How wealthy was your family?
 

Describe your lifestyle during your formative years. Did you live in a mansion, with servants, and summer on the riviera? Did you live in a row home in an urban setting, attend public school, and vacation was running through illegally opened fire hydrants? Or was it somewhere between?

My father was a teacher, before teachers made good money. When I was 30, I made more than he did, at 60. We lived in a twin (semi-detatched) home. My siblings and I went through public school, private school was out of the question, and my parents could only pay for my first year of college. Our vacations were camping trips to the Jersey shore. My parents could supply me with what I needed, but not a whole lot more.

I always thought we were "poor." Almost all my friends had more stuff than me. Everything I wore was second hand. We drank powdered milk and didn't eat much meat back when it was a financial thing not a health thing. But in hindsight, I realize my parents were scrimping and saving. They seem well off to me now, and my old friends' parents seem stuck in a lower income lifestyle with a bunch of stupid toys. Big screen tvs in a dump of a house, etc.

Ugh. Powd...:vomitblu: ...dered milk, and lotsa pasta and casseroles.

well-to-do California WASPs. Well educated--Both parents graduated from college in the 1930s. Brought up in what is now known as Silicon Valley (before the "silicon" got there) in Atherton, Hillsborough, Palo Alto, some of the richest real estate in the country. Dad was a construction company exec (think--freeways--California); mom in later years did commercial real estate managment. They invested heavily in Mexico and lost a lot of money in the 70s when the Mexican peso was devalued.

Not "yacht on the Riviera" rich, but--Country club; private schools; new Cadillacs or Lincolns every 2 years; live-in housekeepers; second home in Mexico; dress for dinner every evening with the good china and silverware.

My entire adult life I don't think I've ever even owned a dining room table.

Lower middle class all the way. I'm actually much better off than my folks were, and I'm still lower middle class, in the grand scheme of things. We struggle from paycheck to paycheck, but we have an awful lot of amenities and luxuries that my folks never would have even been realistically able to obtain.

When I was very young, five, six, seven years old, we actually had very little to eat many times, our lights got turned off a lot and we had constant threatening phone calls (back then, bill collectors would call and actually threaten you verbally - there really were no laws that dealt with how such things had to be handled). We lost one house to foreclosure. My father wasn't terribly keen on the 9-5 gig, so he was always flitting from one "big time opportunity" to the other, looking for the big score, and bringing home marginal money, when he got any at all. We were pretty reliant on my mom's folks when things got real bad, and I'm sure the financial BS was largely responsible for my parents' divorce when I was 10.

Things weren't a lot better when my mom married my stepdad. They both worked full time, so he wasn't afraid of steady work, but he was a totally insufferable asshole (we called him "Rick the Prick"), so despite the fact that we were more stable financially (although still firmly lower middle class-no new cars, no flashy stuff of any kind), it was still a crappy life for my mom.

Of course, as a kid, you are pretty self involved and oblivious, so I'm sure things were much, much worse than I was ever aware.

how 'bout you, Spexxvet? Since it's your question. And was there a particular reason you want to know?

[threasdjack] interesting that you bring class into it, Elspode. How would you view the dividing lines between the classes? Are class and wealth the same thing, or just related? What do you call the class below "middle class" here? Is that also the "working class" as in the UK, or does working have a more positive overtone here? [/threadjack]

Post #2

American ideas of class are so different than in the UK; I'm not even sure the ideas translate. "Class" and "working class" don't have the same connotations.

Elspode says "lower middle class"; I would say "upper middle class" for me. Such a wide spectrum. Class here is much more based on wealth, but they are not precisely the same thing.

oh, yeah. but do you think that has real bearing on our current lives? I've lived all my life as an adult from paycheck to paycheck. Funny, my parents neglected to give me any sort of financial education. They simply expected me to be supported by a husband.

Too bad.

We've been discussing "how much is enough?", "are you happy with your income?", etc., and I was wondering if there was a correlation between your experience with your parent's level of wealth and your perception as an adult. For instance, if you were raised privelaged, would you need more, as an adult, to feel that you have enough, and would you be more likely to be content with your current income? Just curious.

Grandparents of old money and upper crust (Yale - Skull & Bones) on Mom's side, 1st generation to go to college gets a Master's on Dad's side. And then Dad died when I was 3, Mom went into a sort of depression-era money tightness to protect us when her family did not really help out. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it felt like scratching for every last dime as she worked at making and selling artistic crafts. It's not exactly a high-paying situation, the craft world. This background of seeing rich and poor and having respect for the everyday art of the lower classes, made me a well-rounded child ready to examine the world, and I thank Mom for it.

For the first 5 years of my life, it was essentially just my mom and I. She eked out a living for us, with my grandparents assisting. There were a few times when we were two steps from the curb. My parents divorced before I was 2...my father was a piece of shit then as he is now.

My mom married my stepdad shortly before I turned 6, and had my brother just before I turned 7. We were essentially lower middle class...my mom was awful with money and my stepdad let her handle the bills. They declared bankruptcy twice growing up. My brother and I went to Catholic school, and there were a couple of times when we almost got thrown out for being late on the bills.

My parents are generally better with their money now. They have a nice small house and two newer cars and seem to be able to make ends meet with money to put in savings. I had hoped not to make the mistakes they did, but essentially wound up following in their footsteps, filing for bankruptcy almost 3 years ago.

I dunno...being laid up due to my heart condition 2 years ago really put a lot of things in perspective for me, and I've been trying valiantly to put into practice what I learned from my (and others') missteps. I'm winning the battle, though it's tough. But that's alright, because I'm ornery by nature. :)

No, I don't think so necessarily, at least for me. You also have to take into account subsequent life experiences. For instance--time spent living in third world countries, military service, being on one's own--I think that your upbringing is just one factor.

I never knew how much money my father makes, and I honestly still don't know. He's very secretive about money. I know how much the city says his house is worth, but I also know that the neighborhood has skyrocketed since they bought the place when I was three. I know it got a lot harder for him when my parents divorced, and he was suddenly paying for everything himself. He did a really good job of keeping it secret, though--the only time he ever let anything slip was one time I added shampoo to the grocery list and he said, "Do you really need this?" and I just stared at him blankly and he quickly moved on.

As an adult I learned that he had taken some pretty significant loans from friends, and was just at that point in the stages of paying them off. But he made sure we did okay in the end--my overall impression was we were just getting by, through insanely responsible money handling. I remember multiple lectures on financial responsibility. We took vacations, but always with frequent flier miles and free hotel stays from his extensive work traveling. I had a job starting at 15, so at that point I was paying for almost all my own clothing and entertainment desires. I went to college on a full scholarship, holding anywhere from one to three jobs at a time. During college he would occasionally ask if I needed any money, but I had such a huge sense of pride that I always turned him down. I also never cashed my grandmother's $5 birthday checks every year, starting around the age of 10. I was aware that she was "poor," living in a nasty house way out in the country, and felt uncomfortable taking her money.

Exactly. That's why I was asking Els his perception after using that term. :)

I agree

My mother and father were still in college when they got married and had me, so money was very tight (like food stamps tight) back then. Things got somewhat better after they finished school--my parents were able to purchase an old Victorian-style house and renovate it slowly. I'd say my family was not quite middle-class financially, but being involved in the art world, we got to enjoy the upper-crustier cultural and social side, too. We had an old used car and grass wouldn't grow on our lawn, but the fancy benefit art shows and parties at the mayor's house balanced it out. ;)

They started out poor- my dad married a woman with 4 kids. But he worked his way up the ranks in the military until we became middle class. We traveled more than most in the middle-class. I think my head is still spinning from all that movement...Daddy was a Col. in the Air Force. It really doesn't matter how rich you are when you spend your life on military bases. It's really quite drab no matter what. Now he's a Director of the Southern Branches for a prominent health insurance firm. I think they all retire into the same company. I'm pretty sure I met some of those guys while they were still in the military. Well- I know I did.......But I still ate just as much Ramen and mayonnaise sandwiches as everyone else....I think.

*Yes it is ironic that my father is a supposed healthcare provider. Well seems a little ironic right now......I'll get over it.*

Three phases: When I was a very wee tike (almost too young to remember), mom and dad made furniture out of cardboard boxes, and we had a 13" black and white wheelie TV. Mom stayed at home and dad was NCO range enlisted, so not too much cash.

When I was elementary school-age we'd just started to get comfortable middle-middle class. Then dad retired from the AF and started going to school, so we started watching money more. Not as bad as cardboard boxes, but we did stay with my grandparents for a few months, rented their house for super cheap, and then moved into a double wide trailer. It was a nice double wide, but it was a trailer nonetheless.

Finally my dad got his PhD, my mom's 100 person telecommunications company exploded to reach out to most of the midwest and got a promotion (and stocks to include). So like 3 months before I left for college, they built their own house. Now they have a new car, large TV, they jet around the country, take cruises and go skiing/canoing/camping every friggin weekend.

And you wish they'd give it all up and live on the farm, right? ;)

No, I just wish it happened sooner so I could have had a big screen in HS. ;)

some of it may have to do with how old and established in their own lives parents are when they have kids. I was the baby, many years after my sisters, and my parents were in their 40s when I was born. So, more money. Whereas I had my own kids young, and we were poor as dirt.

I felt like we were, but we were not. What we did have was community standing, so I think people treated us like we were wealthy. My dad was teacher all his life, by the time I was born he had been the High School principal for a number of years and that is how I knew him. We lived on the main street of a suburb city of Chicago. So everyone knew where we lived. Modest truely a middle class home of the time. We were solidly middle class. One car family til my dad became the Superintendent for the school system. Things went on like that til I was ten. Who knows what happened but things unravelled a bit around then and he took another job as a principal on the East coast, Long Is. NY, and another, his last, in NJ. He left education about then and never looked back. We remained middle class in income with quite a few bumps to some economic lows. I have had the most economic success of all of my family members. I attribute it to nothing more than making some early firm career choices and sticking to them, followed by a few more career choices that required personal sacrifice and the commitment to go back to college for an advanced degree. Another correct choice. I was lucky.

Military housing until the end of the war (WW II).
Followed by a free standing one car garage with an outhouse, cold water pitcher pump and wood stove, for a year.
Then they built a cinder block kitchen and toilet & shower closet, into a side hill, and moved the garage on top. Outside stairs and stone steps, to go up and down.
When I was 8, Pop and my uncles built a cellar and capped it to live in for two years, until the house got built.

Lived the first three years of my life in the upper level of my grandparents' house. Then moved to a 'double', or semi-detached in a seedy but not dangerous neighborhood. Drank powdered (lumpy!) milk and ate not much. My father shot rabbits to help with the groceries. Later my father's income went up and we moved to a detached house; unfortunately at that point my mother's compulsive spending threw our finances into disarray with more downs than ups.

My parents didn't contribute any money to my college education; I was the first in my extended family to go to college and they didn't see it as a 'given' or a 'must' (only I saw it that way). Lived in the same pair of jeans for twelve years and ate, again, not much.

Now that we have a very good family income I still never feel secure. I budget and scrimp and save and worry, no matter what.

Grew up very poor. There were times my parents didn't eat so my brother and I could.

How wealthy was your family?...Huh?
 

This will probably sound like a Victor Hugo or James Joyce story...But as Bill Murray said..."That's the facts, Jack!"

My parents divorced and I was put in an orphanage at the age of 5 or so...Was there a while and met the reign of the original Sister Mary Discipline ...Goddamn ruler hurts on the knuckles.....more on the ass.....Read every book in the school library....then went to two foster homes working on farms in the Appalachian Mountains...More of a hired hand than any part of a family...Milked cows...slaughtered pigs....killed lots of snakes.... chased chickens, ducks and geese.... Rode horses (still bow legged)(But, I could ride any horse)....Was somewhat incorrigible....got in trouble with the law....Minor stuff...But as a result was shipped out to Father Flanagan's Boys Home at Boys Town, Nebraska at the tender age of 12.

Graduated High School at the age of 17... Was still considered a minor and therefore a ward of the court....had enough of discipline and structure and took off on my own with no money and no plan. Dodging the authorities....Till I turned 18...

Went to Ohio State for a while....(met my wife there)...Then had to decide, school....Or I could eat regular.....but not both.....Dropped out of school.....immediately drafted..spent a year in Viet-Nam...grew up a lot...aged even more....

Came home with an attitude and a lot of pent up anger....Got into some fights....Got many jobs....Did income taxes....sold window film and solar heaters....Real estate....water softeners...air freight...Dining Guides....lots of crap...

Then two things happened...my son was born and I got a job with the best Fire Department in the US.....(Phoenix of course)

That was over 30 years ago and I am still here...same house for 37 years...same wife for 39 years.....

So, I guess it's true..Life is what you make it.

When I hear Tony Bennett sing "Rags To Riches", I figure it must be for me.....

My family were poor by today's standards, and still reasonably poor by the standards of the day. I remember getting our telephone, and our first fridge freezer - prior to that it was the callbox on the corner and a larder fridge with a tiny icebox.

We didn't have a car when I lived at home, and hired one to go on holiday - although we went every year it was always camping and never at a time when the weather was really suitable as the prices were too high on those weeks.

My parents cooked "real" food - making their own chips, breading their own fish, lots of casseroles with cheaper cuts of meat and mince (ground) beef that had to have the fat skimmed off it a couple of times before use. We always had enough to eat, but towards the end of the month the choices would diminish - cheese or ham for sandwiches, no crisps (chips) with packed lunch, a biscuit (cookie) wrapped in foil rather than a chocolate biscuit bar.

Both my parents worked, and worked shifts, so there was always someone home, when we woke up, when we came home for lunch, when we got home from school. It was a great way to grow up.

We went to the cinema about once a year - it was a big treat. We saved all our pocket money after Christmas for our holiday, so we could buy seaside tat, postcards and ice cream. We only ever went out to dinner when family visited (and paid for it) and we always packed our own food when we went anywhere, rather than eating at the concessions. I envied the children eating burgers and drinking out of waxed paper cups with straws - we'd be sharing a limp sandwich and a warm lemonade.

I remember my first visit to McDonalds and I wondered about the fact our burgers were in paper, as were our fries, when other people had burgers in polysterene boxes and cardboard. I silently concluded that we'd had to buy the cheapest option, although it was probably more to do with portion size than money.

I was definitely speaking from the American notion of class. We don't have peerage or royal lineage in this country, so class separations are pretty much entirely based on wealth. To say that we were lower middle class could be summarized, say, like this: We owned our own home (after a couple of years of renting). We had two cars, never even close to new, but not total beaters, either. I had my own car when I turned 16 purchased with my own funds from my jobs which I started working at 15. We ate very simply, oftentimes creamed chipped beef on toast or potato pancakes for dinner. No one ate breakfast, lunch was sandwiches. Desserts, such as ice cream, were rare treats. We had one television, black and white, until 1973, when we bought our first color set, a shelf demo on clearance. We did not take vacations or attend society functions. The most expensive Christmas present I *ever* got probably cost $10 in those days. I bought my own bicycles with my own money. My stepdad fixed our cars or took them to people he knew would barter his skills for theirs even up. We didn't pay for auto service of any kind. Clothing came from the cheapest possible outlet, and hand me downs from my better off relatives were common.

Does this clear it up at all?

We lived very frugally, but my parents were saving up so they could help us kids through college and beyond.

The factories in my area closed down in the late '70's and '80's. Mom had 5 heart attacks in 3 years. Dad lost an eye in an accident. Dad did the best he could, considering that everyone else was scrounging for work, too. He travelled to set up circus tents. He stood in line for government cheese (got it home to find it moldy). He worked a whole winter for a farmer who was also broke, but paid him in meat. He did odd jobs when he could find them. We ate a lot of cabbage soup.

I didn't know we were poor until I was old enough to put all the pieces together. One Christmas a couple of families from the church bought an insane amount of presents for the whole family, broke into our house while we were gone, and left a note from santa. The same group also made contact with the bank and brought the mortgage current. It was never in danger of foreclosure, but it was rolling late.

I was 27 when I made more than he had ever made in his life. I threw up when I found out that I paid more for a car than he'd paid for the house I grew up in.

Mom was a teacher for 35+ years, mostly first grade and kindergarten, but she taught everything up to 8th grade at one time or another. Dad sold fishing tackle most of the time. (He's still doing the janitor job--I think he's going to hang it up after Christmas, but I wouldn't be surprised if he stays on a while longer.)

I would say we were solidly middle middle class. Nothing much fancy, and there were times money was tight, especially the early 1980s. Mom worked nights & weekends at Sears for a time during this period. It very straightforward--I'm sure things were very tight for it to get to that point, but of course they never confided their money concerns with the kids. We certainly didn't get everything we wanted, but there were usually nice Christmas gifts and such. (Santa Claus always managed to omit some gifts... looking back with a parent's eye, I see that they were the ones with lots of "extras" to be bought later--more action figures, more expansion units, etc.) While my mom also perpetrated the powdered milk on us (yum!), there was never any perception on my part that we were skimping on groceries.

Getting through those lean times was surely helped by the house--a 3 bedroom ranch, they bought it new in 1964 I believe, for $20,000, and paid for it with a 6% 20-year mortgage. I'm sure by 1980 the payments seemed relatively modest.

We weren't wealthy, but we weren't poor either. Mum and Dad always had enough to pay the bills and they paid off the family home by the time I was a teenager. Dad worked hard and did plenty of overtime as an electrician. Mum stayed home and took care of us kids and the house etc. We used to go on camping holidays and saw most of Australia that way as kids but everything was done on a tight budget.

Now my dad would be classed as wealthy by most people's standards although you wouldn't know it to look at his lifestyle. He grows his own veges etc and is pretty self sufficient on his farm and he has a reasonable number of investments which guarantee him a pretty secure retirement.

I'm glad my folks didn't splurge on stuff we didn't really need, even though as a kid I always felt like we (me and my brother) were hard done by. It's good to see your parents living with enough to keep themselves happy and to not have to worry about them, and it also taught me some pretty valuable lessons although I know my lifestyle is far less frugal than my parents would like.

Lower-upper-middle class?
Military dad, mom works partly-full time. Military pays for our house, electricity, water, school, etc here, which is good. Very little spending money, our cash is usually pretty tight, but we do have a lot of, well, stuff. We each have a laptop, we have a pretty nice widescreen LCD TV, i have a nice guitar and a nice amp, a decent allowance... we're pretty well-off i suppose, but like i said, actual spending money is usually pretty tight. I think we come out thissss close to overspending every month, usually only have a little bit of a surplus every month... but I'm not exactly in charge of home finance of anything.

I always thought my parents did it tough.

Well, they did....I have 3 older siblings (I am the baby by 9 years) and there is not even a year between each of them. Dad was a farm hand, Mum was a SAHM and used to help cook for shearers etc.

When we moved into the *city*, Mum started working full time and I guess things got better, but I wouldnt of known it.

It appears my parents were very frugal, I lacked a lot of niceties, but not necessities. They always paid their bills in advance and there was always money if we needed it. They owned their house and land quite quickly.

Mum never impulse bought and I was never treated to anything when we were out shopping. She made my school uniforms and special occasion outfits.

When I wanted my first horse, I had to earnthe cash by milking the neighboring farms cows and raising poddie calves.

I didnt have a saddle until I could afford to buy it, well, actually....a rich Uncle helped there.

My parents still act like they do it tough, but I help out enough with their finances to know they are very comfortable and I admire them for the way they live.

Has it influenced the way I live now? Not me, but I see it in my youngest brother...hes very much a hoarder and frugal type person.

Lower class. Dad was 17, Mom 15 when they married - had three kids by ages of 19 & 20! Dad was a "rolling stone". Always a small cheap rent house, we did eat out at a local cafe a couple times a month. Dad always had money for a 6 or 12 pack after work, and more on the week-ends, though. And almost always money to go camping for a week in Arkansas or Missouri for a summer vacation. Never were really hungry and without food.
I do have one painful memory...in 8th grade, one kinda snobby upper class girl asked me, around several other kids while walking out of a classroom, "So are those the only two dresses you own?! (One was obviously from the previous year and being outgrown fast.) Another girl quickly leaned over and quietly said that that remark had been mean and out of line, but that was little consolation at the time.
But....Dad spent the money on other things, I had just a few motorcycle T shirts and a couple pair of second hand jeans for a wardrobe, but I also had a brand new Honda CL 125 for my 13th birthday in 1973! It was all I had asked for and I begged for it for two years, and got it. My brother had a sponsor, moto-cross racing and I rode his bike around the house, but you could get your motorcycle license at 13 in Arkansas. I had wheels and was on the road!
What was the question...?...on yeah...lower class.....

the joke of this thread, explained
 

_____: My family was sooo wealthy!

Spexx: How wealthy were they?

_____: They were sooo wealthy that it invalidates all my opinions in any discussion about economics!

As we have gotten older, my brother and I have figure out that we were poorer than we thought. My dad was a firefighter and retired making $26,000/yr from the city. However, as most firefighters do, he had a side business. Some years were wonderful. Some, not so much. He had one side that went bankrupt, but always seemed to rebound. I remember times when my mom would be upset from collection calls, but we never lost a house or car. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. It was a choice my parents decided they would stick to no matter what. My parents did have a friend who owned a temp agency and mom would work for him from time to time. She was actually very sought after by everyone she ever worked for due to her office skills. Very bright woman.

There were times that there was barely any food in the house, but we would only realize that later in life. My parents once created a dish they called b.o.a.r (beef, onions, and rice) because that was all that was in the cabinets. Our house was always fun and my brother and I never really thought about money. There were many things we did not get because may parents could not afford it, but we always had what we needed.

I have to give my parents a ton of credit. They might have been strapped at times, but it never stopped them from being wonderful parents and keeping our family happy.

Come here - I'll invalidate your mouth with my dick.

Spexx, you say the sweetest things.

Spexx, you have an invalid dick?

Dude, they have medicine for that now. Don't worry, if it works for Bob Dole, who's partly paralyzed, I'm sure it will work for you too..

I would say my family had a fairly working-class income. Dad was a maintenance electrician, working nights for 25 years (prior to that he had a failed attempt at setting up a vacuum repair business with his mate). He was pretty well paid, but he worked long hours for it and was basically nocturnal. Mum worked in admin then started Nursing college when I was 7. She injured her back and had to give it up a few weeks before her finals. She ended up back in admin, part-time for a few years then trained as a phlebotomist and again worked part-time.

In some ways my life was more comfortable than my peers: mum and dad owned their house and it was a nice little stone cottage, with two living rooms and big kitchen, a yard and a small garden at front. Always had nice Christmas pressies (which my mum would finish paying for shortly before the next ones were due :P) and had regular pocket money. But we rarely went on holiday (maybe four or five times by the time I was 15) and it was usually just a week in a caravan in Yorkshire.

We intermittently had a car (cheap, second hand) and I think I was about 6 when we got a phone.

Mostly what I remember is a fairly priveleged existence where i had everything i needed and some of what I wanted. What I didn't notice at the time was mum making food stretch :P Mince and onion pies made with half mincemeat, half soya. Lots of spagh bol, broth, and curries. Most meals were of the big pot variety, or involved a pastry crust. As a 'special treat', Sundays usually involved slices of cheese and onion pie and a plate of meat paste sandwiches. It of course never occurred to me that this was a very cheap treat:P

Culturally I had a foot in two camps. Dad was from a well-to-do family of the Indian Raj, and his brother and cousins had done quite well (graduates, professionals, business-people) and visits to them introduced me to that culture. Mum had grown up in Salford, and though her family had recovered itself by the time she was in her early teens, her early years were in extreme poverty. She made sure that my brother and I understood what poverty can mean to people.

thanks, Els.

That about sums up mine too, SG. My mum's family were wealthier, but they wisely did not subsidize my parents. When they died, my mum quickly pissed away her inheritance. Good job I'm not relying on getting it one day!

I thought it was odd that I'm the only one who didn't say they were poor to middling when they were growing up.

I was poor as an adult, 'cause I didn't follow my sisters' footsteps and marry a rich lawyer.

But I'm the only one. And I was thinking about how abysmally lazy and sloppy I am. I'm sure that had something to do with it.

I didn't mean to imply that my family was poor to middling; we just lived a more frugal lifestyle than we could have. Which is good, IMHO.

frugal is good, yep.

Oh, and in my answer, I didn't mean to imply that we were somehow unhappy. I had a very rich childhood, even though we didn't have a lot of money.

Plus, it's all extremely relative. We had tight times, but we were still very middle class, especially compared to some of the other experiences on here. I had friends in school whom I knew lived much more meagerly than I did, but it just wasn't a topic any of us really worried about one way or another.

Interesting reading. Thanks to all who posted.

Same here. Yes I sulked a little because there were some things I couldn't have (the Play-Doh Barbers Set comes to mind) but mostly what we didn't have made us closer. My sister and I had two stuffed toys called Monkey and Jerry (Monkey was my imaginative name - she was a monkey) and we played with them for hour upon hour. They went shopping, to the hairdressers, to school etc etc. And we certainly didn't need a "set" or accessories that cost £24.99 in order to make them real to us.

Also, I know it was crummy that my parents on some shifts didn't see eachother all that much, but it lead to such a balanced childhood parenting-wise. I grew up seeing a man do the sewing, cooking, cleaning, bathing etc. Also my Dad was slower to anger than my Mum, but actually had higher standards in he behaviour he expected. I wouldn't trade the hours I spent with him for all the toys and fast food in the world.

Yep, me too. With Dad being a nightworker he was usually the one at home when I finished school, especially once mum went to nursing college and had to do different shifts.

well, one thing I learned for sure growing up in a wealthy area was that money does not buy happiness. Often the richest families were the most fucked up.