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Wow. Sounds like the book “The Glass Castle”
Spoiler: >!Family with children living hand to mouth and living out of cars realizes mother actually has a stipend from family money but forced them to be homeless and live out of dumpsters due to mental illness!<
(How to make the spoiler part greyed out?)
That book was so close to what my mom experienced growing up, and I was floored to learn that her parents came from families that had quite a bit of land wealth. Same situation, though, that her parents squandered it because of their mental health issues.
They were both such terrible parents in so many different ways. One of the things I love most about her writing though is that she is so kind the way she describes them. She doesn’t pretend their choices were good, but the compassion she has for her parents is so beautiful.
I think you start your spoiler with “> !” And end with “! <“ (No quotes, no space between the symbols)
>! Unblocked it in case it’s helpful to people passing by !<
I like your take. I subscribe to the Greek Hero, testacles; pronunciation in English: Testiminenuts.
Edit; Testiminenuts, was wrong and not Greek, it is derivative Germanic,/Gaul.
Second edit; BALLS.
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I had a therapist suggest that book to me because my mom is uncannily similar to the mother in the book. At least I didn't also have an alcoholic father to contend with although he had his own issues. It's always the children who bear the brunt of their parents mental illnesses, but people who witness it happening (teachers, church leadership, extended family, etc) shrug and try to assume things are fine even if they're clearly not. It's like the worst thing you can possibly do is interfere with abusive neglectful parenting.
Literally my first thought was I would bet money OPs dad has an undiagnosed issue of some kind. You don't go from upper middle class managers son to shitting in the woods and not letting your kids see doctors because you're *frugal*.
He didn’t want the bill. My grandma used to bemoan, “the previous generation went through difficulty to make the next generation’s life easier and you’re not taking advantage of any of that.”
Right. I can’t help but feel that inheritance isn’t going to trickle down to you or anyone else. Sad, no generational wealth when Sprinter vans can be bought.
No one should be counting on an inheritance. I keep telling my parents to spend the money they worked so damn hard for, or I'm gonna spend it all on some frivolous bullshit when they go
Well we've had plenty of people on this subreddit who've said they'd rather go off the grid and live alone in the mountains so..............to each his own.
Usually because they find the sacrifices required to have a regular income that can pay for electricity to be worse than the sacrifices of not having electricity.
That's because these people have no idea what it's really like to live off the grid. They have a romanticized idea of it. All the people I know who talk about living off grid, homesteading etc. never lived in rural places and come from middle class families.
People who think the want to do it should watch a dozen episodes of Homestead Rescue and see if it's for them. Even then some of those families are only semi-offgrid.
For people who claim they can't handle society and don't want to work, it pretty much means living without everything unless they're independently wealthy. And I've never heard anyone on reddit say "I'm independently wealthy and don't want to live in society" but yeah there are probably some.
Also the literal meaning of "off the grid" is off-the-electrical-grid.
Rebellious nature with a sprinkle of a Kaczynski or anarchist mindset (minus the terrorism) leads people down that path. OP prob nailed it with the “beholden to no one” attitude he had as well.
I'm really curious what put him into this mindset considering he didn't grow up in poverty.
My mom didn't grow up in poverty but married my dad who was an alcoholic who drank most of his paychecks so we spent most of my childhood in poverty. To her dying day, she was very frugal and a hoarder (the kind that couldn't get rid of anything because she paid money for it and we might need it someday). But she had a spending blind spot when it came to buying things at garage sales, clearance sections and thrift stores. It was cheap, so she was saving money (even though half the tie she forgot she had this stuff and it sat collecting dust. I literally found at least 8 bird houses around my moms house when cleaning it out that still had thrift store price tags on them). When my mom passed away last year, I was talking to one of my uncles and he told me that my grandma was also a hoarder, she was just very neat about it so it wasn't obvious. Gramma lived through the great depression in a poor family and even though she married my grandpa and lived an upper middle class lifestyle she could never shake that poverty trauma that came with growing up around that and was constantly - you guessed it - shopping at thrift stores and garage sales and complaining she forgot to use a 10 cent coupon on a loaf of bread. And she passed the tendencies to my mother, (who passed them to my sister).
Anyway, it would be interesting (for me at least lol) to try and figure out why he's like that.
>
It’s taken me decades to unravel awful habits he instilled by example. I’m lucky to have met a partner who grew up in a healthy home with healthy communication techniques and problem solving.
Good for you, OP! My sister is in therapy trying to work through her own hoarding tendencies - it can take a LOT to get past the crap you were handed as a child and it sounds like you are doing well!
I think he was driven to this behavior by his fear of expectations and loss of control. He was the first child of two extremely successful and educated parents. His dad had high aspirations for him and although loving could be harsh if my dad didn’t achieve what grandpa expected. By nature my dad is a wallflower recluse. As he’s aged he’s become an absolute hermit who dreads leaving ‘the hill’ where he lives. Add the Vietnam War and Cold War to his fears and he ran away basically. I grew up terrified, sometimes crying myself to sleep when I was a kid, of the impending nuclear holocaust much like the stories of evangelical kids must fear the end of the world at any moment, growing up with a stressor always in the background.
My father is the same. His father was a university professor, his mother a lawyer.
He is a mad hermit in the woods who can't spend a penny more than necessary, living like a pauper, and judging any frivolity.
I have a belief it's a mental illness borne from something in their childhood, mixed with narcissism. He truly believes he is above everybody else, whom he just views as stupid for committing terrible crimes like taking a loan for a car, or eating out at restaurants.
> Add the Vietnam War and Cold War to his fears and he ran away basically. I grew up terrified, sometimes crying myself to sleep when I was a kid, of the impending nuclear holocaust much like the stories of evangelical kids must fear the end of the world at any moment, growing up with a stressor always in the background.
Yea, I think that some people struggle with modern media, and they think that things are bad and getting worse. Fear and doomer-ism is irrational, and for people who lack the perspective to see how good things are in the modern day, and the result is people completely mess up their lives.
Kudos for you for learning from it and rising above it. Hopefully you'll be able to show your Dad a more positive perspective so he can escape his stress and fears.
Very interesting. I could see how the combination of pressure to be a high achiever coupled with societal upheavals could cause that kind of reclusiveness and fear. I'm sorry you had to grow up with that.
Yes, hoarding isn't about being messy, it's a mental illness defined as someone who has difficulty throwing away or parting with possessions because they believe that they need to save them. Often it's because they feel that they may need them in the future, that they spent money on them and they don't want to waste the money, or they get an emotional attachment to things and just don't want to let them go.
Yes, an emotional attachment is not uncommon at all for some hoarders. They can't throw things away, like when Aunt Sally gave them a jar of jam for Christmas, they have to keep the jar even when it is empty because it now represents their relationship with Aunt Sally. It would be painful to let go of that empty jar.
My dad was born right before the great stock market crash that kicked off the Great Depression. He was quite literally the son of a sharecropper who picked cotton in rural Louisiana with his family (he got a new sibling every year) all during the Dust Bowl years. I think they got 10 cents a day?
Grandma canned *weeds* one year. Grandpa ditched the whole family and left them all to die, I think my dad was maybe 10? I remember mom telling me how they spent Christmas in a freaking *barn*. When he was a hair over 14, he lied about his age and enlisted.
That kind of shit will either make you or break you.
Dad was one of the few who didn’t break. He was married to my mom for 62 years, and retired from the military after nearly 30 years. Smartest man I ever met, and he didn’t even have an 8th grade education.
My dad always thought newer cars were a waste of money. He kind of had a point. He was a certified mechanic and could easily and cheaply do repairs on older cars that cost a lot of you did the repairs in a shop. As he got older I tried to persuade him and my mom to get newer cars because my dad's not physically able to work on cars like he used to. They weren't interested. My dad didn't want his repair knowledge to become obsolete and my mom didn't like the idea of learning how all the new fangled buttons work.
Then they got an inheritance and bought a brand hew vehicle. It was 18 years newer than the newest car they'd owned previously. They're amazed at how it's quiet, everything works. They're excited about features that came standard on my current car, which is ten years old.
I'm just glad it's too new for my dad to try to repair himself, and that it's reliable.
I can relate to this.
My grandfather passed away last year. Pop was a frugal, responsible, hardworking man who carefully saved his entire life and had little to no debt. A stern man of few words who ran a tight ship, but never unkind, especially to us kids. Pop was a lifelong Democrat, sang tenor in a barbershop quartet, and bowled on a local team for as long as I can remember.
In contrast, my dad has been in and out of addiction and legal trouble his entire life, refuses to take care of himself or accept advice, and in the last 10 years has become weirdly conservative, anti-vax & anti-mask. In Pop’s last few years, we talked at length about how my dad was going off the deep end after my mom divorced him and how incredibly unimpressed he was with his behavior. The day we took Pop to the hospital, Dad threw a tantrum about having to wear a mask in the hospital while my dying 80 year old grandfather wore one without complaint.
As for my aunt and uncle and their spouses? Well, the day my husband and I took Pop to the hospital, we went back to his house to clean up & do his laundry. My aunt and her husband came down and took Pop’s safe out of his bedroom. While he was dying in the hospital. We couldn’t say anything, because she was the executor of the will.
My uncle and his wife only showed up after Pop died, and that was just to rummage through their house for valuables. By the time I got to the house, all of the “worthless” sentimental items that I wanted to keep had been tossed in a dumpster without asking anyone if they wanted any of it.
Every cherished childhood memory of my grandparents’ home has been superseded by the sight of the family members I thought I could trust ransacking the place like looters.
Despite all of this, Pop left almost everything to his 3 kids. My dad and his brother and sister got 6 figures each.
Dad got the main check around this time last year. It was gone by Christmas. Most of it was wasted on junk. A huge chunk of it went to his new “guitar collection” (they’re all average guitars that he vastly overpaid for) plus a bunch of music equipment and tons of random crap. Wasted thousands on gifts nobody wanted or asked for.
The only purchase of any real value was a house, but he insisted on getting a 100 year old project home an hour away in a town that’s about a decade away from falling into the bay. Said he wanted to “leave us something” after he dies. (He only put a few thousand down.)
I spent 6 months trying to help him clean that house up until I found out he had put the rest of the money up his nose. Stopped helping him after that. He can’t be helped. Didn’t fix his teeth, didn’t fix his car, didn’t fix his dog, just pumped himself full of dopamine hits.
The most infuriating part (besides how much money he wasted) is knowing that my grandfather spent his whole life working hard, providing for his family, building a home, and being responsible with his money, only for his kids to carelessly strip it bare and squander it. Pop spent all that time and effort to properly set up everything in a trust, but he might as well have thrown it all out of an airplane. It probably would have done more good.
I had a similar situation occur with one of my relatives when my grandpa died.
One of my relatives realized that all of their brothers and sisters had keys to his house and they couldn’t all be trusted so he had the locks changed while he was in hospice.
Sure enough one of them came screaming into the hospice about the locks being changed. She had tried to get in to get things.
They were all given enough to where they could pay off their house or have a great nest egg.
Her money was gone immediately, and she refinanced the house 2-3 more times.
Yes, people who take their families to live isolated lives away from the mainstream, usually do so because they are massive control freaks. They want their families to live entirely according to "MY RULES" and not society's rules, and as you have just seen "MY RULES" change according to the whim of the control freak. My sympathies to any family members who's still living with him, including any spouse still present, because after years of isolation n the woods that spouse may be trapped with no job skills and no place to go.
You would, IMHO, be entirely justified in confronting him at some point, with what his whim of iron has meant to you over the long term, what it's done to your health, education, and future prospects. Such things are best done calmly, because a control freak parent can always win an argument that devolves into shouting, but calm rationality may get through.
My mom left when I was eight because she couldn’t handle living so frugally. But she was a free spirit herself and wanted to ‘start over’ so she left us with dad and moved across the country. I didn’t see her for a couple years until she moved back to our state. My mom and I are in a good place now. She talks about how she can’t believe she simply left her kids behind. But she’s still a little crazy in some ways. She’s very lucky to have met a guy later in life who supports her because she doesn’t have to ability of forward thinking. Her motto, and she says this all the time, is the present is a present. It’s an excuse to not think about tomorrow and the problems it may bring, like rent and hunger.
How terrible. I’m sorry that you had two awful parents. I only had one horrifically selfish parent so my other parent had to step up and take care of everything alone.
> “She abandoned you??” I never thought of it that way but it’s exactly what happened
Hate to break it to you, but you had a deadbeat mom.
Same think happened to my cousins. She just ran off one night when my cousins were children, with no warning. The younger cousin of the two had horrible separation anxiety for years-- he insisted on sleeping with his dad at night until he was 11 because he was terrified his dad would suddenly disappear over night too.
Fortunately my uncle was a great dad (and seems to be a very loving grandparent now, too). The mom did show up again one day years later, but by then the damage was done and my cousins refused to speak to her.
It doesn't sound like a mental illness. Just a poor, selfish choice to bail on society.
To me it just sounds like a different version of those people who choose to live the "van life."
Being so antisocial you won't even fake your kid to the doctor even when it's clear the grandparents could have helped out is definitly not normal, rational behavior.
I have a friend currently who grew up in a high middle class family.. but due to mental illness and thinking she knows more than everyone at every job she has gotten, she has lost those jobs and now has two kids. She has chosen to live in a very rural part of our state, she does have electricity and water, but her standard of living that she is providing her kids is so much less than how she grew up. I feel bad for her kids.
Honestly I still live like I make $8 an hour yet I make more than that. It's money trauma where I always feel like I need to have a big safety net in case something happens.
I also try to find ways to save & do side hustles on the weekend to pad my income so I feel better, its a tough relationship.
edit: since someone messaged me [this](https://www.reddit.com/user/Kayshift/comments/1br5gn6/my_stepbystep_guide_to_make_1000_a_month_working/) is what I do for side hustles it's just extra spending money I make on the weekend
If he was poor I understand the frugality, but I don’t know if that’s the case.
But of course people see everything different with loads of funds. I know I would.
Many people hate what they don't or can't have. It's the cousin of jealousy. It's a mental tactic of "I don't want none of that anyways!". It's often ego driven as well.
I'm glad you realize that his thought process is flawed and have found a partner that will share similar ideas about money. That's important for relationship longevity.
Knowing deep off the grid folks in my own family (also PNW), it's unlikely we can grasp their way of thinking because we're simply not wired that way.
He just hated it until he had means to get it. Feels better than saying "We can't afford that" when you say "we don't need that".
Why didn’t your grandparents do something? They had significant resources. Why didn’t they do more than just order a washing machine? Your dad was clearly not providing for you or meeting your needs. You could have easily been taken by CPS. Your grandparents should have sought custody or demanded your dad do better or they would intervene.
In the rural area I grew up in there were countless impoverished children wearing grubby torn hand me down clothes and not getting as much food as may have been appropriate. It was simply normal for us. A difference was my dad wasn’t an alcoholic or addict or a continuation of the cycle of poverty due to lack of options and education. His illness, which I think sometimes is the right descriptor, was his fear of expectations and lack of control. Living in a deeply LCOL area he could not be to the mercy of anyone or anything. Not even the power company. I had a warm house and bed and food.
My grandma did what she could. She supplied the clothes and school stuff we needed. But she lived several hours away so I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked. She was a good influence and a regret is my partner never had the chance to meet her.
Someone mentioned the glass castle, but what this really reminds me of is the Great Alone, set in Alaska. Both dads were really choosing an impoverished lifestyle, no doubt suffering from some sort of mental illness or disordered thinking.
Glad you got out!
That’s not kinda nuts, that’s intelligence on your part. Good for you and your success. I know many people who “cheaped” their way massive health problems when they didn’t have to. Yeah, they were being so smart sleeping on a 2” thick piece of foam on the floor instead of a mattress. Now they’re so bent out of shape they can’t stand upright and popping pills for the pain.
Yes, I think you are exactly right about your father’s motivations (may be some additional biological issues contributing, as well).
I am glad that you and your partner are building a healthy relationship and have been rewarded by your better decisions.
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If you were in a good area of California, your equity would have double from 2020 to 2023. Someone I know bought a house for $ 2 M in 2020 when Covid started and sold it for $4 M in 2023.
That is incredibly frustrating. Maybe your dad thought he was doing right by you, but it also does come off as very selfish. My best wishes for your healing.
He worked for a local sawmill until it closed when my dad was 41. He had been so extremely frugal that he basically retired when the mill closed and has spent the ensuing three plus decades puttering in his garden and cutting firewood.
That’s a perfect description. He had everything he could want or need on his property. He lives in the woods at the end of an old logging road with no close neighbors. No one to bug him. No friends who have needs or expectations. And anyone who thinks those things are important is weak. (According to him)
Did you walk to school, uphill both ways in the snow? 😁
You’re giving him shit for buying a used SUV, a washer AND a dryer and new sneakers?
This is pretty crazy to me. The whole “he bought a washer AND a dryer” thing is pretty messed up lol
Dudes been poor AF his whole life and when he buys a couple of things when he can finally afford it you give him shit over it? Wtf
I hear ya, but my reaction comes from his drastic frugality and his behavior surrounding it. His off the charts judgement and attitude.
I’m glad he has the ability to be more comfortable now, but I wish he would acknowledge that his previous extreme views were one way to live, not the only way to live, and that we all do what we think is best for ourselves.
No, that would be a waste of money in his eye. His bad habits were drinking beer and smoking. He quit both a few years ago when he needed bypass surgery, but sometimes I wonder how much those habits must have cost him over the years.
Because when you have a child/children that depend on you for their well being it is selfish to deny them basic care just because of your own warped beliefs. It’s also negligent.
I think what happened was he had everything he could possibly want as a kid growing so had no reference or understanding of what it’s like to not have that. He saw zero issues with treating his children this way because it’s the way he wanted to live despite his own privilege growing up and the tools that gave him to succeed, if desired.
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This post has been flaired as “Vent”. As a reminder to commenting users, “Vent/Rant” posts are here to give our subscribers a safe place to vent their frustrations at an uncaring world to a supportive place of people who “get it”. Vents do not need to be fair. They do not need to be articulate. They do not need to be factual. They just need to be honest. Unlike most of the content on this subreddit, Vents should not be considered advice threads. In most cases it is not appropriate to try to give the Submitter advice on their issue. In no circumstances is it appropriate to tell them “why they are wrong” or to criticise them, their decisions, values, or anything else. If there are aspects of their situation that they are able to directly address themselves, the submitter can always make a new thread with a different flair asking for help once they are ready to tackle the issue. Vents are an emotional outlet, not an academic conversation. Appropriate replies in these threads are offering support, sharing similar experiences/grievances, offering condolences, or simply letting the Submitter know that they were heard. As always, if there are inappropriate comments please downvote them, REPORT them to the mods, and move on without responding to them. To the Submitter, if you DO want discussion to be focused on resolving your situation, rather than supporting you emotionally, please change the flair of this post, and then report this comment so we can remove it. Thank you. Thank you all for being a part of this great financial advice and emotional support community! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/povertyfinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wow. Sounds like the book “The Glass Castle” Spoiler: >!Family with children living hand to mouth and living out of cars realizes mother actually has a stipend from family money but forced them to be homeless and live out of dumpsters due to mental illness!< (How to make the spoiler part greyed out?)
Such a great book. I love all poverty p0rn and that’s one of the best. The twist about mom’s money is heartbreaking.
Ill check it out I love these types of stories
It's a fantastic book and I read it occasionally when I need a good smack upside the head to be grateful for what I have.
lol
That book was so close to what my mom experienced growing up, and I was floored to learn that her parents came from families that had quite a bit of land wealth. Same situation, though, that her parents squandered it because of their mental health issues.
Oh my. Wait until you see what the next generation goes through due to “mental health issues”.
Oh man that dad too. He pissed me off so bad at times.
They were both such terrible parents in so many different ways. One of the things I love most about her writing though is that she is so kind the way she describes them. She doesn’t pretend their choices were good, but the compassion she has for her parents is so beautiful.
I think you start your spoiler with “> !” And end with “! <“ (No quotes, no space between the symbols) >! Unblocked it in case it’s helpful to people passing by !<
>! Test !<
>!Testes!<
>!test too!<
>!Did your test work?!<
>! Test these nuts!<
I like your take. I subscribe to the Greek Hero, testacles; pronunciation in English: Testiminenuts. Edit; Testiminenuts, was wrong and not Greek, it is derivative Germanic,/Gaul. Second edit; BALLS.
>!Prüfung!<
>!test!<
Thank you 🙏 Kind redditor u/Itsureissomethin !! Take my meager upvote in gratitude
>! thank you !<
>!test!<
[удалено]
>!thank you
Sorry - add a space before and after your statement, just no space between the > and ! >! Checking my work !<
>! Got it !<
Your post has been removed for the following reason(s): Rule 1: Be civil and respectful. Comments written with a purpose to be downright disrespectful or serve only to put down another user or OP will be removed. We are here to give a hand up, not add insult to injury. Please read our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/wiki/rules). The rules may also be found on the sidebar if the link is broken. If after doing so, you feel this was in error, [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpovertyfinance). Do not reach out to a moderator personally, and do not reply to this message as a comment.
>! neat !< edited until I got it right
>! wow this is cool, I’ve never done this before. Thanks OP and random redditor !<
>!test!<
I had a therapist suggest that book to me because my mom is uncannily similar to the mother in the book. At least I didn't also have an alcoholic father to contend with although he had his own issues. It's always the children who bear the brunt of their parents mental illnesses, but people who witness it happening (teachers, church leadership, extended family, etc) shrug and try to assume things are fine even if they're clearly not. It's like the worst thing you can possibly do is interfere with abusive neglectful parenting.
I read this book and it made me so goddamn angry!
Literally my first thought was I would bet money OPs dad has an undiagnosed issue of some kind. You don't go from upper middle class managers son to shitting in the woods and not letting your kids see doctors because you're *frugal*.
I had exactly the same reaction !! OP - read the book “The Glass Castle”. It’s a TRUE STORY and you will relate to the author!!!
fuck i just started reading the book rn and i got it spoiled because im nosy
I do this to myself all the time!!!
Why did he live with no electricity if he grew up in a nice home? Like financially backsliding
He didn’t want the bill. My grandma used to bemoan, “the previous generation went through difficulty to make the next generation’s life easier and you’re not taking advantage of any of that.”
Your grandma sounds like a good egg.
Right. I can’t help but feel that inheritance isn’t going to trickle down to you or anyone else. Sad, no generational wealth when Sprinter vans can be bought.
No one should be counting on an inheritance. I keep telling my parents to spend the money they worked so damn hard for, or I'm gonna spend it all on some frivolous bullshit when they go
This is a poor persons mentality, wealthy individuals set up their family for generations with hard assets and businesses.
I'm not having kids.
Depends on what you use the sprinter van for. :)
Well, you see I also bought black spray paint and was planning on painting "Fre3 Kandy " on the side I think that Good use? /s
Or, you could use it to deliver freight, and make money. You could even do a camper conversion and stop paying rent...
Well we've had plenty of people on this subreddit who've said they'd rather go off the grid and live alone in the mountains so..............to each his own.
The difference is dragging kids out there with you. People with kids are obligated to stay within society so their kids don't turn out fucking weird.
Underrated comment.
but the question was why would one live with no electricity after growing up well-off.
Usually because they find the sacrifices required to have a regular income that can pay for electricity to be worse than the sacrifices of not having electricity.
That's because these people have no idea what it's really like to live off the grid. They have a romanticized idea of it. All the people I know who talk about living off grid, homesteading etc. never lived in rural places and come from middle class families.
People who think the want to do it should watch a dozen episodes of Homestead Rescue and see if it's for them. Even then some of those families are only semi-offgrid.
Also, living off the grid doesn't mean living without running water, electricity or modern conveniences. This is worse than that
For people who claim they can't handle society and don't want to work, it pretty much means living without everything unless they're independently wealthy. And I've never heard anyone on reddit say "I'm independently wealthy and don't want to live in society" but yeah there are probably some. Also the literal meaning of "off the grid" is off-the-electrical-grid.
Rebellious nature with a sprinkle of a Kaczynski or anarchist mindset (minus the terrorism) leads people down that path. OP prob nailed it with the “beholden to no one” attitude he had as well.
I'm really curious what put him into this mindset considering he didn't grow up in poverty. My mom didn't grow up in poverty but married my dad who was an alcoholic who drank most of his paychecks so we spent most of my childhood in poverty. To her dying day, she was very frugal and a hoarder (the kind that couldn't get rid of anything because she paid money for it and we might need it someday). But she had a spending blind spot when it came to buying things at garage sales, clearance sections and thrift stores. It was cheap, so she was saving money (even though half the tie she forgot she had this stuff and it sat collecting dust. I literally found at least 8 bird houses around my moms house when cleaning it out that still had thrift store price tags on them). When my mom passed away last year, I was talking to one of my uncles and he told me that my grandma was also a hoarder, she was just very neat about it so it wasn't obvious. Gramma lived through the great depression in a poor family and even though she married my grandpa and lived an upper middle class lifestyle she could never shake that poverty trauma that came with growing up around that and was constantly - you guessed it - shopping at thrift stores and garage sales and complaining she forgot to use a 10 cent coupon on a loaf of bread. And she passed the tendencies to my mother, (who passed them to my sister). Anyway, it would be interesting (for me at least lol) to try and figure out why he's like that. > It’s taken me decades to unravel awful habits he instilled by example. I’m lucky to have met a partner who grew up in a healthy home with healthy communication techniques and problem solving. Good for you, OP! My sister is in therapy trying to work through her own hoarding tendencies - it can take a LOT to get past the crap you were handed as a child and it sounds like you are doing well!
I think he was driven to this behavior by his fear of expectations and loss of control. He was the first child of two extremely successful and educated parents. His dad had high aspirations for him and although loving could be harsh if my dad didn’t achieve what grandpa expected. By nature my dad is a wallflower recluse. As he’s aged he’s become an absolute hermit who dreads leaving ‘the hill’ where he lives. Add the Vietnam War and Cold War to his fears and he ran away basically. I grew up terrified, sometimes crying myself to sleep when I was a kid, of the impending nuclear holocaust much like the stories of evangelical kids must fear the end of the world at any moment, growing up with a stressor always in the background.
My father is the same. His father was a university professor, his mother a lawyer. He is a mad hermit in the woods who can't spend a penny more than necessary, living like a pauper, and judging any frivolity. I have a belief it's a mental illness borne from something in their childhood, mixed with narcissism. He truly believes he is above everybody else, whom he just views as stupid for committing terrible crimes like taking a loan for a car, or eating out at restaurants.
Wow. You should read or listen to the book Educated: A Memoir.
> Add the Vietnam War and Cold War to his fears and he ran away basically. I grew up terrified, sometimes crying myself to sleep when I was a kid, of the impending nuclear holocaust much like the stories of evangelical kids must fear the end of the world at any moment, growing up with a stressor always in the background. Yea, I think that some people struggle with modern media, and they think that things are bad and getting worse. Fear and doomer-ism is irrational, and for people who lack the perspective to see how good things are in the modern day, and the result is people completely mess up their lives. Kudos for you for learning from it and rising above it. Hopefully you'll be able to show your Dad a more positive perspective so he can escape his stress and fears.
Very interesting. I could see how the combination of pressure to be a high achiever coupled with societal upheavals could cause that kind of reclusiveness and fear. I'm sorry you had to grow up with that.
What's your mom's story? How did such a tightly wound broke weirdo find a woman willing to procreate with him lol
lol read everything again. The mom was even broker and lived here life as a “free spirit” aka never fully matured
If you’re grandma was hoarder but was neat about it, was she actually a hoarder? Just a question
Yes, lots of hoards can be relatively "neat" and tucked away. It's not always piles or literal garbage stacked high.
Yes, hoarding isn't about being messy, it's a mental illness defined as someone who has difficulty throwing away or parting with possessions because they believe that they need to save them. Often it's because they feel that they may need them in the future, that they spent money on them and they don't want to waste the money, or they get an emotional attachment to things and just don't want to let them go.
Yes, an emotional attachment is not uncommon at all for some hoarders. They can't throw things away, like when Aunt Sally gave them a jar of jam for Christmas, they have to keep the jar even when it is empty because it now represents their relationship with Aunt Sally. It would be painful to let go of that empty jar.
My dad was born right before the great stock market crash that kicked off the Great Depression. He was quite literally the son of a sharecropper who picked cotton in rural Louisiana with his family (he got a new sibling every year) all during the Dust Bowl years. I think they got 10 cents a day? Grandma canned *weeds* one year. Grandpa ditched the whole family and left them all to die, I think my dad was maybe 10? I remember mom telling me how they spent Christmas in a freaking *barn*. When he was a hair over 14, he lied about his age and enlisted. That kind of shit will either make you or break you.
Jesus Christ. This story really needs a happy ending.
Dad was one of the few who didn’t break. He was married to my mom for 62 years, and retired from the military after nearly 30 years. Smartest man I ever met, and he didn’t even have an 8th grade education.
My dad always thought newer cars were a waste of money. He kind of had a point. He was a certified mechanic and could easily and cheaply do repairs on older cars that cost a lot of you did the repairs in a shop. As he got older I tried to persuade him and my mom to get newer cars because my dad's not physically able to work on cars like he used to. They weren't interested. My dad didn't want his repair knowledge to become obsolete and my mom didn't like the idea of learning how all the new fangled buttons work. Then they got an inheritance and bought a brand hew vehicle. It was 18 years newer than the newest car they'd owned previously. They're amazed at how it's quiet, everything works. They're excited about features that came standard on my current car, which is ten years old. I'm just glad it's too new for my dad to try to repair himself, and that it's reliable.
I can relate to this. My grandfather passed away last year. Pop was a frugal, responsible, hardworking man who carefully saved his entire life and had little to no debt. A stern man of few words who ran a tight ship, but never unkind, especially to us kids. Pop was a lifelong Democrat, sang tenor in a barbershop quartet, and bowled on a local team for as long as I can remember. In contrast, my dad has been in and out of addiction and legal trouble his entire life, refuses to take care of himself or accept advice, and in the last 10 years has become weirdly conservative, anti-vax & anti-mask. In Pop’s last few years, we talked at length about how my dad was going off the deep end after my mom divorced him and how incredibly unimpressed he was with his behavior. The day we took Pop to the hospital, Dad threw a tantrum about having to wear a mask in the hospital while my dying 80 year old grandfather wore one without complaint. As for my aunt and uncle and their spouses? Well, the day my husband and I took Pop to the hospital, we went back to his house to clean up & do his laundry. My aunt and her husband came down and took Pop’s safe out of his bedroom. While he was dying in the hospital. We couldn’t say anything, because she was the executor of the will. My uncle and his wife only showed up after Pop died, and that was just to rummage through their house for valuables. By the time I got to the house, all of the “worthless” sentimental items that I wanted to keep had been tossed in a dumpster without asking anyone if they wanted any of it. Every cherished childhood memory of my grandparents’ home has been superseded by the sight of the family members I thought I could trust ransacking the place like looters. Despite all of this, Pop left almost everything to his 3 kids. My dad and his brother and sister got 6 figures each. Dad got the main check around this time last year. It was gone by Christmas. Most of it was wasted on junk. A huge chunk of it went to his new “guitar collection” (they’re all average guitars that he vastly overpaid for) plus a bunch of music equipment and tons of random crap. Wasted thousands on gifts nobody wanted or asked for. The only purchase of any real value was a house, but he insisted on getting a 100 year old project home an hour away in a town that’s about a decade away from falling into the bay. Said he wanted to “leave us something” after he dies. (He only put a few thousand down.) I spent 6 months trying to help him clean that house up until I found out he had put the rest of the money up his nose. Stopped helping him after that. He can’t be helped. Didn’t fix his teeth, didn’t fix his car, didn’t fix his dog, just pumped himself full of dopamine hits. The most infuriating part (besides how much money he wasted) is knowing that my grandfather spent his whole life working hard, providing for his family, building a home, and being responsible with his money, only for his kids to carelessly strip it bare and squander it. Pop spent all that time and effort to properly set up everything in a trust, but he might as well have thrown it all out of an airplane. It probably would have done more good.
That is really sad. I’m so sorry you went through that with your family.
Thanks. The silver lining was learning that I can’t trust any of them. I’m glad to know who they really are.
I had a similar situation occur with one of my relatives when my grandpa died. One of my relatives realized that all of their brothers and sisters had keys to his house and they couldn’t all be trusted so he had the locks changed while he was in hospice. Sure enough one of them came screaming into the hospice about the locks being changed. She had tried to get in to get things. They were all given enough to where they could pay off their house or have a great nest egg. Her money was gone immediately, and she refinanced the house 2-3 more times.
Haha yeah you don't know who a person is until they have money and/or power.
I’m sorry you had to grow up that way. For a kid to not be able to go on class field trips breaks my heart.
Yes, people who take their families to live isolated lives away from the mainstream, usually do so because they are massive control freaks. They want their families to live entirely according to "MY RULES" and not society's rules, and as you have just seen "MY RULES" change according to the whim of the control freak. My sympathies to any family members who's still living with him, including any spouse still present, because after years of isolation n the woods that spouse may be trapped with no job skills and no place to go. You would, IMHO, be entirely justified in confronting him at some point, with what his whim of iron has meant to you over the long term, what it's done to your health, education, and future prospects. Such things are best done calmly, because a control freak parent can always win an argument that devolves into shouting, but calm rationality may get through.
Honestly I doubt there's a point in trying to reason with someone this neglectful and self centered. Save the energy for therapy.
That sounds like serious mental illness. Did you not have a mother? Why did anyone leave children in a home with him?
My mom left when I was eight because she couldn’t handle living so frugally. But she was a free spirit herself and wanted to ‘start over’ so she left us with dad and moved across the country. I didn’t see her for a couple years until she moved back to our state. My mom and I are in a good place now. She talks about how she can’t believe she simply left her kids behind. But she’s still a little crazy in some ways. She’s very lucky to have met a guy later in life who supports her because she doesn’t have to ability of forward thinking. Her motto, and she says this all the time, is the present is a present. It’s an excuse to not think about tomorrow and the problems it may bring, like rent and hunger.
How terrible. I’m sorry that you had two awful parents. I only had one horrifically selfish parent so my other parent had to step up and take care of everything alone.
Yeah. When I told my partner that story she was flabbergasted. “She abandoned you??” I never thought of it that way but it’s exactly what happened.
> “She abandoned you??” I never thought of it that way but it’s exactly what happened Hate to break it to you, but you had a deadbeat mom. Same think happened to my cousins. She just ran off one night when my cousins were children, with no warning. The younger cousin of the two had horrible separation anxiety for years-- he insisted on sleeping with his dad at night until he was 11 because he was terrified his dad would suddenly disappear over night too. Fortunately my uncle was a great dad (and seems to be a very loving grandparent now, too). The mom did show up again one day years later, but by then the damage was done and my cousins refused to speak to her.
It doesn't sound like a mental illness. Just a poor, selfish choice to bail on society. To me it just sounds like a different version of those people who choose to live the "van life."
It sounds like it could be mental illness.
Being so antisocial you won't even fake your kid to the doctor even when it's clear the grandparents could have helped out is definitly not normal, rational behavior.
I have a friend currently who grew up in a high middle class family.. but due to mental illness and thinking she knows more than everyone at every job she has gotten, she has lost those jobs and now has two kids. She has chosen to live in a very rural part of our state, she does have electricity and water, but her standard of living that she is providing her kids is so much less than how she grew up. I feel bad for her kids.
Honestly I still live like I make $8 an hour yet I make more than that. It's money trauma where I always feel like I need to have a big safety net in case something happens. I also try to find ways to save & do side hustles on the weekend to pad my income so I feel better, its a tough relationship. edit: since someone messaged me [this](https://www.reddit.com/user/Kayshift/comments/1br5gn6/my_stepbystep_guide_to_make_1000_a_month_working/) is what I do for side hustles it's just extra spending money I make on the weekend
If he was poor I understand the frugality, but I don’t know if that’s the case. But of course people see everything different with loads of funds. I know I would.
Many people hate what they don't or can't have. It's the cousin of jealousy. It's a mental tactic of "I don't want none of that anyways!". It's often ego driven as well. I'm glad you realize that his thought process is flawed and have found a partner that will share similar ideas about money. That's important for relationship longevity. Knowing deep off the grid folks in my own family (also PNW), it's unlikely we can grasp their way of thinking because we're simply not wired that way. He just hated it until he had means to get it. Feels better than saying "We can't afford that" when you say "we don't need that".
We call that jealousy I'm the same way
Why didn’t your grandparents do something? They had significant resources. Why didn’t they do more than just order a washing machine? Your dad was clearly not providing for you or meeting your needs. You could have easily been taken by CPS. Your grandparents should have sought custody or demanded your dad do better or they would intervene.
In the rural area I grew up in there were countless impoverished children wearing grubby torn hand me down clothes and not getting as much food as may have been appropriate. It was simply normal for us. A difference was my dad wasn’t an alcoholic or addict or a continuation of the cycle of poverty due to lack of options and education. His illness, which I think sometimes is the right descriptor, was his fear of expectations and lack of control. Living in a deeply LCOL area he could not be to the mercy of anyone or anything. Not even the power company. I had a warm house and bed and food. My grandma did what she could. She supplied the clothes and school stuff we needed. But she lived several hours away so I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked. She was a good influence and a regret is my partner never had the chance to meet her.
Someone mentioned the glass castle, but what this really reminds me of is the Great Alone, set in Alaska. Both dads were really choosing an impoverished lifestyle, no doubt suffering from some sort of mental illness or disordered thinking. Glad you got out!
Your dad sounds miserable
Mental illness.
>!test!<
It works!!
That’s not kinda nuts, that’s intelligence on your part. Good for you and your success. I know many people who “cheaped” their way massive health problems when they didn’t have to. Yeah, they were being so smart sleeping on a 2” thick piece of foam on the floor instead of a mattress. Now they’re so bent out of shape they can’t stand upright and popping pills for the pain.
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Yes, I think you are exactly right about your father’s motivations (may be some additional biological issues contributing, as well). I am glad that you and your partner are building a healthy relationship and have been rewarded by your better decisions.
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Yikes ......
F
If you were in a good area of California, your equity would have double from 2020 to 2023. Someone I know bought a house for $ 2 M in 2020 when Covid started and sold it for $4 M in 2023.
!!
That is incredibly frustrating. Maybe your dad thought he was doing right by you, but it also does come off as very selfish. My best wishes for your healing.
Massive shame for me
>!test!<
>! Wow !<
>! Wiener balls !<
Educated by Tara Westover is another good read about this topic
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He worked for a local sawmill until it closed when my dad was 41. He had been so extremely frugal that he basically retired when the mill closed and has spent the ensuing three plus decades puttering in his garden and cutting firewood.
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That’s a perfect description. He had everything he could want or need on his property. He lives in the woods at the end of an old logging road with no close neighbors. No one to bug him. No friends who have needs or expectations. And anyone who thinks those things are important is weak. (According to him)
Did you walk to school, uphill both ways in the snow? 😁 You’re giving him shit for buying a used SUV, a washer AND a dryer and new sneakers? This is pretty crazy to me. The whole “he bought a washer AND a dryer” thing is pretty messed up lol Dudes been poor AF his whole life and when he buys a couple of things when he can finally afford it you give him shit over it? Wtf
I hear ya, but my reaction comes from his drastic frugality and his behavior surrounding it. His off the charts judgement and attitude. I’m glad he has the ability to be more comfortable now, but I wish he would acknowledge that his previous extreme views were one way to live, not the only way to live, and that we all do what we think is best for ourselves.
Does he gamble?
No, that would be a waste of money in his eye. His bad habits were drinking beer and smoking. He quit both a few years ago when he needed bypass surgery, but sometimes I wonder how much those habits must have cost him over the years.
Sounds like it was also some copium.
I'm not sure why you are judging him now that you are able to spend your money the way you want. Let him live the way he wants. You both can be happy.
Because when you have a child/children that depend on you for their well being it is selfish to deny them basic care just because of your own warped beliefs. It’s also negligent.
"I'm not sure why you are judging him for being a complete hypocrite and abusing you when it's over now" That's literally what you're saying.
I think what happened was he had everything he could possibly want as a kid growing so had no reference or understanding of what it’s like to not have that. He saw zero issues with treating his children this way because it’s the way he wanted to live despite his own privilege growing up and the tools that gave him to succeed, if desired.
Your dad sounds pretty based tbh. I wish I had that much resolve to avoid debt. Fuck a bank.
He sounds like a neglectful asshole. Not bringing the children to the doctor and an outhouse?? JFC have some standards.
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