Among Friends

[Enufstuff]

@house_cat   Like you, I grew up in a six family building and we shared a yard. I thought that people who had their own houses were rich. I also wanted to take dancing lessons and my father thought that it was frivolous. From 8 years old to 14 years old, I dreamed of being a ballerina. Then I gave up that dream. In reality, one needs to start ballet at least by 10 years old.

   When I was 13, we moved to our own house with a yard. I remember sitting outside in my lounge chair with my transistor radio, drinking a cold drink and working on my tan, while I did my high school summer reading. I can remember the fragrance of Bain de Soleil tanning gel that I used.

   I also wore hand- me- down clothes from my cousin. Easter, Christmas and the first day of school was when I would get a new store bought dress. In high school, I wore uniforms to school.

   At that time, I never would have guessed that I would be married and own my own house when I was 19. But, that is what happened.

   When I married and had my three daughters, they started dancing lessons at three. They took ballet and tap and continued dancing through high school. My youngest daughter did become a ballerina and also taught ballet.

  At my girls' dance studio, they offered an adult jazz class. I finally got my chance to dance. In my 30's I studied Middle Eastern dance and continued that through my 40's.

  We were never rich, but my children always had what they needed.

[Scooby Doo]

Anybody with a TV better than a 25 inch black and white.  And 2 TVs per household!

I went to grade school with a girl who had her own TV in her bedroom.  Unheard of at that time.

[Skyegirl21]

A lot of girls in school with me (ages 10 and up), had cute outfits and wayyy more stuff as they got older including cars- And it looked to me like I just didn't fit in anywhere. I had to buy my own clothes with babysitting money, so I didn't have much, and a bad home life. I really envied them and I was just so unhappy at home... But it made me work hard to do well and years of therapy was helpful too! It all worked out, my life turned out terrific, many blessings. Very grateful 💝!  

[hckynutjohn]

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@ECBG wrote:

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

@ECBG 

My mom was 1 of the very few that did work in our Public Housing Projects. There were no such families looked at as wealthy, in the Projects. 

My memory was wondering more why mothers that never worked families kept getting bigger. An real confusing, was why my friends 2 sisters, had different last names. Neither the same as his. 🤔

hckynut  🇺🇸  🇺🇸

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[Drythe]

I knew we were not rich, without any hints.

When I was in 2nd grade a school milk 🥛 program started.

To decide who needed the milk the Teachers asked the Kids (⁉️)

how much their parents made a year.  My answer was about $200.  I was not wise about $ 

After that I was in the group who went to the cafeteria every day at 10 AM to drink a carton of milk.  I had no idea why, but I still like milk!

2 years ago, I told my Dad about this, having along the way realizing what happened, and we still laugh about it!

  My parents had no idea about me & school milk, my MOM would have had a HISSY.

@house_cat  Very interesting topic, thanks.

[proudlyfromNJ]

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@ECBG wrote:

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

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@ECBG  Well I can tell you that wasn't true. My Mom had four kids to care for so she wasn't working. Dad was a mailman and didn't make much money, so we did without many things. But we survived. Mom went to work when the youngest didn't need her at home anymore.

[shoesnbags]

@house_cat 

I've wracked my brain, and I have to say that as a child I never thought about it.  I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood, so my friends and schoolmates (public school) were of a similar level money-wise.  We were thrifty, but never wanted for anything that was a necessity.  It all just seemed normal to me. 

[CAcableGirl2]

@SilleeMee   I grew up on Air Force bases all over the world, and never knew what "rich" was or gave it a second thought.  My mom told me once they had .35 in the checking account so now I know how little money they had, but both of my parents did a great job keeping us sheltered from the real world and we never lacked a thing.

I never even occured to me that people had pools at their own house!  Those were at the community centers for all the kids on base to use. While waiting for base housing once, we ended up staying in a single wide mobile home in a dumpy town about 20 minutes from the base, but the park had a pool, so we thought we were living it up all summer.  

[ECBG]

@proudlyfromNJ 

The question was "wealth indicators when you were a child:.

I would imagine many children had incorrect assumptions.

I gave mine from a child's mind.

[haddon9]

I lived in an apartment building in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn until I was nine.  I can remember going on long car trips with my parents to go on vacations.  Just seeing single family homes with yards & trees seemed like heaven to me.  Just having a yard with some trees to me seemed like those people were rich.

I moved to NJ in a new housing development when I was eleven.  I no longer had to share a bedroom with my sibling and we had central air conditioning which in 1965 seemed like a big deal!