Degutis.org

First let me say right from the start, this is an immensely personal and important blog post for me. It details a lot of my history through adulthood, and describes where I am today in my life, and why I’m here. It also discusses what I think is an extremely valuable and important life-lesson that’s not taken seriously by those to whom it pertains the most.

But first, I need to tell a little of my history. Feel free to skip it, but it will help make sense of the rest…

Unfortunate Origins

Often times, I feel like I’m not really supposed to be here. In fact I feel like I’m kind of a rarity, because I program for the Mac and own a fancy Macbook Pro and sell my own software.

I was born into a family where virtually everyone had their first kid before the age of 18. My mom and most all her sisters and brothers did, and her cousins their siblings and so on. When I was 18, my first child was born. I did not finish high school because of it, and had to start working right away to pay my own way.

Out of my 5 siblings, 3 of them had at least one child before they were 20. The only 2 who haven’t are currently 15 and 17 years old. (And to make matters worse, my 15 year old brother is already sexually active, sneaking behind my mom’s back to avoid parental supervision; she does not know about it at all.)

I’ve worked so many jobs over the years, and none of them lasted more than a year. Pizza delivery boy, factory cog, gas station clerk, telemarketer; generally if you can name the crappiest job, I’ve had it.

Only 3 years ago, my wife and I got into debt because we bought a TV for $169, which we could not afford, and had to begin taking out payday loans to pay off our bills. Our debt was so bad that we ended up having to move back in with my dad and stepmom. At the time, my sister was living there too, with her son, and was working at a factory which drove her batty (and probably depressed). My brother moved back in later after he got out of military-jail.

So you may see a little why I feel like I’m a rarity; nobody in this kind of situation grows up to be a software developer for Mac OS X or iPhone. I feel like I’m lucky to be a part of this community, but I still feel like it’s not really one I should be in.

When we moved back in, we were encouraged to apply for as much financial aid as we could in any department. Let me explain the reasons:

Depressing reality

Here’s an interesting fact: two people working 40 hour weeks at back-breaking entry-level jobs (one of them being a CNA), cannot afford the basic necessities of life. Which in this case means, rent, food, gas money, car insurance, and utility bills. We were forced to stay living at my dad’s house, which was getting crowded. Respectively, my wife and I made $10 and $7 per hour, and this was above minimum wage at the time.

(Just a side-note: My sister has worked in a factory for 3 years now full time, and still cannot afford to live on her own. She lives with my dad and stepmom, and has applied for the same housing financial assistance that we’re on. It’s sickening and frustrating that someone who is actually working hard and doing the right thing cannot afford to live on their own.) So, after a while of being stressed about jobs that didn’t afford us to live our own, we eventually decided to go to college. My wife Nikki had already gotten her CNA certificate at our local community college, and had been using it for working as a CNA for a few years already, but we still couldn’t afford to live. So we both applied for financial aid via FAFSA at our local college, MCC.

A few months later, when we were looking for apartments to get into, we got some mail. It told us our financial aid for housing assistance was approved, and we could now afford to live on our own. (Don’t ask why we were looking for apartments before we could afford it, I don’t recall at all. My guess is, pressure from my dad to get us the hell out…)

New Beginning

This was great news! Suddenly we had a substantial amount of our rent paid for, all food costs paid for, a generous amount was applied to our heating bill, and we had the medical card for routine checkups and preventative care, which came in very handy when my wife had a scare with cancer, which turned out to be negative (thank God!).

On top of this, we were going to school instead of working, thanks to Pell (and other) grants, and any leftover money from the grants was sent as a check to us each semester. This allowed us to afford non-utility bills such as car insurance, phone bill, and other expenses like diapers and wipes, clothes for the kids, and toiletries. Everything was turning up roses!

There was one problem though, which caused a lot of stress: we could not afford daycare for our kids, and thus had to watch them ourselves while the other adult studied. We were able to spend next to no time with one another after dark, and it was very upsetting and stressful and caused a good deal of arguments over little things. But we stuck it out for 2 whole years.

(Somewhere during this time, I got my first Mac, and ended up learning about Cocoa. I’ve always had a fascination for computers, like most kids who play video games on them. I enjoyed writing QBasic programs and such, and when I got my Mac, I found out about Cocoa and it was a love affair ever since.)

Another New Beginning with RA

Unfortunately, the grants were starting to not support us, and we were starting to find ourselves borrowing money from relatives here and there, to make ends-meet. Obviously this was not a great way to survive, so I did the only thing I could think to do: I dropped out and got a job. (The week I made this decision, was during the very last semester I had before I would have graduated with my Associates in Science. I’m still only 12 credits away from this, but with no time or money to finish.)

Fortunately I could do this job from home. See, I was a tech support guy for Rogue Amoeba, and it was great to learn so much about the Mac software business! However, I asked for the job under a false pretense: the government agency for child care assistance, told me that we could get financial aid for putting the kids into a daycare so I could do my job. So I applied for the job with confidence. A few weeks into the job I still hadn’t heard news from the agency. Upon calling them back, I was told that we do not qualify for assistance because anyone working out of the home will be denied. This is [right in Illinois' DHS handbook](http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=10552), Section C, Part II.

After 2 months, I could no longer do this 24-hour job from home while watching my children. It was simply impossible to give both the attention they needed, and ignoring the children was causing more problems than it was solving. Paul was not too happy about this at all either, understandably. The job was no longer mine.

Entrepreneurship and Relocating

Around this time, I decided to sell my own software since it was what I knew best, and getting a Wal-mart job wasn’t going to pay the bills. Thus Thoughtful Tree Software was born, and I began selling products, trying to write them as fast as I could and sell them to as many people as I could, to pay the bills.

We were also told by the housing financial assistance people that the apartment we lived in was too run-down to qualify for their assistance, and we had to move to another place. This is where the story takes a turn for the worst:

Where we moved to happened to be an apartment complex specifically intended for low-income families. What does this mean for us? It means **we’re surrounded by people who are *encouraged* to make bad decisions and *discouraged* from making good ones**. This is where we live today, and this is the whole point of my tale.

Now

5 years ago, I would have been happy to play Quake all day and in fact that’s what I did. Only 2 years ago, I started to finally have ambition in my life. Now, I much prefer to be creative, productive, solve complex problems, and generally be constructive. Sitting down play games is no doubt fun, but it’s no match for the feeling of accomplishment and achievement.

This change was greatly due to a bunch of people who I saw first-hand could be happy in life, without worrying about their rent not being paid, without worrying that they might not be able to afford food for the week, without worrying that their car might break down any moment and they won’t have the money to fix it. These were people who genuinely were financially secure in their lives, and could lead normal and happy lives because of it. These were the people I knew in the Mac developer community. One person who stands out in particular is Aaron Hillegass, whose blog I read every time he posts to it.

(My guess for why people in the Mac community was like this, is twofold: first, because generally Apple products are expensive luxuries, and if you can afford them, you can probably afford everything else you need too. Second, because these same people are willing to spend a good amount on Mac software, so selling Mac software seemed profitable, thus making the developers well-off too.)

Our Housing Complex

We’ve met many of the people who live in the apartments with us. And unfortunately, a good many of them are in the same situation as us. They had kids early, and are now paying the consequences of it. The most saddening thing I see from them, is the most common thing as well: they try to get ahead by taking advantage of one another. Instead of relying on one another and cooperating to get ahead, they’re figuratively all drowning together, pushing one another’s heads down, just to try and keep their own heads up. It’s depressing.

For example, our upstairs-neighbor, Kat, has 4 children. Her husband (or boyfriend?) left her recently because he was too overwhelmed with having so many kids. He just wanted to live his own life. This brings me to another 2 points:

The Patriarchy

So many women I know in my life see that the greatest thing a woman can do with her life is to have a raise children. My wife for so long saw it as the most honorable job, and this was one of the driving factors for her not aborting our first child and continuing on with her education and work (she was going to apply for a college to be a doctor, and was almost a manager at a retail store at the time). Instead, she dropped out and began going for a CNA degree.

To clarify: having kids is great, but it’s one of the stupidest things anyone can do to have kids before you are financially secure.

The first day we moved in, I met Kat. She told me, “I would never stop having kids, if it were up to me, but Mike [her husband or boyfriend] doesn’t want any more.” In fact, from meeting him the few times I did, he didn’t really want the first ones they have. But he wasn’t opposed to it either, as long as he didn’t have to do much. This is the same way I felt, and my brother felt when he found out his girlfriend was late a few months ago. When I ask him how he feels, he says “I don’t know.” He’s 25, by the way, and plays video games all day.

This is the patriarchy at work: girls want to have families at all costs, and boys want to play games and hang out with their friends all day, at all costs.

Mid-life crises

There is no such thing as a mid-life crisis. I’ve learned this in college in many classes, and read first-hand many studies on it, which is credible enough for me. What these studies say is, generally people who are having a “mid-life crisis” are just realizing that they don’t like or agree with the life that they chose (actively or passively). There is no specific time that this occurrence happens. It can happen at 24 or 40 or 80. And it’s not a crisis, it’s a realization.

Our upstairs neighbor who lives in a shoe

So, Kat now has a young boyfriend, my age (23) who got her pregnant, as she is now. He literally plays Xbox 360 Live any chance he gets. She wants him for support, so she can survive. Last night we had a parent-teacher conference, and she was asking around for people who watch her kids so she could go. When asked where her boyfriend was, she said “he’s got other plans.” Later, she whispered to her best friend that he could very well get out of his plans, but he’s choosing to use that extra hour play Xbox instead with his friend. Her friend then suggested she give away his Xbox 360 to teach him a lesson. She replied “last week he left it here and I told him I would sell it for food money, and he said ‘oh well, I have anti-theft warranty so I would get a brand-new one’”.

As she said these words, my heart sunk. Yes, he should do something better with his time, but it’s not his responsibility to take care of her 4 children that aren’t his. He has his own life and own decisions, and suddenly she thinks she has so much control over his life. This bothers me to no end, people stepping on one another to get ahead. People should cooperate to pull each other up, not push each other down.

Now, it’s not just her behavior towards fellow adults that’s worrisome. In fact, more so is how she treats her children. Her oldest son (7 years old) wakes up every morning with the other 3 at 6:30 and gets them all breakfast and changes their diapers. The littlest one, her diaper is filled beyond the max, 24/7 it seems. The second youngest, is abbrasive and mean and pushy and aggresive and does not understand boundaries. He has made my daughter cry more than once. I am reluctant to let her play with him anymore. Her kids are obviously not getting the attention, emotional care, and physical care they need. She’s overworked and has nobody to blame but herself. In reality, it was the patriarchy that made her think that she wanted all those kids. But in reality, she’s also responsible for the mess she took action to create, even if it was done unwittingly.

Our Dilemma

We were getting daycare assistance a while because I was setting up to start teaching iPhone development (which qualifies as working out of the home) so for a few months our kids were out of the house 3 times a week. This gave me more time to devote to writing software, and things were turning up roses.

Then just 2 weeks ago, we were notified that since I have not started teaching yet, we were cut off. Since my wife’s semester started last month, this means I have to watch the children all day while she goes to school. I’ve already dropped out of school, and now I’ve no time to take care of my company, so my wife can apply again to Nursing School and continue towards finishing her Associatea of Science.

I’ll be blunt about it: this system is fucked up. Once you’ve made the mistake of getting pregnant young, it’s nearly impossible to get out of that situation.

People are encouraged to take advantage of the system by fraud and other means. Abusing the system is rewarded, and working hard does not get you very far when you’re on government aid, because in their eyes, everyone is lazy and trying to abuse the system.

Thus, people like my wife and I, who are willing to work hard to get out of this mess, are grouped in with the cheaters and liars, and we don’t get as much support as we need to keep surviving. To this day, we’re still trying to work hard to make sure we don’t lose our housing and food and medical financial assistance, because they keep trying every month to prove that we’re abusing the system. We’re not. We’re working hard.

Life Lesson

Please excuse my volume in this statement: DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN BEFORE YOU ARE FINANCIALLY SECURE. It may seem like a good idea at the time to omit the condom, and it may be heartbreaking to have an abortion, but the people who will suffer are you and your children, and you’re most likely setting the whole thing up for failure.

Either of 2 things are most likely to happen if you have kids young: the girl will be on her own as the guy leaves, and will try to raise a kid all on her own; or, they will stick it together, and be so very very unhappy with their lives but never quite know why. (A fact: it’s difficult to even think “I don’t really want to have this kid” because it’s so socially unacceptable, let alone say it aloud.)

New Solution

Obviously we can’t get rid of the kids we have because selling them on the black market would not get us as much money we they’re really worth. So my solution is simple: I’ve gained a lot of knowledge over the last 2 years about Mac and iPhone development. I aim to get a job writing software on these platforms.

I especially feel this would be a great fit since I love problem solving in software, regardless of what the problem tends to be; so while I would not be working on projects I’ve created, it would still be great to have a job that challenges me and lets me “do my thang”, so to speak.

The idea is, I’m a hardworking, honest guy. I’m willing to do my share of the work. I’m determined to be self-sufficient and am sick and tired of relying on others for our family’s survival. So, my plan is to get a job that pays enough. Any money we make will go right to rent and food and bills, and to be honest, I’m very comfortable not spending another time that we don’t need. Any leftover money would go right to savings, in case our car does break down, or so we can pre-emptively afford a new car since the one we have right now is junk (it has a gas leak which gets inside where we sit, to name just only one serious problem).

(My only hope is that finding a job like this won’t require us to relocate, because all our family lives here, and we’re big on having our kids have a strong sense of family and community. Moving to a new area will require a ton of work in building new relationships and friendships. Possible, granted, but difficult, especially for someone as shy as me.)

Update:

I knew this was a great community! So many of you, in the last hour alone, have either commented, tweeted, DM’d, or emailed me with either suggestions or general sympathy, and it’s really great to see that kind of compassion in what’s already an inspiring and overall super awesome community. Thanks a ton!

And let me answer a few of your questions overall:

• I am not making as much money as I could be from my own software because of lack of advertising. I’ve no time to do free advertising, and no money to pay for good (or any) ads. And no bank is willing to loan us any money (even to my business), or give us credit cards, due to our unfortunate history.
• I’m willing to do contracting, and have even actively sought it, but it’s not as reliable or steady as a full time job, which is my primary goal here.
• Someone suggested I set up a babysitting-exchange program around here. Honestly, the kids in this neighborhood are not great influences (I’ve overheard a few 6 year olds at the pool talking about sexually explicit things and pretending to do said things.)