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I grew up on a small farm and we would have been considered poor by current standards of material wealth. I think there are other kinds of wealth that cannot be replace just by making sure a child has the physical necessities. Just having parents around is huge. They parents aren't all skilled but even the mediocre ones enrich a child's life.
I had to work on our farm and I missed out on some of the wealth that children should accrue, while learning other valuable lessons. I spend hours and hours in the field alone on a tractor while town kids were playing and learning socialization. As a result I never had a close friend and have never been comfortable around people. I'm the guy in the old Norwegian farmer joke. You can tell I like you because I look at your shoes. But I did learn how to work and I learned how to be responsible for taking care of machines and animals. No surprise that's what I do best now.
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