Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Ewigkeit 2062 days ago
Ditto. My family would spend all of their savings on Christmas presents, which would generally never exceed 500 dollars. They felt it was beneath them to follow the advice I gave them from early retirement blogs. My mothers partner bought an expensive riding lawnmower when my little brother needed many of his baby teeth treated due to baby bottle carries (totally preventable if you follow the advice of almost any baby book). He was too proud to sign his name to get free dental care for my brother so he suffered/had teeth pulled. My mother would super glue a tooth of hers back into her mouth and get reoccurring infections and pay for the antibiotics instead of getting it properly taken care of. My mother will be government assistance of the rest of her life. She has taken no initiative to learn a skill/find a job. I can imagine her working as a receptionist or Walmart greeter but beyond this there are just some people like her who are too broken from abuse/health problems or have a very low IQ. I escaped poverty/child homelessness/covert sexual abuse. Moving to Silicon Valley to work in bioengineering was extremely difficult. I know no one else in real life who came from a similar background who has made it this far.