When I got married at 18, without any way to support myself, and my then-husband, at 20, had no real means to provide for a family, we were setting ourselves up for failure. My son recently asked what we were thinking—how we planned to support ourselves—and honestly, we weren’t thinking about it. Ridiculous, I know. I just wanted to be loved and start a family, but I overlooked the crucial part—how to support that family.
No wonder my ex and I lived in extreme poverty, needing to be frugal and still barely making it through the month. I remember one early anniversary when our “fancy” meal was homemade baked beans, buns, and cucumber sticks because I couldn’t afford groceries. This poverty defined our early marriage and led me to start this blog, sharing my journey as a penniless parent. It became a stepping stone out of extreme poverty—to being poor but not destitute.
Wealth is often inherited, so growing up in poverty traps many in a cycle, raising their own families the same way. But there is a way to stop that cycle in its tracks and lift people out of poverty—programming for kids. Let me explain.
We learned early on that our decision to marry and start a family young was not a wise one and was a major cause of our financial struggles. We wanted to change that for our children. My goal was, if at all possible, to give my children the means to earn a living and support themselves as early as possible—ideally by 18—so that if they found “the right one” at that age and wanted to get married, they would at least have a profession under their belt. This was partly why I wanted to homeschool my children. I knew so much time in school was wasted, and if my children could take college classes while still in high school, they might even be able to earn a full degree by the time they were 18.
I eventually stopped homeschooling my children for various reasons. They went to school at the ages of 11, 8, 5, and 3 respectively. So the dream of my children earning a degree and a profession by 18 seemed unlikely.
Or was it…?
When I was homeschooling, I introduced my kids to games that taught the basics of coding. My oldest really took to it. When he played Minecraft, he essentially used coding logic, even building a calculator with redstone. He had a knack for this type of thing, which I tried to nurture.
In ninth grade, he learned about an after-school programming and cyber course for high schoolers, designed for kids in the physical and social periphery. He applied and was accepted.
And it paid off.
He graduated high school a few months before turning 17, and with a full three-year programming course under his belt, he landed a job at a cybersecurity firm as a full-stack developer. Now, at 17, he’s really enjoying the job. The best perk? His salary, as a 17-year-old, is higher than what both his parents earned combined when he was growing up. And this is just his starting salary.
If there’s a way out of the poverty trap, programming is a terrific path. My next son, now in tenth grade, decided to take the same course and is really enjoying it so far.
My younger two kids, seeing how successful their older brother is, have talked about learning programming as well.
I highly recommend it.
Yes, it’s hard work, but it can definitely pay off.
Have you taught your kids to program? Are they learning it in school or on their own? If you aren’t teaching them, is there a reason you aren’t?
