I did not know any "families of five". All I knew were families of six or eight or twelve. And they were struggling to make payments on 40 to 200 acres while keeping the cows milked twice a day, or doing the same on sharecropped ground.
Two thirds of the boys in our grade school came to school with cow schitt on their boots every day. The other third were townie kids.
But yes, the Moms all made every dress the girls wore, and they made the boys' shirts. They brought flour, and salt, and sugar home from the market and actually cooked three meals a day.
Fast food? Nobody even knew the meaning. Frozen meals, that was something we saw advertised on TV. Probably marketed to the ultra-rich.
My Grandparents raised six kids born over twelve years in 800 sq feet with two bedrooms. The girls got the bedroom. The boys slept on the two "davenports" in the living room.
They always had a nice Buick purchased about ten years old and usually kept for five to ten years. And an older farm pickup. I remember they were still using a 52 Chevy pickup in 1975. And I remember a 59 Chevy Fleetside pu in 1979.
Grandma always had a nice sewing machine, because that was more important than a new car. And she had a huge range with six big burners and two ovens, because the working men had to be fed. And nobody ever thought of them as poor. They always had cash available to buy a coat or shoes for a needy grandkid. They paid their tythe every month, and kept cash for the offering plate. And they always were quick with a helping hand for those less fortunate.
And that is how "middle class"was defined by people I knew in the '60s/70s.
Dood - you were poor!
Okay, growing up, my family was poor. We were the grandkids most often gifted coats and shoes from Grandpa and Grandma.
But never a dime in assistance. Gifts from grandma is not assistance.
But no. Grandpa and Grandma were not poor. There is a big difference between frugal and poor) Also money goes much further when none is spent on alcohol or tobacco.
They always had a substantial savings account. When they finally quit milking their little herd of thirty Guernsey cows (retired) they were in their mid eighties.
They both passed away at home in their own bed in their mid nineties. And their savings were enough to provide for 24 hr in home care for their last five years.
But they both worked 14 hr days six days a week and about four hours on Sabbath (still have to move the irrigation water and feed/milk the cows) from their early teen years.
The biggest problem with the younger generation is that they expect 40 hrs/week today to produce the same standard of living which their parents or grandparents earned by working sixty to eighty hr/week.
And now we hear the little snowflakes crying for a thirty hour week.
I see it every day in my workplace. The older guys (forty to sixty) will put in 72 to 84 hrs when the need arises. We are darned lucky to get the twenty to thirty year olds to work four twelves.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
