For those of you who didn’t grow up with money or privilege…..

Lewkat said:
I guess, I have a privileged life even though I was born at the height of the Great Depression. My dad was a lawyer, his father, the president of a bank and the county banking association, and my mom was a chorus girl for quite a while. I had a nanny. But, my mom stopped working after I was born for some time as she had complications of that birth. However, I was spoiled to death by my father and grandfather. Yet, no one knew who was poor or comfortable.

We were not wealthy, but when I say comfortable, we had a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our back. We vacationed at the shore every year. And, we share what we had with all our neighbors, as did they with us. Not one person in our neighborhood was without what we had to some degree or another. So, fortune smiled upon us, I guess.
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I like the way you explained that. Your background comes through beautifully in your writing.
 

I didn't have many nice clothes like other girls and I envied them with their variety. Those girls seemed so confident and always looked nicely dressed. When I was old enough, I was able to get jobs to have enough money to buy better clothes and then I felt more confident.

My parents were not poor but some of the things we wanted were just not as available to us and other priorities had to be taken care of instead.
 
Store bought clothes and decent style of sneakers. Mom always put me in homemade shirts and double knit pants and the cheapest sneakers on the market. Home perms ugh!

I didn't get too many actual Barbies I had mostly Midge dolls that were half the price and not near as pretty.

Instead of an actual one piece bathing suit I got a leotard that came unsnapped if I went off the diving board at the pool. We didn't get to go to the pool very often. We mainly had to run through the sprinkler. Or there was the plastic pool...

Buns instead of bread on hamburgers and hotdogs would've been nice.

Going to the Burger Shake was a luxury for us kids. We had party hats made of coffee filters and pipe cleaners for birthdays. Never any other kids just us.

In kindergarten all the other kids had the little mat to sleep on. I had to use one from the school.
kindermat.jpeg
 
A bucket of KFC chicken and a white, foam ice chest full of different flavored BigK canned sodas, at the lake on July 4th, felt like luxury to me. They weren't even bought by my parents because there was very little money in our household, often none. These things were bought by my mother's sister and her husband for the barbecue outing at the lake access recreational area. There always had to be extra for my family because my parents had 5 boys and 3 girls, the most children of my mother's siblings. I am the oldest.
 
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Toys I would have liked to have had some.... a bike would have been great, but fortunately I had a friend who was willing to share one of the 2 bikes she had...occasionally

I had one doll it was a second hand Tressy doll.. the hair was supposed to grow but the mechanism had broken, hence the reason I was given it.. but I took it to school as part of History project and she got dressed in all sorts of through the ages clothes that we as a class made for the project... and put on display.. ..so I was very proud of her despite her hair not growing...:D
 
Oldeagle66 said:
I thought we hit the big time when my dad bought a color tv.
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Yeah, I think this was the same for me and my parents. I remember that one neighbor had one of the first color TV sets. We were invited to watch. It was very exciting. We had to wait for some years more.

My mom (born 1922) told me that during the 1930s she was sitting with headphones at the radio listening to stories told for children. How the times are changing.
 
hollydolly said:
Toys I would have liked to have had some.... a bike would have been great, but fortunately I had a friend who was willing to share one of the 2 bikes she had...occasionally

I had one doll it was a second hand Tressy doll.. the hair was supposed to grow but the mechanism had broken, hence the reason I was given it.. but I took it to school as part of History project and she got dressed in all sorts of through the ages clothes that we as a class made for the project... and put on display.. ..so I was very proud of her despite her hair not growing...:D
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We built our bikes from spare parts. The first store bought bike was a real magical treat 😀
 
jujube said:
Taking a shower as long as I wanted. With one bathroom, seven females in the house, and a father who believed in "Navy showers", that was a luxury I longed for. When I went off to college, I must have spent HOURS in the shower during my first few weeks....what paradise...
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To this day I still take Navy showers.
 
Oldeagle66 said:
I thought we hit the big time when my dad bought a color tv.
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A neighbor had the first color TV in the neighborhood.

We kids were allowed to occasionally come over and watch it through the window. Their kids and a couple of the kids' best friends could watch it indoors, but the rest of us huddled masses had to make do with a window.

The mom was a "neat freak". I'm surprised she allowed anyone in.
 
We were far from wealthy. My dad had a blue collar job at a paper mill and my mom didn't work most of the time (except the two occasions when the paper mill workers were on strike), but I seldom went without basic necessities. I'm sure they had to scrape and skimp to provide for me, but there were always plenty of presents, albeit inexpensive, at Christmas. We also had a console TV, a private phone line and when my grandparents moved, my dad bought the house from them. At that time we were living in an upstairs apartment (there were 2) and grandparents were living in the downstairs flat. After that we moved downstairs and dad rented the two upstairs apartments.

After seeing the hardships that lack of money caused, I vowed to get a good education and a good job and save as much as I could.
 
hollydolly said:
Toys I would have liked to have had some.... a bike would have been great, but fortunately I had a friend who was willing to share one of the 2 bikes she had...occasionally

I had one doll it was a second hand Tressy doll.. the hair was supposed to grow but the mechanism had broken, hence the reason I was given it.. but I took it to school as part of History project and she got dressed in all sorts of through the ages clothes that we as a class made for the project... and put on display.. ..so I was very proud of her despite her hair not growing...:D
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I always wanted a bike too. Luckily, my neighbor who was older than me outgrew his bike and he gave it to me!
He also made me a skateboard! It was literally a thick board with a roller skate attached at each end. I don’t recall ever seeing the manufactured skateboards like the ones they have now back then.
 
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MaidMarian said:
I always wanted a bike too. Luckily, my neighbor who was older than me outgrew his bike and he gave it to me!
He also made me a skateboard! It was literally a thick board with a roller skate attached at each end. I don’t recall ever seeing the manufactured skateboards like the ones they have now back then.
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the annoyig thing at the time was that my parents bought my brother a brand new bike.. not any of us girls...well except when the youngest was a toddler she got a trike, but none of except the one brother got a brand new bike.. and of course he wouldn't let any of us ride it...

He was going so fast one time he flew over the handlebars ( he was about 10 or 11).. and dislocated his thumb.... *ugh*... my mother was a nurse, and she put it back into place right in front of us all..I can hear his screaming..:eek:
 

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