I'm a Caucasian American whose family has no records of where we came from, not even where in the US my ancestors lived before they moved to the farm in middle of no where. My parents grew up on farms where the food they grew was the food they ate, and while my own childhood wasn't improvised (probably upper working class, if that's a thing), a lot of OP's post resonates with me.

For example the following feels like it was describing my own childhood.

>Beating your kids is not the right way to raise them. Yelling louder is not the way to win an argument. Hiding your faults hurts your family more than it helps.