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No distractions.

• IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  > No distractions. Nothing like your parents asking you to borrow some money from your side job so they can pay the bills, as a 14 year old, to start your distraction free day. /s There's a million examples like this. Sure, rich kids have busy lives and can be stressed out by all kinds of high standards, don't get me wrong. But being poor means you have to think about every single little thing that you do, or that happens to you. A flat tire, or worse, having your bike stolen, is a disaster, it can mean weeks of disposable income lost. As a kid I was constantly stressed out and hopeless about the most insignificant things because they can hit like a brick. I remember I talked to a kid once who asked me whether we'd be using graphing calculators in a particular class. He was wondering whether he should drop the final years of hs maths where we'd be doing calculus for an easier hs math curriculum, because paying $150 for a graphing calculator was not an option for him. Distractions like that happen left and right, things 'normal' kids wouldn't even consider thinking about. There's a Christmas dinner coming up in 3 months and kids are supposed to wear something nice and formal? You're already stressing because you'll be the only kid with a bunch of 2nd hand regular clothing. In fact quite a few studies have shown that poor people have less mental bandwidth to deal with their every day lives, because they're bogged down (distracted) by all of the issues that come with a life of poverty, and that this lower bandwidth is a big hurdle in achieving the same level of performance as a normal person.