Among Friends

[hckynutjohn]

@house_cat 

Being born in Public Housing Projects, living in a Real house, seemed like a dream to me. Things to me, were just stuff, that others had that we did not.

hckynut  🇺🇸

[Nataliesgramma]

Living in a big house...we lived in a small Cape Cod

[RedTop]

I grew up very rural on part of my grandparents farm.  Most of the people we knew and visited often, lived exactly like my family.  We always had everything we needed, and never did without.   

Dad was the only child who built a home on the farm so I had cousins who lived in town.  They lived in nice homes with indoor plumbing, heated by oil or gas furnaces, their clothes were washed in automatic washers, and they rode in station wagons with automatic transmissions, so that was rich living to me.  

Somewhere around 5th grade I made a new friend who lived within walking distance of our school.  Her parents were prominent local people, big house with as many rooms in their basement as the upstairs.  Complete kitchen, bathroom with a shower stall, living room, bedrooms downstairs too!  They even had a walk in closet downstairs lined with cedar where special clothes were stored, like fur coats and mink stoles.   Oh they were rich in my eyes, but I felt sorry for my friend and her siblings because their lives were so structured with music and dance lessons and whatever else their parents could enroll them in, plus study, study, study.  They were never allowed to walk to or from school, or ride their bikes on their street, or walk to the store.  

My friend was always exhausted after a stay at my house because we had chores to do before we could ride bikes and swing on grapevines.  She learned to pick beans, pull corn, gather tomatoes and cucumbers, pick apples, and stack wood at my house.  She liked it, but her city born parents thought it was just too much for their precious daughter.  Everything those kids did hands on was to earn a Girl Scout or Boy Scout badge.  

[Boomernichols]

@house_cat Children with all store bought clothes would be my number one indicator.  My momma made me clothes from the Butterick , MCCalls or Simplicity patterns and yet they were all sewn with love!  I too was rich because of her love and the crafts she made  with her own hands just for me!!!!

[blueroses47]

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@xrayrox wrote:

I thought people who had carpeting were rich! We had all wood floors. Now that I think about that, boy was I wrong. Our floors were beautiful . 

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I remember that my family lived in old houses for the most part, and those houses had hardwood floors, and area rugs.

Around 1956, my parents starting looking at houses to buy as a first home, and I remember going to tour one, and it was a newer constructed house and had wall to wall carpeting throughout the main living areas. I was a little girl around 9 years old.

The house, and especially that carpeting was so different and impressive to me.....I really liked it. None of my extended family or friends had wall to wall carpeting.

It's funny how things change, because when I became an adult I really went back to preferring wood floors and area rugs.

[Jinlei]

Living in a house that your parents owned and not rented.  Having your parents have enough money left after paying bills to buy groceries.

[Beacon girl]

My second child was one of 4! His best friend was a only child . He had.over night at this friend’s house and at breakfast there were 4 different kinds of cereal. When he came home he told me “ David ‘ parents must be rich bc of all the cereal choices!!! Lol This was in the 70’s.

[Pook]

There were times we were hurting for money but we always had the best tasting food and my mother could make a pattern for just about any clothing so I had stylish clothing that was unique and not the same old store bought.  I did not have all the entitled drama in my life that those kids richer than us had.  

[just bee]

@house_cat 

Interesting thread!

When I was little we lived on Sheridan Road in Rogers Park in Chicago, near the lake.  I believed that anyone who lived in any of the Chicago suburbs was rich.

When I was ten we left Chicago and moved to a small town in Arizona.  A year later we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1972, when I was twelve, I flew to Chicago to visit my sisters.  One of them had a friend whose brother married a girl whose family had considerable wealth.  They lived in one of those Chicago suburbs.

Somehow we ended up at their home and it was just like the lovely places you'd see in the movies.

We were in the kitchen having coffee.  The girl who had married the friend's brother opened the kitchen cabinet and took out a quart of half and half, poured some into her cup, then returned the quart to the cabinet.

My twelve-year-old brain was confused.  In our home, we kept our dairy products in the refrigerator.

And then it dawned on me: Their kitchen cabinets were refrigerated.

That, to me, was impressive.  That was wealth.

[ECBG]

I thought if your mother didn't work, you were wealthy.