【轻阅读，看世界】When did you first realize you were living in poverty?

There were several hints in my childhood that pointed to poverty but I didn't acknowledge them until my mid teens.

• Age 6. When I showed amazement at my friends having icy juice in their lunch kits during lunch. ‘How did you get the ice in the bottle?` I asked incredulously. I thought only groceries and restaurants could afford fridges.

  
  

• Age 7. Noticing that the teacher usually skipped my name when calling out what snacks each student had to provide for the end of term class party. I assumed my teacher arranged that with my mother in advance.

  
  

• Age 8. Teacher asking me where was my mother employed. ‘At the welfare office,’ I replied. ‘As what?’ replied the teacher. ‘I dunno,’ I said merrily, ‘But she gets a cheque from them every month.’

  
  

• Age 10. My cousin Keeghan seeing me in a green shirt with an apple image sewed onto the pocket. ‘Hey that's my old shirt!’ he says excitedly. His mother, my aunt, shouts across to him from the room. ‘Keeghan! Shhh! We had a discussion about this last night.’

  
  

• Age 13. Talking to my gamer pal in class about Mortal Kombat 1 and boasting about all the fatalities I knew by heart. Suddenly he guiltily interjects, ‘I don't really play Sega Genesis anymore. That's old. Used that when when I was a little kid. I play Mortal Kombat 4 on my PlayStation now.’

  
  

• Age 15. Watching my aunt lecturing her son David about how my brother and I took such pride in the Reebok sneakers she gave us three years ago, how we kept them spotless and he should learn from us about taking care of things. ‘But it doesn't even fit them anymore,’ David protested, ‘They can barely even walk in them.’ She replied ‘Yes, but the point is they took great care of their belongings.’ ‘Of course they did,’ David replied, ‘That's their only pair of sneakers.’

Seated at the table from the bottom left (clockwise direction) are myself, David, another cousin, David's mom, Keeghan, my brother and Keeghan's brother. We had just come from a trip to the swimming pool, hence the swimwear at the breakfast table.