This is a true story and this post propelled me to write it.
I walked on the bus full of my middle school classmates.
The noise of their collective banter immediately felt like a slap so instead of walking to the back of the bus, I chose a front seat where there was only space for one.
The bus let out a rumble as it pulled forward away from the school. When I couldn’t see the obnoxious green buildings any longer, I exhaled a sigh of relief.
The Florida heat and humidity were fixtures in the air making me feel like I was suffocating.
I kept the bus window rolled up to purposely add to my discomfort.
During the thirty-minute ride, I replayed the scene from gym class in my head like I was continually rewinding a cassette tape.
“Oh my god! Look! She’s wearing clown shoes!” the boy exclaimed as he pointed toward me.
His voice was so loud that it caused a group of ten or twenty to look my way.
“Who wears shoes like that to gym class?” another boy yelled.
I immediately felt my face get hot with embarrassment as I tried to reposition my feet.
Here they come.
There’s a group of boys and girls heading toward me to take a look at my “clown feet.”
“They’re not even name-brand clown shoes!” said one of the popular girls. The one with the matching outfits, perfect hair, and big boobs.
This elicited laughter from the crowd.
I felt tears starting to form but I held them back as hard as I could.
I turned away so they wouldn’t see my face.
And then my stomach started growling.
But that wasn’t anything new. I didn’t have enough money for lunch so all I ate was a cheap cookie.
Where is the gym teacher anyway?
Then I felt one of my legs being pulled and the men’s size ten sneaker ended up in the hands of one of the bullies. More laughter ensued as they examined the cheap Kmart sneaker that belonged to my father.
Gym class required a special outfit and sneakers that totaled more than my family could afford.
The gym class outfit was mandatory so my dad sent me to school with a check that he wasn’t sure would clear the bank.
The sneakers? I could borrow his or wear my school shoes (which wasn’t allowed).
So I lugged his size ten men’s shoes to gym class.
I wore a women’s size eight.
There were no other options.
When I was a kid, I worried about everything.
I worried about waking up for school on time. I worried about disappointing my friends and family. I worried about my dad getting in a car accident on the way home from work and I worried about my parent's finances.
Yes, my parent's finances.
A bit of context about the financial worry: My dad was ill with Graves's disease and missed a lot of work. We had mounting medical bills, insufficient income, past-due bills, and sometimes, not enough food in the home.
As the group stood there laughing, they passed around the one Kmart shoe with each kid saying something that I refused to hear.
My embarrassment started turning to anger and then on cue, the gym teacher walked in.
“Give her back her shoes, right now!” the teacher yelled.
Great. I get back half of my clown shoes and still have to climb ropes.
On an empty stomach.
I got off the bus at my neighborhood stop with sweat streaking down my face and back. As I started walking running the half mile home, I let the tears I’d been holding in start to seep out.
I ran past the neighbor’s house with the pretty flowers, across the railroad tracks, past the blue dumpsters outside of our apartment into the place where everything was brown and orange.
I walked past the kitchen where my mom was taking out a can of SPAM from the cabinet.
That would surely be our dinner tonight.
I walked into my sparsely furnished bedroom, crashed into my bed, and cried my eyes out into the coat of my cat Missy.
Even she was brown and orange.
But Missy let me cry and when I was done, she lay next to me in bed as I contemplated why I had to wear clown shoes when other kids didn’t.
When it was time for dinner, I ate the SPAM without complaining even though I hated the taste.
I knew that if I didn’t eat dinner, I would not eat.
The apartment door opens and my dad walks in and I can see he’s tired and not feeling well.
“How was school today?” he asks.
“Fine,” I reply with a smile.
As I put my plate in the sink, my mom hands me a couple of rolls of pennies and tells me to go to the supermarket and buy milk.
“Only milk,” she says.
I take the brown rolls from her hand and tell her we’re out of cereal.
She repeats, “Only milk.”
At least I won’t be wearing my clown shoes.
Poverty experienced during childhood can affect a child’s physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.
Children living around debt are five times more likely to be unhappy than children from wealthier families. Source
Growing up in a household where money is tight can mean making do with whatever’s given to you: second-hand clothes, basic food, and hand-me-down school supplies. Children make the best of what they have but bullies may target those who look a bit different.
Poverty was associated with smaller white and cortical gray matter and hippocampal and amygdala volumes. The effects of poverty on hippocampal volume were mediated by caregiving support/hostility on the left and right, as well as stressful life events on the left. Source
Poverty.
It’s not just an empty belly.