9.
ALSO WHISPERS OLD MONEY: “Not understanding the stress that comes from being poor or middle class.”
“I jumped between poor and middle class as a kid and wound up going to college with a bunch of rich folks. If you talked about how stressed you were over paying the rent or having to eat tofu and spend hours on food prep, they wouldn’t insult you or think less of you — but it was very clear they didn’t understand the emotional weight of those problems. They could hear about your stress and just shrug it off because they didn’t get what it’s like to be financially insecure. Sometimes, they’d even offer to help pay for a meal, but you could see the confusion on their faces when they picked up on the fact that you were still stressed because they didn’t realize you were now worrying about your next meal.
“Every so often, this disconnect would show up in more overt ways: They’d tell people abused at work to just quit their jobs, or tell kids on scholarship (me) to ‘take a break from work and come party’ — not realizing that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy yourself knowing that you had a paper to finish and that if you didn’t finish it, you could drop a grade, lose your scholarship, and be unable to attend next semester.
“Ultimately, it was a lack of understanding that didn’t necessarily come with any disdain or antipathy.“
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