Fortunate, unfortunate

[Hector]

I was raised in a typical blue collar home.

My dad was an auto assembly line worker at the old GM plant in Fremont, California.

So we had our own little home with a nice yard in a nice neigborhood in Union City (right next to Fremont).

I always had my own room (lucky me), went to school on a school bus with my little superhero metal lunchbox, got beat up by the local school bully (a girl), headed back home on schoolbus, and play with my buds. On Saturday mornings, my little sister would wake me up, and we'd watch cartoons together, lol.

Then my dad suddenly left his job, sold the house, made us pack (with my mom's consent of course, lol), and headed down to Mexico (reversed migration, lol).

He started a business with a a partner, and basically were contractors for painting office buildings.

In Mexico, I was considered by my other classmates, a so-called "rich" kid...we weren't rich of course (far from it), but I supposed by Mexico's standards we were pretty well off. I remember my mom making extra sandwiches so I could take them to school and share with the less fortunate kids, that always made me feel good. I used to hang out with poor kids (which were the majority of course) and some kids who were from wealthy backgrounds (and some of them were very wealthy, I'm talking kids whose parents owned thousands of acres of land for example).

...and yes, I had a LOT of Lili Ledys while I lived in Mexico...I vividly remember ripping off the packaging (gulp), and will immediatly play with them, lol. However, even though the boxes were discarded, my Ledys were pretty minty. I really took care of my toys.

Then before I was set to go to junior high school, my parents decided to come back to the States (I spent seven years in Mexico)...they wanted my sis and myself to have an education here since we were Americans.

So just before we headed on to the States, I gathered all my cousins, and gave them all my Ledys...yes...ALL OF THEM!!!!

I have regretted that decision ever since.

[GammaPro]

I THOUGHT we were poor simply because my Mom and Dad believed so strongly in not spoiling their kids, they always told us we didn't have the money for this or the money for that. Love was there, and that was enough in their opinion. Now, at Christmas, my Dad made sure we got exactly what we wanted but that was the only time.

It wasn't until I got older and started to learn about the value of money that I realized my Dad had a GREAT job that paid really well.

He was just old fashioned and believed in working for what you wanted.

I'm glad he did.

[Bo8a_Fett]

Although we grew up in cramped conditions (5 kids, 2 parents), in rented accomedation (3 bedrooms so evryone shared with someone except my sister who had the smallest room on her own), it eventually got better. We were kicked out of the "flat" by developers and had to live in a council half way house (all of us in 1 room with bunkbeds) and eventually getting a place from the council with 4 bedrooms after being moved around London in temp accomadation. As I was the oldest boy (my sister was a year older), i'd rarely ask for anything as I soon realised that my parents had a lot on their plates and would struggle to get christmas pressies for all of us. I never got "pocket money" and never asked for any ...it just didn't bother me ...yes I did have the green demon when my friends would show my their goodies every week or so....but I realised it was "going against the grain" to burden my parents for the newest 5 minute wonder toy. I was content just reading or drawing (my grandparents would scour jumble sales for comics/books and drawing/painting materials for me and i'd get the odd model kit to build).
Thus grew my love of books, making things and drawing...so I was never bored. Although I had aspirations of becoming a pilot in the RAF , I had to start work straight from school at 16 and started work in the building trade...eventually ending up on London Underground. Although I now have parallels with my parents as far as accomadation goes (2 adults and 3 kids in a 2 bedroom flat), I try and give my kids what they want and they seem quite content with their lot and have never showed signs of being spoilt or envious of their peers possessions...I always say to them "Me and your mum will spoil you until you start acting spoilt."
Yes I got the odd Star Wars toy when the filom came out and was envious of a few people who had the entire collection, but then I wouldn't have so much fun now trying to collect all that passed me by when I was young....

[thunderbolt]

We were kind of in the middle I guess. I had some of the stuff I wanted as a kid, but when it came to being 16 and wanting a car, tht as my problem.

[Mikey]

I still remember,
One year I got a car for Christmas...
I was like 10 I think

My brother got tired of me driving his car around the fields, so he bought me a jalopy

Was a damn nice car.
I think he payed a good 50 bucks for it

All the boys in my class were really jealous.
They didn't realize most of their toys probably costed more than my 56 Hudson

[mitchedwards]

I was raised middle class, but never felt privileged, or better than anyone else.

[Mikey]

Very interesting thread..
Perhaps one of the bests to date

[txteach]

My parents had 9th grade educations and we never had a lot. With 5 kids to feed toys were the last thing on my parents mind. Dad drove a truck and mom stayed home. I remember kids having stuff that I only dreamed about. Now as an adult I'm the proud owner of a lot of the stuff I drooled over as a kid. I was lucky, my buddy Pat's dad was a lawyer so he had everything. We played for hours with his "guys".

[megomonkey]

Lower middle-class hardworking shanty Irish. I was lucky however- I had a doting grandmother, who lived near my school, and a Ben Franklin's conveniently placed around the corner, amazingly on the way to her house. A retired nurse, she was wonderful and patient, lived alone, and I was her only grandson.

"Gram, I got a 100 on my quiz!"

"Well, I just have to stop in here and grab some yarn."

"OHHHH KAYYYY, GRAMMMM..."

In addition to my Mego ransacking of the place via Gram in 1976-9, it was the first and only place that had a SMDM, a must have when he first came out, as well as the aforementioned slew of those great 70's little rubber robots, and pistols, and junky weird knockoffs of knockoffs and Star Wars too, which stole me away from Megos for awhile.. Sigh.

T1- a Hudson when you were 10? Yeah!

[Vortigern99]

We were firmly entrenched in middle-middle class. My sister and I had a modest but satisfactory amount of toys, including Barbie, STAR WARS, Mego, Lone Ranger and Bionic Man & Woman, plus odds and ends like Terron and Pulsar. I was pleased with our collection and for the most part we took good care of our toys. There were always those kids, though, that had WAY more than us. A rich kid who lived on our street, named Tony, had a truckload of STAR WARS toys and a HUGE house to play with them in. His parents didn't seem to mind that there were X-Wings and Millenium Falcons and action figures strewn all over the house, garage and back yard! My mother, on the other hand, demanded that we keep our own toys neatly tucked away when we weren't playing with them. I think there may be a reverse relationship working here, with the size of the house and the number of toys allowable in the house at any time. Rich kids get to have all the fun!!

[EllaJames]

I was definitely on the poor end. My Mum was a single-parent and had me when she was a teenager, so there was never a lot of money. She worked hard though, and she used to shop all year round for Christmas presents when things were on sale so I also got a decent amount of toys. I wasn't picky either though, I was one of those kids that would go to sleep cuddling books rather than stuffed animals.
I think I'm more envious of people around me now, than when I was a kid. I go to a very expensive University and I pay for it on my own. I've had to work my whole way through, and it's hard to see other people take for granted all of the money that their parents throw at them (most of the people at my school come from wealthy families). And I'm envious of the fact that some of those people have better grades than me (hence they are the ones in the running for the scholarships that I need) because I'm dead-tired from working all of the time. Luckily I did get a substantial scholarship this year and a bursury, so I don't have to work as much, yay!

[grayhank]

My dad was a disabled veteran who fought in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. My mom was the typical stay at home mom with two kids at the time and did not have any work experience. When dad became disabled he could not work and for some reason was not getting any benefits from the VA. Which meant that Mom had to be the bread winner. I believe she started working as a bank teller. My father was raised to believe that the man works and the woman stays home with the kids. He could never get passed the idea of his wife bringing in the money and he became quite the abusive alcoholic and had a gambling problem. When he wasn't at the bar or horsetrack he was alone in the basement drinking. Mom wasn't allowed to socialize with her coworkers and always had to come straight home from work. My father began to become delusional and would accuse her of cheating on him if she was the slightest bit late coming home. Fun times.

My mother eventually started working for the government and climbed her way to the upper echelons. My older brother and I lived through the poorer period when our family was on welfare, food stamps etc. My younger brother & sister (twins) grew up when Mom was making a hearty wage and Dad's VA benefits had kicked in. There's a 10 year age gap between myself and my younger siblings. It's funny to hear them talking about their childhood, almost like they were raised by entirely different parents than me and my older brother.

My parents had divorced sometime after me and my older brother had left home, so the younger two were not as exposed to my father's alcoholism, they believed he was a saint up until he died.

[HardyGirl]

Very interesting thread..
Perhaps one of the bests to date

Thanks T1! (Hey, got any pics w/ you driving your car?)

[Wee67]

Reading the posts here, I'm reminded how much "poor" is a relative term.

By the time I was 15 we had moved 13 times. Short explanation is that my father rolled when I was 4 and mother, having married at age 17, had to quickly adjust the vision she had of being a housewife in suburbia.We would just get by for about a year before raising rents would force us to the next apartment.

It gave me a bit of an interesting perspective, however. When we lived in the rowhomes of West Philly, we lived in what most would consider a poor neighborhood- apartments with sheets for windows, saw my first murder in 4th grade, etc. But when we'd get enough money to move to the "poor" section of the suburbs, I thought I was living with rich people. There was grass in the courtyards and we had a creek nearby. Others might have considered it a poor section, but for me it was Shangra La.

[palitoy]

Raised by two high school drop outs who started their own business out of their apartment, we went from poor to lower middle class to middle class to just slightly upper during my childhood.

When I was 12 or 13, I got a lot of flack from neighbourhood Dads who had good jobs at factories or with the town (where you can never get fired) especially about my Dad's newly purchased Cadillac (which was used, of course) and how "it must be nice".

If my dad did come home off the road on weekends, we would be put to work in the warehouse to help him with orders. They also worked well into the night most weekdays. Saturday morning cartoons were often watched next to the sleeping carcass of my dad, tie still on, his first, unfinished drink on the coffee table.

To many in the neighbourhood, my parents were to be resented, it's something that never sat well with me. Some people want to see others fail.