Someone on Twitter asked the question, "What are some things you thought were indicators of wealth when you were a kid?" He is clearly from a younger generation than I am, since his answer is a basketball hoop with a plexiglass backboard and his wife's is a refrigerator with water and ice in the door, but it got me thinking.
To simplify my time frames, I would say I was a child in the 1960s and a preteen and teen in the 1970s. I had little awareness that there was wealth as a child. The best I can come up with for an answer during the first 10 years of my life is an in-ground swimming pool (probably based on watching the Beverly Hillbillies).
As a preteen and teenager, I had more awareness. Some of the things I associated with wealth then were being able to get braces, going downhill skiing, and going to summer camp…all things our family couldn't afford to do (though I don't think I had any interest in skiing). I wasn't aware of it at the time, but in hindsight I also realize the idea of family vacations, especially to anywhere outside the U.S., is almost completely alien to me and therefore something that I associate with wealth to this day. And the idea of flying somewhere? I wouldn't even have considered it.
I had better indicators of what it meant to be poor, even as a child, because that was something I could see in my community more clearly than I could see wealth. Being poor meant living in a conglomeration of school buses or a paint-faded house that was almost falling down, usually with many brothers and sisters. It meant an unmowed lawn with junk strewn around and barking dogs. It meant a classmate who smelled kind of funny and who no one ever seemed to want to be friends with.
It's painful to think back to those poor children of 50+ years ago, know they suffered from their circumstances, and that we all blamed them for it.
A great thought-provoking question. I grew up on a block of row houses, so I guess I’d say a detached house (not that I knew that term). Also, “steak.” (We never had steak.) And a fancy car, like a Cadillac or a sports car. All kinda pathetic to think about, I know.
ReplyDeleteMine was having a pool table. After all, clearly, if you could afford a pool table you would own one. A couple of my friends had pool tables in their homes or garages and I figured they were rich, but probably it was just that their dads liked pool a whole lot. I also thought Sizzler was pretty much as fancy a restaurant as existed -- I only went once or twice when a friend was being taken by an indulgent grandparent. (My parents had five children; we never ate out at all.)
ReplyDeleteMy husband's idea of wealth was being able to have ice cream in your freezer all the time, which his family certainly could not.