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When growing up, kids don’t think too much about their appearances, the things they own, or how much money their parents make. All they need is to be surrounded by healthy and loving family members who would care for them. But the truth is, things change the moment people start comparing their family’s status and income to their friends.

Writer and publicist Victoria Barrett asked her followers on Twitter: "Former poor kids: what are some things you have in your house that you *never* had as a kid, things your not-poor friends would never consider luxuries?" The question brought up some difficult memories and a deluge of tweets from people who grew up in poor households.

Whether it’s fresh fruit, shoes, or toilets, the thread revealed that things people often take for granted were seen as comforts by children who grew up impoverished. Bored Panda has selected some of the most illuminating answers, so check them out below and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.

Victoria Barrett’s post quickly went viral by touching the hearts of thousands. People saw it as a truly emotional thread and started sharing their own examples. Many of the things people lacked when growing up resonated deeply with the writer. She started liking so many of the responses, Twitter even labeled her as a bot. "Twitter has decided that I'm clicking the heart on your replies too fast and I must be a bot, so if I don't [heart] your tweet, know that I see you and feel you," she tweeted.

The author of this post revealed that she had experienced childhood poverty herself by writing out some of the things she never had at her house: "A few of mine are Kleenex, band-aids, ziplock bags, and paper towels." In another tweet, she added, "Another one for me is an actual bedroom. With a closet in it. Also a car! That works! And another car that works in the same family!"

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#6

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Mary Rose Kent
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

During the worst of my family’s years of poverty, we had the same three meals for months on end: big honkin’ pot of pinto beans, big honkin’ pot of white beans, big honkin’ pot of navy beans. Each pot would last our family of seven two or three days, then we’d move on to the next one, again.

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For many, this might seem like pretty simple objects that thousands of people couldn’t live a day without. That’s why it’s easy to forget that some things we take for granted or consider to be common additions to our basic human needs are actually items that people below the poverty line might consider the biggest luxuries imaginable.

This thread serves as a good reminder to appreciate the things you have and that not everyone has easy access to them. In fact, Columbia University found that the monthly child poverty rate increased by 4.9 in January 2022 alone, and it’s the highest rate since the end of 2020. This increase in poverty "represents 3.7 million more children in poverty due to the expiration of the monthly Child Tax Credit payments."

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lenka
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That your dad allowed you live in poverty when he had the means to support you better is on him.

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Daenarys
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was a kid we had a wood-burning stove. It was this huge metal box that sat in the kitchen and we had to go once a month to chop wood in the timber to supply us from fall to early spring. First thing in the morning it was so cold until it heated up and even then the upstairs bedrooms had no heat. When it was really cold in the winter I slept under the table in the kitchen in my sleeping bag. We had no A/C in summer, it was open every door/window and turn on the fans.

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There's an abundance of scientific evidence that shows poor kids grow up to have a myriad of physical problems as adults. Cornell University researchers conducted a study by following 341 participants over a 15-year period (who were tested at ages 9, 13, 17, and 24) where they reveal that childhood poverty can cause significant psychological damage in adulthood too.

In the study, children who grew up impoverished showed signs of aggression, bullying, and increased feelings of helplessness, compared to kids from middle-income backgrounds. Plus, they experienced more chronic physiological stress and deficits in short-term spatial memory.

"What this means is, if you're born poor, you're on a trajectory to have more of these kinds of psychological problems," Gary Evans, the author of the study and professor of environmental and developmental psychology at Cornell, told Science Daily.

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Sum Guy
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can afford stuff now and when I go home and find something I want to eat, I just eat it knowing I'll be able to replace it

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Caro Caro
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We (society) should do more to feed children fruit and veggies. That's why schools should have free healthy meals for their students. The kids need it and will benefit in more ways than one.

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"With poverty, you're exposed to lots of stress. Everybody has stress, but low-income families, low-income children, have a lot more of it," Evans added. "And the parents are also under a lot of stress. So for kids, there is a cumulative risk exposure."

The child psychologist explained that the findings of this study are important since kids who grow up in poverty are likely to stay impoverished as adults — there's a 40 percent chance that a son's income will be the same as his father's. "People walk around with this idea in their head that if you work hard, play by the rules, you can get ahead," he said. "And that's just a myth. It's just not true."

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MagentaBlu
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

24 hrs of clean running water will do it for me. Just running water out the fawcett everytime I need it.

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Leo Domitrix
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If you live where mullein grows, we call it "camp flannel" for a reason. The leaves, fresh, are very good TP. Yes, I've done that. Maple tree leaves, too. You can't flush it, but it beats nothing.

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Leo Domitrix
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Snacks back home were "What is edible, growing, and available?" Thank God I was raised in the country on a farm. FYI, you can make a good snack out of more than you know, but please learn for at least one year, so you can ID plants when they don't have flowers or fruit. Annoying AF that guidebooks don't show those pictures, b/c some edibles you don't want when they've flowered/fruited.

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Participants had to perform several tests of short-term spatial memory, helplessness, mental health, and chronic physiological stress. Evans explained that the study has two implications. First, one of the best ways to prevent these problems is early intervention: "If you don't intervene early, it's going to be really difficult and is going to cost a lot to intervene later," he noted.

Then, increasing the incomes in poor households is the most efficient way to minimize a child's exposure to poverty and their risk of developing psychological problems. He mentioned that if a family is poor and has children, the federal government should provide them with extra income that's enough to participate in society.

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Mary Rose Kent
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

By the time I entered high school, I was so near-sighted that I had to sit in the front row, and even though our lives had improved considerably by that time, I didn’t get glasses until I bought them for myself at age 19 because I had a ticket to see Artur Rubinstein play in one of his last live performances, when he was 89 years old and nearly blind, and I wanted to SEE as well as hear.

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"It's not true you can't do anything about poverty. It's just whether there's the political will, and are people willing to reframe the problem, instead of blaming the person who is poor and — even more preposterous — blaming their children," he said. "This is a societal issue, and if we decide to reallocate resources like we did with the elderly and Social Security, we could change the kind of data this study is showing."

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zoponex
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My older daughter grew up poor in Haiti till I adopted her when she was 12. For all the bad -and there was a LOT bad- she still miss the kind of support and camaraderie I think you seldom find among the middle class and rich.

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Gigi
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

it was very exciting to make a costume with my parents as a kid. I’m sorry today’s kids are buying ready-made costumes, the magic is lost

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#23

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Mary Rose Kent
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The year I was 11, my parents started their own business and they had a good product, but it turned out to be just a fad rather than the next big thing like they had thought it would be. They had put pretty much everything they had into it and weren’t able to pay the mortgage on the house, which I found out one day near the end of fifth grade (so I was 11. My brother was 10, my sister was 8, the next brother was ~2-1/2 and the baby was shy of six months) when I came home from school and everything we owned was sitting in the living room. We spent the summer in a Bohemian friend’s mountain shack, replete with a hot plate in the “kitchen” (a long, low room about 85 steps up the side of a mountain, with poison oak all over the place, including those steps), a small room where all seven of us slept, and an open pit beside the cabin as our toilet. And there were biting flies.

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MagentaBlu
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actual bedroom with a bed you don't have to share... not even with pets. A bed just for yourself

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Lucifer
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Where I grew up we needed school uniforms. Everyday, come home from school wash the uniform( Shirt, shorts, socks) for the next day and do that for the whole year. If we were lucky we didn't grow in height and were able to use the same uniform for next year ( had lot of stitched patches on the uniform). Looked ridiculous one year wearing shorter clothes. And we had to be very very careful with the shoes.

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Kay blue
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A takeaway is a massive treat for me because I grew up not having them. Once a month I get so excited about it I spend three days deciding which food to get.

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Dakota Ball
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It sucks how the system designed to "save you money" only really applies to people who don't need to save it in the first place

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#29

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MagentaBlu
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Everything OP mentions is in fact a luxury. In my country only for rich people, no way for someone middle class

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#30

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lenka
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We couldn't afford disposable diapers and we didn't have a washing machine. I am the oldest of 5 and one of my jobs was washing, wringing and hanging up the cloth diapers to dry.

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#31

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Mary Rose Kent
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Q-Tips and Kleenex have to be name-brand for me…they’re among a very small number of things for which that is true.

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Candia Lee
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My sheets rarely match even tho I have sets. In my 30s I realized changing for bed often chilled and woke me, that I could wear whatever I wanted to bed so day clothes are night clothes if I want.

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#36

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Jiska Veldhuizen
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I am from the Netherlands and we only had one shower for the 4 of us. My Canadian friend was suprised me and my brother didn't have our own bathroom growing up.. having multiple bathrooms is a big luxery here

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#37

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Mary Rose Kent
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was very lucky on this score because my grandmother loved to sew and made many of my elementary school clothes.

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#38

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Amery
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

All mentioned in detail above, but .. YES. Band Aids were a piece of folded tp and masking tape, here.

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#39

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Valerie Lessard
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I use it as containers not because I can't afford Tupperware but because these plastics last for ages, so less wastage

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#41

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Aureliana
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Capri Sun was mine! 😂 They really aren't great but the rich kids at school always had them in their lunch and I always thought they looked so cool in the silver packaging! Ngl I was a bit let down when I was finally able to afford to buy one and try it. It didn't taste nearly as fancy as it looked.

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#45

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T'Mar of Vulcan
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We had powdered milk once in a while when I was a child, but usually regular milk. A few years ago I was planning to make hot chocolate for my grade's fund-raiser. The tuckshop only made it with water so I was planning on making it a bit nicer (also had to buy halaal mashmallows as I wanted the Muslim kids to be able to get some). I said to my head of department that I was going to add powdered milk. She said, "What's powdered milk?" (We both grew up during apartheid but I'm older. I'm ethnically white; she's ethnically Indian. She's the only person from here I've ever met who didn't know what powdered milk was.)

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#46

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Sam
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What is the point of a garbage disposal? I've never had one and will likely never have one

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#48

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#50

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Šárka Glasslová
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sewing supplies all the time :-D I remember once in my whole childhood tasting the real cookies from this box... and I was so disappointed with the taste :-D and other than that... sewing supplies and home made rubber bands from old tire tube...

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#51

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Sam
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I still think Maple syrup tastes wierd cause we grew up with Aunt Jemima.

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#52

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Cold Contagious
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Chapstick for your chapped lips. A bra when you need it and not three years later. Deodorant, haircuts, pencils, pens, paper, folders, and other school supplies. Decent winter coat.

#54

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Sam
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Do people not grow their own veg? Most poorer folks I know do because its cheaper than buying from the store and then they can/ store it to get through the winter. I can see my neighbors have already started their plants on the windowsill for this years gardens.

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