My personal life/job journey
My childhood is such a weird mix of occasional poverty, incredible racism, and more.
Like, we were on welfare/food stamps a few times. And my father is a high school drop out and ex-felon. He literally had to lie to get jobs where he made roughly $10/hour.
But my dad would work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. We did well enough. My sister and I went to private school. My parents owned a house with a cheap swimming pool in Cleveland, OH.
racism, money, childhood
We probably could have lived a higher class lifestyle if my father wasn't so racist that he refused to let my sister and I go to what he called the "bad black public schools." So we went to private school, instead.
My parents couldn't really afford to send me to college at all. That's not a thing they could afford. So instead, my sister did not go to college initially and instead worked as a bank teller like my Mom.
racism, money, childhood
Me... I barely managed to go to college, thanks to obtaining enough scholarships to get a full ride to a relatively local Jesuit college called John Carroll University. Technically, it was *almost* a full ride. I still had some loans, but nothing like most folks.
When I got out of college, I was severely underemployed, basically making the equivalent of $12/hour for a software job.
money, childhood
And now here I am making an order of magnitude more than that at age 40. I support 4 other queer folks living in my house that have been unemployed or underemployed the entire time they've been here.
I own an airplane and am building a house. I'm doing really well in this capitalism game.
money, childhood
It really seems like a lot of factors enabled this. A ton of luck. Some hard work on my part. But also a lot of privilege. Being a neurodivergent white person who was labelled as "smart" and not "disabled" got me scholarships which helped me avoid loans and gave me a chance to get out of here.
I'm also eternally grateful to all the people that helped me along the way. Moving out to California gave me a chance to participate in tech, but I only did it with friends helping.
money, childhood
I think it's bullshit that the system treats disabled people like I was almost treated. As problems to be solved rather than people to care for.
I'm glad when people don't treat "disabled" as a curse word or bad label, tbh. When I was a child, though, the schools definitely did that. My second grade teacher repeatedly abused me because of my disabilities. Others weren't so lucky as I was to have a father that wanted to change that.
racism, money, childhood
It's all so strange. Coming from such the position I was in a kid. Owing so much to my father, yet horrified by his abject racism. Being where I am now.
It makes my head spin to make sense of it sometimes.
But I'm glad I can help my chosen family, and others where I can.