Those In Poverty: You Aren’t Responsible For Making Your Family Comfortable

Right now, millions of people are dreading their extended family holiday get-togethers.

These people don’t hate their families, they aren’t anxious, crappy gift-givers, and they aren’t planning to reveal something their conservative relatives will flip over. They’re poor and their families don’t know.

I lived this impossible, frustrating scenario for a decade. I wasn’t hiding because I was embarrassed or afraid; I hid the full reality of my financial situation because I didn’t want my family to be uncomfortable around me. And people are really, REALLY uncomfortable around poor people. Like, “Where do I put my hands?” level uncomfortable. Since I began writing and talking about my poverty situation and how long it’s been going on, I’ve had family and friends from home delete me from their Facebook lists and stop calling. The intense discomfort is real — and can disastrously affect family dynamics.

Poor people are acutely aware of how others feel around them. The glances, the stopped conversations, the avoidance, the lack of invitations to basically everything. No one wants to feel that around their family — whether they’re particularly close to aunts, uncles and cousins or not — or be the focal point of a political discussion turned shouting match between the left…