I recently wrote this to a friend and thought I would share it. I was talking about wanting kids and how even if it ended up making me poor how I'd be okay with it. Here's what I said....
As for me, if I find the right woman, I like kids...and I want kids. At this stage in my life if I hit it off with someone I seriously wouldn't care if we ended up on extra aid and sitting on a dirt floor, my first priority other than love would be to bring new life into this world before I'm too old to pick them up! Love and new life is worth struggling...and even worth being poor. Besides, there's two grades of poor people. There's those who are happy with what they have and let love overcome their other obstacles, and then there's those who remain bitter because of what they can't have and take it out on each other, the kids, and don't even take care of themselves just because they think being poor means they have to act or present themselves as if they are poor.
My history professor once told me a story about how a really poor young man in the past lived with his parents and every single day he left the house, his mom would tell him to only leave with his clean pressed good outfit. It wasn't the greatest set of clothes because they were really poor. They were somewhat faded, obviously hand-me-downs, and had a small sewn-up hole or two in inconspicuous places. They didn't look like they had been through a meat grinder, and didn't look like they were from someone who had any money, but they were always clean and pressed. One day he bumped into a man by accident and some papers flew out of the man's hands. Seeing as how the younger man, our hero of the story, was raised to be helpful to others due to his parent's good upbringing, he instantly helped pick them up. After doing so and the man thanked him, he looked the young man over and saw how neatly clean and pressed he was and asked if he had a job. The young man said no and was then asked to show up for work the next day to work on the assembly line. The morning he left, again, his mother made sure that he left the house with his nicer outfit and that it was cleaned and pressed. Now, at the factory (This was the early 1900s) the manager who hired him always noticed how much different he looked from the other workers. Although he knew the young man was poor, he always presented himself really nicely and was always helpful and nice to everyone around him. In time, this got him more responsibilities and, one day, while working in the back office, still not having enough yet to afford a new outfit, the owner of the plant's daughter came to visit her father. Having come from wealth, she was used to seeing younger men in only the best of clothing, and yes, she noticed the young man had sewn-up holes in his pants and that his clothes were faded, but what stood out to her was that even though they weren't the best that his clothes were really clean and neatly pressed. In time, the girl kept visiting her dad more and more, as an obvious excuse to see the young man, and as time went on they fell in love, the young man was promoted and had enough money to not only buy some new clothes, but also to buy her a ring and asked her to marry him. She said yes, and told him she even would have said yes if he was still working on the assembly line. Anyway, as time went on he even ended up running the whole company once her father retired. All because....he was clean and pressed and raised right. It didn't matter that he was poor, all that mattered was that he was brought up in a way that showed pride for the little that he did have, and respect and concern for others. THAT is what got him noticed.
Anyway, many people are under the assumption that poor means horrible choices, a horrible upbringing, lousy parents, etc., etc. It doesn't. Only if you let the struggling get to you can that occur. Only if you let things bother you. Only if you are resentful that you don't have what others have. If, however, you're grateful for what you have even if you have very little, and treat others as "well as" your family in a positive way, then you will, in essence, always be rich and worthy of getting to know by anyone you come into contact with. Always. Not enough people have that mindset, but they need to.
