Thread by @Stonekettle

I grew firmly at the bottom of the Middle Class. Sometimes we had pancakes for dinner because that's all we could afford. My parents managed to scrape by each month, but there wasn't much left over.

They sure as hell couldn't afford to send me to college.

1/

I wasn't an athlete, so nobody was lining up to give me an all expense paid ride to play ball for some great school.

I wasn't a terrible student, but I my grades weren't good enough that anybody was interested in giving me a grant or scholarship either.

2/

After high school, I worked two jobs and managed a couple years at the local junior college. I think I managed one semester full time, but mostly it was a class here and there as I could afford.

3/

Unexpected car repairs, insurance, medical expenses. It doesn't take much at that level to suddenly make things out of reach. Eventually it got to the point that I could either afford to eat or take a class, not both.

So I gave it up.

4/

I grew up working class. We don't go college anyway. We're factory workers. Or we shovel shit on a farm. Or drive a delivery truck. Or flip burgers. That's us. We're not lawyers or doctors. We're not going to be a Senator or the CEO of some big company.

5/

I worked in a factory. For General Motors, painting chair frames. Breathing paint and metal fumes everyday in some century old plant. Some of the people I worked with were 3rd generation. They worked the same line their dad and granddad did. No school. No future.

6/

Then there was a strike. Downsizing. The usual. I ended up as a cook in a restaurant. Fancy place. $100 a plate dinners. You still go home every night smelling like fryer grease, the managers fuck the waitresses, and the rich owner didn't get rich by paying a living wage.

7/

No matter how hard you worked, you couldn't dig your way out. Life cost too much. The jobs didn't pay enough. At the end of the month there just wasn't anything left over. Pancakes for dinner, man. Forever.

So I joined the military.

8/

Back then, in the decade after Vietnam, joining the military was a shit option. America sure didn't think we were heroes back then, I can tell you that. But it beat milking cows or making $100 dinners for rich assholes. I figured I'd at least get out of the Midwest.

9/

And I did. I got out. The military trained me and gave me a purpose and sent me out into the world ... and I saw places and people that were one hell of a lot worse off than anything I'd experienced. Einstein was right, everything is relative.

10/

Eventually, I met my wife. She grew up poor. A lot poorer than I had, poor as I was. She was determined to get out. She was a hell of a lot better student than I'd been. She got a small scholarship and worked two jobs and managed to get a 2 year degree. And she KEPT working.

11/

A little better job. A little more school. Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, she worked to claw her way out. That's when we met, right about then.

We both wanted something better than we'd had. To make a better life than our folks had. To get out.

12/

We worked our asses off. Taking classes between deployments and jobs and when we could. Paying out of our own pockets. The night we found out we were going to be parents ourselves, we were in a hotel in Portland Maine, so my wife could take an exam for her Masters.

13/

It took us years and cost us a fortune, she got an MBA and I finished a Masters in CompSci. And our life got better. Education made all the difference. I got a commission. My wife got executive jobs. Our son grew up a hell of a lot better off than we had.

14/

Now I'm retired from the military. A writer. A good enough writer that I make a decent living and I can pay for my son's college.

And I do. I pay for it. He's got his first degree now. And he intends to keep going. And I'll keep paying for it.

Why?

15/

Why in the hell would I pay for my kid's school?

Why don't I make him earn it? Make him pay for it himself? He's going to be a father himself here soon and shouldn't he be earning his own way now? Doesn't it build character for him have to scrape by like I did?

Why?

BECAUSE I WANT MY KID TO HAVE A BETTER LIFE THAN I DID.

Because I want him and his wife to start out WITHOUT the debt my wife and I had. Because education is the key to breaking the cycle, to getting out.

17/

Because he's going to be a father soon and I want HIS child to have a better life.

Because I want the future to be better for EVERYBODY, not just my kid. Not just my grandkid.

Because I don't think being trapped in poverty builds character, only more poverty.

18/

And my son? How did he turn out?

Because I paid for his education did he became a pampered child of privilege? That's the worry, right? That's the reasoning. If he doesn't "work" for it, he'll be another lazy entitled Millennial, right?

19/

Bullshit. He turned out fine. Kind. Compassionate. Determined. Ambitious without greed. Exactly the kind of person I admire. I'm incredibly proud of him.

Poverty and suffering don't determine character. And making life better for our children doesn't destroy it.

20/

This idea that because we suffered our children must suffer too is some of the most selfish, morally bankrupt bullshit I've ever heard. It's a garbage outlook by garbage people determined that the future should be garbage simply so they can feel better about themselves.

21/

The single best thing we can do for our children, and thus the future of our nation and world, is see them into that future educated and free to make of themselves what they will.

And the only people telling you otherwise are those who would keep you in chains.

22/22

Addendum:

Don't read this wrong. My folks were better off than their folks, not by much, but some. And they worked their asses off and made the most of what they had. They wanted more for me than they had and gave me the mental tools to make it happen. I'm grateful for that.

Addendum:

Perhaps this is so vivid to me not just because of my own experience, but because I now live where poverty is ubiquitous and very few here even want their children to have any better of a life than they did. They're PROUD of their poverty and limited future.

Not just proud of it, but determined to it. Their politicians and their religion tell them that a desire for a better future is arrogance, elitism, a sin, unamerican and that doing so makes for lazy entitled children. I look around at this proud poverty and am appalled.

Addendum: I now live where many see uneducated poverty as a VIRTUE. They've been convinced by their preachers and the wealthy that it must be so.

There's no nobility in lack of opportunity, yet they wear it like a badge and vote for those who would maintain the status quo.