Sounds like she was raising you by herself. That's rough, but her choice.
It wasn't her choice, the admins are going to kill me, if I get banned, that's fine. I took the risk and understood the consequence of making a dupe so I can through to billpong.
My biological father and her were married. She didn't want children, so she used birth control, however at the time, something went wrong, I don't understand the full details. But her leaving, going on her own. It wasn't a choice, Shortly after, she discovered that my biological father was a child molester. Prompting a divorce. And for a while, we were on our own, parts of my school life occurred, then well stepfather happened. After another set of experiences with my stepfather. Another divorce. And right now we do struggle. She doesn't smoke, already explained that, even in the past she didn't, and well, lets say at the time of 16 I had too much emotional trauma. Watching my grandfather die, my grandmother turning her backs on my mom and him,her (grandmother) being greedy, my stepbrothers turning into people I didn't wish to see... I wasn't mentally able for a part time job as I was barely keeping myself away from suicide, and was previously suicidal even before then. And even then Tucson job market is shit. We stretch food a lot. Make little with what we do have. A lot of it is canned food. We don't go out to eat. Only maybe once every 2 months? if at that? (aka not very often at all) She works minimum wage for her job. And for three years, she was unable to pay my high school lunch because we were that strapped for cash. Even though the bill was half the price of my old school. We don't buy iphones, or phones or new tvs every year, or any electronics. Only buying things when it's reached a unusable point or if it's a necessity. We need our phones because my mom is terminally ill, but for while used our old phones from the previous household. One day the stepfather just cut us off the phone plan, and due to for some dumb reason, we had to ditch our old. So we got android phones, cheaper on the wallet anyways. So also had to get a new phone plan, and pay that ourselves. It wasn't a choice, because the thing is, if something happens to her, I need to know, she at that time, was/is my only care taker. Now she has connections incase that does happen, and I'm looking for a job. But if she went, and my future was completely unknown. The new computer I run today, was only because she saw it as a investment into my future. Because I am learning how to program, and try to manage a YouTube channel which video rendering was to say the least too time consuming. One day I'd like to be able to make a small game, still learning. Started with python. But most game engines don't support python so eventually learn c and c++. My old laptop was 11 years old. The screen was cracked due to a accident while moving. and it was a rather cheap laptop, and working on it was becoming a bit of a task. So again, more of a necessity to keep up with the changing world. As for rent of the apartment we live in, which is not as crap as the previous (but for well. safety reasons. Old place, before this had drug addicts and other unwanted things) the thing is though, we still live off the alimony check for paying for rent. And we don't eat like hogs either. My point is, we were fucked by the situations we were in, not by choice. So you saying that free lunches is only for those that abuse it, is wrong. And it's not the majority either, or drug attics, because even then empathy still applies, not to all addictions, and some are stronger than others. But even then, there is a larger amount of people who actually need it, than those who gain the system.