This was the line in the article that bugged me the most:
“You wouldn’t know any of that to look at me. I like to think I appear reasonably prosperous.“
And it’s the problem a lot of people have who’ve got a decent enough income to live and live well. But they want to ‘appear reasonably prosperous’ and in doing so, they make themselves broke. They even kept up the facade with their daughter.
I’d be ashamed of myself if my parents went broke giving me a wedding.
This brought back a memory I hadn't thought of in years. I've never really cared about clothes or makeup or whatever. One time in junior high, my mom dropped me off for school and one of my classmates saw me. He made the comment later on that day to the effect that he didn't realize that I wasn't poor. I guess mom's reasonably new vehicle (one of those ugly pointy minivans) was more acceptable than the hoopty that I was usually dropped off in (a 15 year old Buick that was bought to be my first car).
I wonder if people think we're poor. Our friends obviously don't, because they know we are engineers.
But our cars are old, our house is small, our clothes are old too. I almost took my friend up on hand me downs (her son's in a men's medium, and she's getting rid of 12/14. My kid is same age, but small, just getting into 12/14). But honestly, he's still fitting in what he is wearing and only wears Tshirts and athletic shorts anyway. He wears his shorts until they are so small they can go directly to his little brother (who is 6.5 years younger, and 4 sizes smaller, ha!)