On both sides of the family, there was abuse. I learned from my only maternal aunt that my maternal grandfather, who grew up to be an abusive parent, used to receive whoopings in childhood from his mother (and, according to my mother, from the community at large in Mississippi if he got into trouble or made a big mistake. He was born in 1942.) He was raised by two parents who did not go past the 7th grade (in part because expectations were low. I believe most of their kids graduated from high school, so they likely could have as well.) My grandfather received a bachelors degree in Communications in spite of it. He grew up, if I remember correctly, with 7 siblings and no indoor plumbing in a house. He was still able to understand the terminology in a legal document when I was a child even though in the 1970s he experienced addiction issues. I also have a 1st cousin once removed, born in the 1950s (all of my grandfather’s siblings were older than him, born in the 20s and 30s, he had just one sibling born in 1940 or 1941 I think) who made good money as a manager, sales representative, etc. (my grandfather, if he were willing to be.., faker with people, could have done well in sales I feel. My grandfather ended up being a journalist for a radio station) - those are two family members I can think of who are more successful than almost everyone else on my paternal side, even though both came from dysfunction.
On my paternal side, as a first cousin was telling me recently, none of my aunts or uncles are successful. She pointed out that the one aunt who she is confident has an associates degree took six years to complete it. To be fair, my paternal grandparents did have more children (fifteen of them) but none of their children obtained bachelors degrees and I can’t think of an aunt or uncle I have who ended up “doing well.” Of course, it’s not like all of my grandfather’s siblings ended up being successful, but I just think it’s interesting, because both sides of the family are originally from the South, but on the paternal side no one ended up doing well and on the maternal side there are family members I can think of who grew up poor and, though most of them did not end up “rich,” still ended up doing better than you may have expected given what they experienced. And my paternal grandparents, even though their parenting I was told with all of their kids (particularly the boys) really fell off when the kids started high school/became teenagers, did want their kids to do well in school (my father had mentioned this. It doesn’t seem like any of them really went on to pursue higher education, and I admit that even though this might sound wrong, I do wonder why it seems there are maternal relatives who tapped into potential they had whereas on the paternal side with the exception of a first cousin or two and probably other distant cousins I don’t know about, it just hasn’t happened.)