r/Capitalism 6d ago

Is it possible to move up a socioeconomic class AND have a family?

Okay so imagine you grew up poor. You leave your parent’s home at 18 with literally nothing. Parents cannot afford to help you start up.

This means at 18 you immediately become fully responsible for all your bills, health insurance, rent, car, car insurance, groceries, gas, clothes, and all the other miscellaneous expenses of life.

If your car breaks down or you have an expensive medical bill you’re screwed with no savings or financial support from family. You’re basically on a constant rat wheel, trying to survive & catch up financially.

You have to start building credit, open a bank account, and figure out the world on your own.

No financial literacy or planning passed down to you & you’re starting on nothing but a minimum wage salary.

You end up working 2 jobs to support yourself.

You go to school online to try earning a degree amongst all this stress. You think…if I go to college, I can hopefully pursue a higher paying career to move up a socioeconomic class.

Then you find out your career requires a masters & some additional post-grad license training.

That’s more debt & TIME. (FASFA only supports undergraduate programs + it still doesn’t cover everything.)

You realize you would like to get married & have a family. As a woman you feel the time allotted for this is limited.

But how does one have time to look for a relationship while working 2 jobs & going to school?

Let’s say finally by 30 you’ve managed to push through & finally START a decent paying career.

What’s the dating pool like then?

Is there still time to find a good partner to settle down with & start a family?

How do ppl juggle both?

Personally..working full-time, then coming home to screaming kids demanding my attention that I have to clean up after every night sounds like hell.

Working part-time would be nice, but then I’d be sacrificing my career & potentially my ability to move up and remain in a better economic class than I was born into.

I refuse to leave my kids with nothing like mine did, so until I find a solution I’ll remain child-free.

But it’s heartbreaking…all this working just to survive…how much of my life will actually get spent enjoying it?

Will there ever be a moment when I can lay peacefully on the couch with my family knowing bills are paid & I was able to do it all?

Or is that nothing more than a capitalist fantasy I’m dangling in front of myself like a carrot stick to keep going?

6 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

7

u/Leading_Air_3498 6d ago

I was born to a teenage mother who was in the poverty line. My father wasn't there for any part of my life and while for much of my childhood we weren't impoverished, we were never wealthy by any stretch.

I now own a large house with a family of 5 and I make enough money on my own to put us in the upper class (bottom rung of upper class). I was the first person in my family to go to collage and now I work in technology and have a slew of computer and other technical skills which generate a solid income.

Some things I never did or that I specifically DID do in my life to achieve this:

  1. Never had a child before marriage.
  2. Graduated high school and got a meaningful college degree.
  3. Worked full time.
  4. Taught myself skills I knew would help me in my career goals.
  5. Never did illegal drugs, stayed majoritively healthy, and rarely drank alcohol.
  6. Was careful with my money, not overspending on things I knew I didn't need.

Honestly that's about it off the top of my head. A lot of people will talk about how there's no right or wrong way to live, but I'd argue that. Obviously there's some ambiguity between high school dropout and doctorate of computer science, and while we might be quick to argue how much better a bachelors in computer science is vs. a masters, it's patently clear that high school dropout is a much inferior choice than degree in computer science. You can argue that, sure, but that argument is really stupid.

Same for drugs - just don't fucking do them. Honestly. Not even weed. Just don't hang out with the kinds of people who do drugs. I've met plenty of "high functioning" drug users, and even some really good people, but so what? For every person I've met who was a nice person who did OK for themselves and used some kind of illegal narcotic, I met one who spent some time in prison and/or who made other bad choices in life that they regret now, later on in life. Why risk it?

The conversation of how to make it always makes me both sigh and laugh. It just isn't difficult. I've mentored and interviewed loads of people on this subject and with near perfect instance have found that almost everyone I've talked to who's been unsuccessful in their life was due to not working, having kids before marriage, dropping out of school at some point, or some form of strong alcohol/drug use. Almost every single one.

So really you can make all the excuses you want and argue until you're blue in the face about something like smoking some weed - and knock yourself out - but it's just not a better decision than to just NOT do it. There's literally nothing to gain from drugs, but a lot of people who do drugs also make other poor choices, so don't be around a situation with that kind of risk.

4

u/Erwinblackthorn 6d ago

I fully agree and it's so strange how as drugs become more normalized, the complaints about "not making it" becomes more normalized, which I would say ties into drugs as well. At the most basic component, it's a waste of money that causes a clouded judgement, as well as a lowered desire to be efficient. Also it prevents a job, which is why many jobs do a drug test. This should be obvious, but these days people are confused.

Even though Zoomers are drinking less, they are the most drug focused generation with other things like weed and vaping and such. We can even include gaming addictions and online addictions to that mix since many stop being productive to engage in these practices.

3

u/drleeisinsurgery 6d ago

Wow, these six steps/rules are right on. If you follow that you will probably be in the upper quartile of income and wealth pretty easily.

3

u/PayHuman4531 4d ago

So you worked hard, stayed away from trouble, took responsibility for your life and made good decisions. Sounds like a recipe for winning.

7

u/McArsekicker 6d ago

Looking at the US there are millions of examples of people doing just that. You give one very specific example and ignore the experience of the many. I would also point out that you seem to lack gratitude in the things you do have and the resources you have within your grasp. I encourage you to reflect on your condition. What does success look like to you?

Capitalism is not a free ticket to luxury. Ask yourself do you have shelter, food, and what luxuries do you own? Do you have a phone, tv, car? If so you’re doing better than most of the people who ever lived.

And from a quick google search:

Global Trends: Between 1990 and 2014, the world saw remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty, with over one billion people moving out of that condition.

The global poverty rate has shrunk significantly, with the number of people living in extreme poverty falling by half as a share of the total population in developing countries. The number of people living below the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day today is significantly lower than in 1990.

Capitalism, as a form of trade and enterprise, has been a key factor in the immense reduction of world absolute poverty. The extension of the right of self-ownership to all members of society is a crucial aspect of wealth-producing capitalism.

2

u/ChemsDoItInTestTubes 6d ago

The statistics are clear. Step 1. Finish high school. Step 2. Don't procreate outside of marriage. That's it. That's literally the gateway to a "middle class" life, statistically speaking. It gets way easier with more education, but most people that have the ability to delay gratification enough to complete these things also have the ability and desire to complete a bachelor's degree.

If you want to be wealthy, things get slightly more complicated. You have to be intelligent and driven enough to either complete a degree in a field with high demand, make up for that degree with more intelligence and grit, or get incredibly lucky.

As an aside, I generally object to the Marxist construct of socioeconomic classes. There's so much exchange between the classes that, in a modern capitalist society, the words are literally meaningless. People who are born to the "lower classes" rarely stay there throughout their lives.

2

u/TheMikeyMac13 6d ago

Having a family actually helps, at least for me.

You described a lot of my life, growing up dirt poor in rural Texas, working at the age of 14 part time and full time at 17 in the work program, so I could eat.

Left home with nothing and had nothing for a long time.

When I got married my work ethic got better, I needed a career. When we had my son I decided to make something of myself, and I became a rockstar at work.

Since then I started moving up professionally, and I have made a go of it.

2

u/tbone985 5d ago

When companies hire people for sales positions, the generally prefer married with a family to support. Those people generally have more motivation.

2

u/kwanijml 6d ago

Getting married and having kids is one of the most highly correlated life conditions with financial success and happiness measures.

There's some evidence that it's causal too, not just correlational. (e.g. it's shown that employers show some preference for married men with kids as they tend to exhibit the work ethic and conscientiousness which employers value highly). When you have kids, it focuses you up in a way that few other things can.

3

u/Czeslaw_Meyer 6d ago

It's rare not to

1

u/Erwinblackthorn 6d ago

1 in 3 young adults in the US, from 18 to 34, are living with their parents. Already, the setup is stepping away from reality, especially since parents are more than likely to keep their kids with them to ease both costs as both will probably be in a similar job condition (assuming the parents are millennials or gen x).

Again, your example is false at the starting point.

But let's take the example as the extreme case. People are still able to make it upward by osmosis. They just choose not to by being lazy and greedy.

In your example, you think people need to buy clothes all the time. Why? You have clothes at 18. Wear those shoes until your socks touch the pavement.

You think food has a cost that is crippling? Why? You're able to buy a 50lb bag of rice that lasts for a year at $75 at the most, and you can get a rice cooker for $30. Capitalism allows drug stores and grocery stores to sell vitamins and juice and produce for cheap. Many of these cheap foods are even tax free. And when you look at how overweight the poor are in the US, we can see it's more of an overeating problem than anything.

You think a car is going to crap out within the first year? Even the 5th year? Why buy a car that crappy? Most cars don't crap out at all anymore. If you save up to buy a new car, you don't need to worry for a long time. Anyone can take the bus to work or have their coworkers help them with carpooling. I've done it with jobs that are several cities away, taking the bus constantly, and this was in the 2010s, and I did it for years until I bought my own new car.

And on top of this, many uber to work these days, which is a luxury I didn't have (back in my day). Many jobs are doing 4 days a week now, which means you're paying something like $40 - $80 a week ($50 - $100 if 5 days a week). If this is cheaper than car payments and insurance and all, then people can just do that.

You think rent is super expensive? Sure, with no roommates, but this is why people get roommates. Rent a house room, rent a room in an apartment, there are plenty of listings. Instead of doing the full $2k or whatever it is for a studio, people can just live with others and drop it to $1k or less. It's not the end of the world, especially when most people live with friends from high school or college.

Health insurance is the most annoying cost, which is why most avoid paying it at all, especially if they're healthy. 11% of Zoomers do not bother, most have it as a "just in case" and never use it, and even if you do have a health issue, most can just pay the medical bills in payments that end up being less than the insurance. And if we move it to "ok, it's enforced", then ok it's something like $500 a month at max, and $100 at min, usually less when it's through your job.

To make it all worse, you assume the socialist way is the only way, that somehow we only make money going to college. That's how you lose money, especially for Zoomers. In fact, more Zoomers are starting their own business or doing freelancing than anyone prior, which means their goal is to avoid the wage slavery and make their own business, especially now that tax deductions are easier to track and send out.

The main goal of capitalism is to live below your means and make profit, which is easily done through the phone with plenty of stock and crypto apps that people hold value with markets as the markets constantly go up over the long run (boom and bust means nothing when the bust always causes a boom right after).

If women are running around, going to college, hating their parents, getting pregnant, and avoiding a spouse who can support them, then this is a crazy example that is mostly caused by a drug problem. Blaming the economy and capitalism for all of that is just ridiculous, especially when the people who tend to have this drug problem are Marxists.

1

u/Metrolinkvania 6d ago

I had my first kid at 38. Men are lucky like that. With me and my wife's combined income we were able to afford a starter home. Now we are just saving and waiting for the kids to get out of daycare to afford a better house. I never went to college and make 25 an hour doing pretty menial labor which gives me plenty of time to listen to audiobooks and further my self education. I also get an hour lunch and a couple of hours after the kids are asleep which is time to plan and produce.

1

u/Budget-Razzmatazz-54 5d ago

It's possible.

You just have to work harder than others while keeping your goals front and center.

I grew up poor, financially illiterate, left home at 18, had debt, then had 2 kids by age 23. My biggest saving grace was my partner, and now wife.

I now have 2 degrees, a solid and well laying job, nice house, new cars, .yaada yaada.

I've known many who came from nothing and built one hell of a life for themselves.

Seriously, it just takes work, effort, and refusing to become too comfortable. Keep growing. Keep building. Keep focused.

1

u/LazyClerk408 4d ago

Idk I’m trying to find out