To think the rich/poor divide is so unfair

[Mooshamoo]

I know people who were born into lovely comfortable families.

These people had enough money. They also had two supportive caring parents. No worries or stres at all..Every one of those people went on to college, and went on to have really good jobs. They have a good social life, they get to socialise with people who also came from comfortable families.

I came from a troubled family. My father abandoned us. Which left us in poverty. So we had no money. I also had no emotional support whatsoever. My mother was an emotional mess and couldn't cope on her own with anything, I basically had to be her mother from a very young age. I had a lot of emotional worries and stress. As a young woman, early twenties, I remembered seeing other young women enjoy nights out. I never got to have anything like that as I was just struggling to survive.

I didn't have support to achieve anything in my life, and I ended up in dead end jobs and I still now don't have a lot of money, I don't have good relationships. I don't have great friendships, as I find the rich affluemt comfortable people don't want to socialise with me. I remember one person saying to me "oh is that a shitty little job that you do".

And if I socialise with people from a similar troubled background to myself, these peollw have so many problems of their own, that these never turn out to be good healthy friendships for me. We just add to each others problems. For example we will sit with each other and one person will say "I lived in foster care and it was horrendous, the family were abusive" I will say "one time i lived in emergency accommodation as a young woman and it was awful". Our lives were so bad that to be around each other, we just make each other sadder and worse.

It just feels like being trapped in a cycle of poverty and suffering that's not fair and there is no way out.

It's luck of birth.

Yup life is very unfair

I do recommend looking into some less qualification-based learning.

• 7 Habits of highly effective people - Is a fantastic course but is also available as a book (and a free PDF book)

Other books on my reading list/things I've read (potentially available at the local library?)

• Radical Candor
• The Five Dyfunctions of a Team
• What Every BODY is saying
• Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
• Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us about the business of life
• Yes! : 60 secrets from the science of persuasion
• Outliers: The Story of Success
• The 80/20 Principle
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the way you lead forever
• Start with Why
• Thinking, Fast and Slow

Whilst you're between jobs and have time on your hands reading would probably be a good past time. If you go on Amazon and look some of these books up, see what other books it recommends. Then see what your local library has in stock. A lot of these books are quite popular so hopefully easy to find. At lot of them also have leaked PDF versions available.

There are of course many people saying that having affluent parents doesn’t mean having loving parents. My response is to say that growing up with money still matters. My home life was abusive, but I know the money made a difference. I still got a good education because my abusive parents valued education. I went to university and had support to do so because everyone in our social circle went to university. I still learned to become a member of a certain subgroup of society.

Money doesn’t take away the pain of a bad childhood, but if you get a good education, you can build a great adulthood for yourself.

Thanks for that curiosity101

Op please take this with the kindness it is meant...

Being born poor does not HAVE to define you or your future success or failure.
Of course it is easier to be successful if you are born into a moneyed stable family, but millions aren't...
Your attitude and focus are the things that will turn your life around, you sound articulate, you are young, and l assume not disabled?

Of course you can change your future but you have to change your mindset,

Only spend your energy on your future, push aside anything that does not align with moving yourself forward, people, situations, etc
Don't give thought to those who are negative about you or your plans, let alone spend time on them. Let negative comments float over you.
Don't wast time pitying yourself for your background, there are always those worse off.
Don't fragment your energy trying to fix everything at once, give yourself a set time to focus on the most important thing, your future career or job. (I would think a year)
Open your mind to every possibility, however far fetched, research it, if it is unfeasable find another option, keep going, until you find a route to productive work that motivates you.
Be prepared to move, countries if necessary, find the opportunities...you are not in a third world repressive society you have choices..

No one is coming to do the heavy lifting for you but there is no reason you cannot change your future, but you have to do it.

With the internet at our disposal there are so many routes to find job opportunities that cost nothing, or train at home and start a small business.
The very best of luck

Yes generally I don't care that money gets you better clothes, cars and houses.

The fact it gets you better opportunities, healthcare and education, I find grossly unfair and believe society should take steps to address it.

Was my situation favourable? It didn't feel like it.

It never occurred to me to make excuses to not fully access an education system that was basically laid on for me.

Hell, these days, you don't need to even potty train your kid, teach them to talk, or use cutlery, or bring a pen, or uniform. School does it all for those lazy parents out there.

MOST poor people do NOT have an excuse to not access this wonderful service like everyone else. You do not need to stay poor for your entire life.

Just one example of the diploma for teaching English as a second language (you should qualify for admission as you've already studied plus taught for one year):
https://www.ucc.ie/en/esol/teach-train/delta/
NB this would also qualify you to teacher-train or project manage in language schools.

I'll be reading those books @Curiosity101 thanks very much

It’s massively unfair. But try and suggest taxing inheritances more (the one thing that obviously entrenches intergenerational economic unfairness) and you’ll be shouted down.

@Mooshamoo I've read all of your posts. I'm very sorry I do understand too.
I lived a terrible home life, and its meant that adulthood has been like being a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.
I don't want to associate with people who had childhoods like my own, because I feel that it would mean that I'm "stuck", so the people I do associate with have vastly different lives...and don't understand my background.
Explaining a low self esteem to someone who was brought up to be confident can be impossible. Explaining an abusive childhood to someone with loving parents, there are people who cannot fathom that could ever happen because it's so far from their reality. Trying to explain that invisible barrier that stops you from integrating into society, like a whole person to someone who has always felt like a worthwhile person, with a solid place in society is impossible.

I completely get it.

You can make changes with, education, hard work, determination, luck and lots of therapy, but how many of us are lucky enough to be able to have access to all of those?

Hard work in itself isn't enough, it's often about having the "right" contacts. I'll be honest enough to say that no amount of smarts, determination or that "hard work" that's often talked about would have made any difference had I not been lucky enough to have had chance meetings with people who shaped my life for the better...

I also want to say, 39 is not too old at all to turn your life around.
I think maybe you need to put a plan together, work on your self esteem, figure out a plan for yourself and your happiness, and start putting it into place.

How long until your 40th birthday?

You could use that as a marking point for the start of a new decade, a new you. Or you can start now, and on your 40th choose to look back at how far you've been bale to come in the time between now and then, and be excited for how much further you can move away from your past.

I promise that life can be better, therapy does help.

Only if you have the mental capacity to do it. I didn't. I just crashed and burned in spectacular fashion and never finished Uni .

I might've failed in many ways and in many people's eyes(including my mum's) but I'm functioning. That's enough for now.

I agree that a lot of people have it easy because they come from well off families but at the end of the day we can make changes to make our lives better.

Im a single parent and a carer to my youngest dd so money is tight, we live in a council house and money is tight but my eldest dd did well at school and is now in her 2nd year of uni, because I have no money dd1 has managed to get full loan to get her through uni, something I’m very grateful for because without it she wouldn’t be able to go and wouldn’t be able to get a better education than I have. So it’s perfectly doable to get an education without the money. Some people can’t help the situation they are in but some can.

My parents were better off than some, they owned their own home and my dad had a good job/self employed but when I was around 14 my dad got screwed over and ended up going bankrupt, things were very tight and I have to work several jobs to get myself through college.

@Mikimoto thanks for that. I want to get away from English as a second language language teaching as the pay is extremely poor in most of Europe.

It's not enough to live on. In Spain and Italy you would earn about 800 euro a month doing it. The cost of renting a room in those countries is about 250/300 a month. Bills 100 a month. You could be left with 400 euro for the month.

I recommend ready ‘who moved my cheese?’. It’s a bit of a corporate cliche. But it’s cheap, easy and quick to read. You might even find it online for free

It’s about what are you going to do when faced with a situation that is or feels unfair and you need to change. I read it 15 years ago and it changed my thought process. I have read it again recently as I have struggled since my mum died. it’s been helpful again.

It’s not profound or saying anything you don’t really know deep down. But it’s still helpful.

Whilst this is true up to a point, I think that money does make a huge difference actually. Many things including disability, poor health, trauma, divorce etc are far easier to cope with if you are not on the bones of your arse. Having supportative parents is golden but the support those parents can offer can also be bolstered by having a bit of money to spend, esp given how many gaping holes there are in social care /the nhs.

@Ohthatsfabulousdarling I'll be 40 next February. 2.5. Months left.

I'm definite going to spend the rest of December reading books and working on my mind first. While applying for things aswell

I grew up in east London, it was rough we were very poor, both my parents left school at 14 with no qualifications my maternal gran was an abusive alcoholic, my parents divorced. They managed to co-parent reasonably well, my mum got a job in a playgroup because it fit for childcare she then did every qualification she could for free, editing up late at night doing everything by hand. She ended up managing a nursery. My dad worked 60 hour weeks in a manual labour job, both re po rated over and over, get more from life study, get qualifications or a trade. They pushed us to want more, not in a sharp elbowed middle class way, in genuine hope for better. They both worked second jobs when things were tight, people around us drank, took drugs, you'd see fights in the street hear the neighbours kicking off.
DB and I both are now married with children and household income for both is over 100k and in both families DB and I are the higher earners.

It's not about poverty in and of itself, it is about support, motivation and mindset. Lots of my school peers are now unemployed or struggling to make ends meet in hard but low paid jobs, but there are some who are now doctors, accountants, lawyers etc. I have a professional career too.
I went to a very public school RG uni, I met some very messed up very wealthy people, whose families were toxic, who are now unemployed, in rehab and in one case, dead.

Not read everything but so many posts saying you can change it. When you’re brought up in deprivation the mountain to climb is huge. I’m sorry op, it does suck and it is unfair. You can take steps to improve things but it’s not as easy as some posters are implying.

@Mooshamoo I’ll add that I am currently studying for a post grad diploma (masters level qualification) fully funded apprenticeship while working full time. I wouldn’t have done it if I had to pay. I’m 41 and started it at 40. Never too late.

It’s very unfair & social mobility has got worse I believe. Many people deny it though & put it down to only hard work, I’m not sure why.

Absolutely agree with @Mooshamoo we have poor social mobility and poverty.Platitudes like get an education miss the point that it costs,it takes effort and the inadequate funding makes education beyond reach of many people

Posted too soon, look into funded apprenticeships on the job training

Misses the point entirely 🙄

All those making the political point about "those in power at the moment/tories dont care about education" would do well to remember it was the Labour party that got rid of grammar school education. when they did that, there was an explosion of private schools with fees. And all those intelligent poor children, like me, would now have no option to get the kind of education that could see them get out of the poverty cycle.

Those of us like me from single family households, whose mum had 2 jobs and where we lived hand to mouth by the grace of lovely neighbours who helped us out knew education was the key. Winning a place at grammar school literally changed the course of my life. Had I been a few years older I would have gone to the local comp where girls trained as typists or beauty therapists and the lack of ambition for women was staggering.

Make private education ridiculously expensive so the numbers dwindle to just a few and bring back grammar schools where the brightest and the best whatever their backgrounds can succeed. We wore a uniform at my school. No one knew what your background was and you were judged on your brains not where you lived/what your parents did.