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.

My grandpa was a farmer on the plains. Never smoked. No soda (pop in So. Dak.), not much sugar. Had his own teeth to the end. If you've ever been around people that are 70 with their own teeth, the fronts can get pretty worn down and unevenly so. Vern noticed this one day and leveled 'em up himself...with his wood file.

I think life, especially on a farm, and running a farm, in those days was quite different then, and life in certain ways simpler. My brother-in-law grew up on a farm in the 40's and 50's. He learned at a young age how do to all the work there. Young people in those days got their life experience through apprenticeships rather than lingering till age of 18 in a high school not learning anything about jobs. Also farm work then was much simpler, no big financial manipulations, probably no big dept to service, and no hi-tech farm machinery. Even today, anybody growing up under the same circumstances, could probably do the same thing.