Jeez thats a real confidence booster.
@skeeter Well,it was my fault for not expecting it. They started telling me I had better do good in school around the time I was in the 3rd grade because when I turned 18 I would need to find a place to live because I wouldn't be allowed to stay with them.
It ain't like I wasn't warned.
They weren't my birth parents,anyhow. They were just a couple that liked children,and I had already taught myself to read and write by the time I started elementary school,so I wasn't very child-like to them. They both loved and doted on little children,but by the time you started to mature,they lost interest and wanted another baby to raise.
Especially my father,who had to quit school in the 3rd grade and go to work at a shipbuilders to help his mother feed and support his 6 brothers and sisters. He would barely write his name,and couldn't read at all,and having to ask me to read the newspaper to him or tell him what the news people on tv were talking about must have been humiliating. He was NOT stupid,but he was illiterate,and this make him think he was stupid.
My mother did a little better. She managed to make it through the 5th grade before both her parents died and she had to quit school and go to work.
Still,fair is fair,and it's not like I didn't have any warning. In MY defense,that was the only family I had ever lived with,so what did I know about families?
Neither one of them ever knew or expected anything but hard times their whole lives.