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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

I had the opposite experience growing up poor (although knew plenty of people who feel as you did). For me, I constantly felt that my situation was "wrong" and didn't fit me. I didn't want to eat frozen food or wear K-Mart sneakers, I thought I deserved better. It pushed me to fight hard to achieve what I considered a reasonable standard of living. Had I taken the advice or followed in the footsteps of those around me, it never would have happened. Instead I focused on my love of computers (even if it existed more in my head than real life since we couldn't afford one for a long time). That focused carried me out of poverty and then some.

I'm convinced some subset of poor people that are high achievers will always reject their environment and refuse to settle.

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I've felt both extremes. As a child growing up in poverty, I felt my intellect didn't match the situation I found myself in. I remember being deeply angry watching other children squander opportunities/resources I would have taken 110% advantage of. As a young adult I based some (not all, but enough) of my life decisions on "what the hell do I need to do to ensure I am never in this situation again?"

Yet also as a reasonably successful adult, I still never entirely feel secure in my class position. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell whether I'm being responsibly frugal or still living in a mindset that I can't afford nice things. Or if I do buy something high end then I question if I actually splurged because of a mindset of not being able to hold onto money, if that makes sense.

My sister went to university in another city. I decided to get a software job immediately with 18 because I have a mental illness that prevents me from performing well in academia. I was still living with my mom. 3 years later she comes back. Turns out she lied and she didn't even take a single exam and my mom had to return thousands of € in child support payments (eligible until 25 if you are a student). Although I felt bad for mooching off my parents I managed to save a substantial amount of money and used it to buy a tiny apartment with the money. Now the big question is: Why the hell am I the success story in my family? It should be the other way around!

I couldn't agree more. I fall squarely into this camp. I grew up with a father in prison and a school teacher mother that had to work 3 jobs to provide for myself and my three brothers. I always knew I could do better, and now I run a multi-billion dollar organization. I just knew I wanted more for myself.

My bigger concern now is how to raise up my four kids so that they come out motivated, hungry, willing to work, etc. I believe struggled makes great people, my kids won't know that type of struggle - fingers crossed. I ran the crucible, they won't... what does that mean for them?

I grew up similar - never thinking I’d have the same life forever. I’m certainly not as well off as I’d like to be yet, but I’m starting to get my life ready to have kids (4 or 5 years out I’d guess), and I’m already worried about spoiling them too much. I mean the entire motivation has been to start a family that didn’t have to have the same issues.

Would love to read something from a similar background and how they navigate raising self-motivated, but well taken care of kids.

> I believe struggled makes great people

It also crushes the rest, who might not be gifted or lucky enough to catch a break, despite their continual efforts. Not to disregard your circumstances, but humans irrationally see patterns in randomness. As a counter point: wealth also makes great people (pick any noted 16-19th century scientist, and there's a good chance they were wealthy & could afford to dick around long enough to discover fundamental laws. Alternatively, look at political, startup and corporate leadership)

True, it depends on the person. However, I think that trials, whether given by unfortunate circumstances or wise parents, give you an opportunity to improve in ways that simple wealth never could.

Struggle isn't noble. Struggle isn't a shortcut to character development. Struggle isn't something you should wish on anyone. Struggle is just struggle.

Plenty of people struggle. And plenty of people are assholes. There's plenty of overlap.

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