negativity and those patterns that I witnessed as a child into life lessons. I have been a good student.

I remember the stories my father told me of his family being poor, and the trials and tribulations that were brought forth because his childhood was one of hunger, eviction notices, 10 kids fighting for what little food there was, locks on the refigerator and on the phone, etc. He often followed those stories of an impoverished upbringing with the telling of his current situation as a union card-carrying carpenter, who was proud of making a lot of money as an adult. Often he showed me his paycheck, usually $1000 dollars or more a week in the late 1970's, though I did not understand what the numbers meant because I was a child. And though my father grew up poor, though he knew first hand what poverty entailed - the grumbling stomache, the ill-fitting second hand clotes, etc., he would often squander this money he so proudly earned, in less than two days, only to have to re-visits, replicate, those days of hunger he felt as a child, because he did not know how to handle money.

My father was effected by growing up poor in the negative way that did not allow him to develop the skill of budgeting money. He did not know to buy groceries and stock up the pantry and refrigorator. He did not understand that he should buy things within your means. Instead, he would see expensive items, cars, jewlry, and buy on impulse. He would spend his whole paycheck on the streets, in the bars, in the clothing stores, jewlry stores, drug spots. The paycheck that he received on Friday would be gone come Saturday afternoon, when he would only then return home, downtrodden, to look at his child and her mother, and look into his refrigerator and cupboards and see them bare and know he had no money left in his pockets to satisfy his nor his family's hunger. The effects of growing up poor stunted his ability to offset the need for instant gratification. When he saw something he wanted, he could not plan to purchase it perhaps by putting aside money on a weekly basis until the purchase price was reached allowing for the appropriate budgeting for life's necessities while putting aside money for an extraneous purchase. He would, rather, pay cash in full, money down, and not worry of the consequence of his action.

My father, and many that I see around me, are poor not because they they don't make enough, but are so because they witnessed the pain of being poor as children and can not break the effect that has had on them. They take the income that they make and use their money indiscriminately. They are poor by choice. They think "poor". The effect of growing up poor has propelled them into adulthood negatively as they are unable to budget and plan monetarily as they can't see the long term gifts (financial stability, good credit) financial strategizing brings. All that is seen are tangibles, immediate gifts (watches, cars, etc.) that depreciate and go out of style quickly, but soothe their sustained childhood resentment of being poor. This sustained resentment has been carried further and is ever present in their adult life.

As the holiday season comes forth, I am reminded of how my father would have acted if he were alive, and the presures he would have succumbed to quicker than usual because of the bright advertisements for consumerism that are reflective of the Christmas season. I suspect some will be buying to dissipate the need for instant gratification brought forth by issues they still have with a beleaguered childhood. The negative effects of childhood linger often.