I was born in a home full of joy and affection. My parents were both earning enough to fend for a family of three. The socioeconomic status was moderate, and all our basic needs were taken care of. Holidays used to be the best part of my life since my parents would not have a hard time granting our wishes to go to the beach house or to visit my grandmother back in the countryside. Our lives were in check, and I had big dreams of finishing my studies and being successful in life. My middle-class life was not that colorful but it was peaceful and most of the good things in life like a happy holiday, healthy food, were there for our display. Life was working out just the way I had planned. I was not spoiled like many wealthy children, but I was content with how things were.
One summer, after coming back from school, my parents were seated on the sitting room seat looking rather oblivious than usual. I had no knowledge that it was a beginning of a difficult time that would make our lives turn for good. It is a great shock when something that you are used to is taken away from you. My fathers business was in bankruptcy due to the recession that claimed a lot of business in that place. We went through a great shock as we went from having money to not having money at all.
We had to cut down on expenses as well as special holiday vacations since my mother was the only bread winner. My father also worked hard to find a new job which was an impossible thing for him considering he has been a self-employed person. The expectations that many people had when we went back to low-class income was that we would have no three meals per day, we had to drop out of school and also start doing drugs. While in that status, going for a vacation was a fairy tale as well as going to school by bus. Our lives were turned upside down within a blink of an eye.
My father was a bold man who never took defeat as a bad thing but considered it a setback to prepare and come back victorious. My fathers words were making it hard for us to cope with the new situation but his efforts to make ends meet motivated me. Since I was a young age, I wanted to pay my way and take responsibilities on my own. I admired my fathers courage of not falling into a doldrums of misery and alcohol abuse, and I started to consider doing something too. I started going to Saturday jobs in a butcher shop and every summer, I could do some laboring for a plasterer.
I faced many challenges since my friends began to evade me claiming I could not afford to go to the same cafeteria as them. They would always treat me so low to a point I thought of quitting school. The fact that my social status had changed was not their concern even to care how I felt. The first chance they had, they shunned me and talked bad things about my family. I lost my friends and the fun I used to have when hanging out on weekends. I missed all that because I was either busy working or on my own since my friends abhorred me.
It was through that experience that I came to believe the difference that exists between socioeconomic statuses. Those in higher do not want to mix with the lower ones since they consider them below them and the ones in low socioeconomic status are busy working to keep their lives together and cant cope with the higher SES schedules and activities. There are some psychological challenge, performance problem and also health issues to the individuals who are not strong enough to cope and accept how to live under their situations and perfect it someday. I was lucky to have my father.
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