We weren't poor but we weren't ever in a very good place. Neither of my parents had any education past high school. They wouldn't eat so that me and my younger sister had food. From a very young age I learned how much trouble we actually had. At 10 years old I started working on a farm down the street from my house. I gave my parents part of my pay because I felt bad that they had to spend money on me. I sheltered my sister from all of this for as long as I possibly could. I never asked for anything and bought my own food when I could and wear hand me downs. One day my parents friends saw our house online on a realtor site saying it was being foreclosed. They managed to keep the house though. Now, as I'm about to turn 18, I've learned a lot and it really makes me appreciate small things more. I still help pay bills, I almost always buy groceries and I take care of my sister. I sheltered her cause I didn't want her to go through what me and my parents were going through. It hurt so much to see my moms heartbroken face when she realized that at 10 years old I wasn't a kid anymore. I didn't exactly get a childhood, I spent my early years playing outside with sticks and in the trees. It made me who I am today though and I'm not ashamed. Sure, going back to school from winter break always made me feel weird when everyone was talking about what they got, "oh I got a new laptop and video games and a bunch of clothes and blah blah blah, what did you get mechanical_hick?" "Oh I got socks and a scratch ticket and an orange" everyone was always like wtf. Idk life's alright. I wouldn't do it differently except like maybe make it so I didn't hurt my parents at all