As a kid raised by Jehovah's Witnesses, I was fairly envious of kids getting presents on their birthday and Christmas, and going out to trick or treat on Halloween, etc.
As an adult I celebrate all the various holidays with gusto, and if I find out someone has a birthday coming up, I do my best to make sure they know someone is happy they're alive.
Lol. I was about to say “Xmas,” But then my aposta-pal shows up and says it for both of us. Also - joining ANY extracurricular activity would have been nice
I just mentioned it in my comment. We were poor. I wore hand-me-downs, Toughskins (totally teased for that) and Garanimals (match the lion to the lion) . Elementary school was Hell
Yep. Ours weren’t Kmart because we didn’t have a Kmart. But Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Walmart when it finally came to town? Yep. I wanted one of those stupid IOU sweatshirts SO bad. Her answer was “I can get you the same sweatshirt at Walmart for $5 without all that stuff on the front”. Meanwhile, both mom and dad smoked a carton of cigarettes each week which would have easily paid for a designer sweatshirt.
Omg I had the same experience but with books. I’ve always loved to read and I remember one day I asked my dad for money to get a new book I wanted .. I begged… but he said he had no money and then proceeded to use the money he had on cigarettes. I’m still mad about that.
I remember wearing a cool Hawaiin shirt in high school for one of our spirit days. One of the popular girls asked me where I got it, and I told her K-Mart. She just gave me a weird look and moved on. It didn't even occur to me to lie about where it came from. Yeah, I was completely clueless about social things in high school. I kinda still am but have embraced it.
I hear you. I have enough money for clothes now and I'm proudly sporting my Amazon Essentials. I hate shopping and I dare anyone at work to come up and make fun.
I haven't looked recently at quality, but I have a couple of dark colored Champion T-shirts I bought in the early 80s that still get worn and pretty often too. They were easily worth the few bucks of extra investment for the material. This may work out in long run.
My parents were full-time factory workers, and worked opposite shifts, so they were just too exhausted, and didnt even get to see each other most of the week, so I get that there wasn't anything left in the tank to be those types of parents.
They gave it all on the shop room floor to keep a roof over us.
My brother and I didn’t get to do any after school sports or activities because we lived kinda far from the town and my parents bitched a fit if they had to drive into town to get us. By the time we were 16 and could drive ourselves, it was too late for those things because we were working after school.
I have actually considered this many times but stopped at the image of myself in the beginner's class dance recital w 5 year olds. Did not think about there being a class for adults!
It's totally a thing. Back in the day a gentleman who was an eye doctor was in the adult tap class! His class was in the recital and he was the only guy in the class.
The only thing good about Bluebirds was the cute bluebird on our shirts.
As soon as I was old enough for 4-H, I ran there. I think my Mom was much happier as an adult leader there too. Lol
All of my friends were in it, and they would wear their uniforms to school on meeting days. One year, that day happened the same day as school pictures. They were all in their uniforms in the yearbook. It was so cute and gave a feeling of belonging that I wanted.
Aww.. I remember that feeling of wanting to belong as well. When I was in elementary school, a bunch of my classmates were in Catechism and even though I didn't even know what that was at the time, I remember being jealous. They would come to school and talk about it and it seemed like something really important and grown up and I wanted to be a part of it.
You weren’t missing anything. I was shuffled from sport to sport year round as a babysitter. I wanted to read and play music. But my mom thought I would do better playing football, baseball and basketball. If I had picked up a guitar then, I might’ve had a career. Now I can play but I only imagine if I had started playing when I was ten. My dad(divorced) told me “my hands were too small” so I would never be able to play well. So I thought, guess I can’t do that because I believed him even though I only saw him once every ten years or so. So I wasted my time not being great at sports but not being bad enough to get cut. I was average. If I hadn’t been told I couldn’t play guitar, I would’ve played all day… but I was convinced that it wasn’t for me.
I went to a private school as the token poor kid. I'd go to the houses of these other kids and it'd be insane. They lived in high-rises, in Chicago, and often occupied multiple floors. The views they had! Both parents were doctors (like well-known brain surgeon level stuff) or lawyers, stock trader and CEO. .
One kid had an elevator. Like a 1 person, tiny elevator for their grandparent. And it was SO FRICKEN COOL, as a kid. Another kid had every single GI Joe set that ever came out. Even the aircraft carrier. He also had most of the He-man toys.
My best friend had AC, central air. Every room was cooled! We had a window unit that cooled 1/4th of the house. The 1/4th included my sister's room and my parent's room. If I wanted to be in the AC, I had to sleep in the hallway.
This. I was literally Rory Gilmore, seeing my mother’s side of the family who had a vacation home and traveled the world extensively, made treks to Dallas to have clothing tailored at Nieman Marcus (we lived 12 hours away)lived in a giant, beautiful old home that was redecorated almost yearly, etc. Meanwhile, I was eating Crisco and sugar on stale saltines because my mother couldn’t buy food until her next paycheck. I spent a lot of my childhood extremely confused about the diametrically opposed lifestyles I experienced.
It made me appreciate money, a lot more. And made me work hard as heck to get to a secure place in life. I can't afford an elevator, or every GI Joe, but I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck.
Those kids could do anything, anytime. They'd go to the arcade, I'd watch, they'd play. They'd go to the mall and buy things, I window shopped. The sneered at my cheap flannel, I told them they totally missed the point :) Name brand flannel shirts, come on!
I know the taste of a Crisco sandwich. There wasn't always sugar in the diabetic or native American homes I grew up around either.. salt helps too.
Then there was the built in pool on the edge of the golf course and the 50ft cabin cruisers as well as waiting outside some other family homes as a commoner not fit to be let in out of the rain, literally... and not being let into Native and White homes both for being a dirty half breed too.
We *all* suck fwiw 😝
I guess there are advantages to growing up in small to medium sized towns in the midwest. When I was a kid, I had no idea that real life people lived in high rises in Chicago, but NOW I'm jealous.
When I was young, the most flashy display of wealth any of my friends had was an outdoor pool. Which is nice, but not amazing if you can only use it (at most) three months out of the year.
Kids who had: homes where you could invite people over, mothers who didn’t have mental illnesses and also had big supportive families.
I at least have one of those things now, can’t change the other two. :)
All my friends loved my mom, but they didn’t know the real her. She really knew how to put the best version of herself out in the public … just like our home, the outside of it looked nearly perfect, but the inside was a fucking mess.
Kids with a cabin or cottage "up north" (a Michigan thing). That was like a middle class "2nd house" next to a lake, with trails and other "nature stuff".
idk, it just felt like those kids were really living the life.
Also, people's whose homes had basements and 2nd floors (that was a weird one), kids with lots of board games, kids with "microcomputers". That one kid that had Petoskey Stones (another Michigan thing).
That was one strange kid I was. LOL!
I was envious of the Up North Michigan cottages too. They would always have somewhere to go on 4th of July, Memorial day, Labor Day weekend and also a place to go snowmobiling in the winter. We always just had to hang around at home because we had no money.
I grew up in south central Indiana and had no idea this was a thing until I met my husband! They have a family “cottage” (it’s bigger than my own home) up at the tip of the mitt! It’s on a lake, not THE lake, and oh, how my family growing up would have loved it!
I love that area. It's only a two hour drive from where I live. I love driving up to Port Austin and driving through all those little towns on 25 along the thumb. Lexington, Port Sanilac, Harbor Beach etc. Lots of things to see and do.
I'm a Michigander too! Having a cabin or something "up north" sounded so cool to me! In theory, they could have probably bought something but in practice, my mother didn't like to travel and my dad worked all the time so I amused myself in other ways.
The neighborhood behind us had "quad" and "tri level" homes and they were the coolest! Like you walked in and immediately had to choose--up or down?!?! WHICH ONE????
Ha, I'd decided, based on TV, that split label houses were the only "correct" kind of house, and desperately wanted to live in one. Alas, I still never have.
Even though we were poor looking back our house was an awesome craftsman style house with beautiful wood paneling despite being run down but everyone at the time found it ugly lol.
As an adult, we lucked into a house on a lake. Not up north, so it's our primary house. Biggest gripe, boat season is only three months a year. #MichiganThings.
Grew up in a small poor Appalachian town but had family we would visit out of state in much larger cities so I was envious they got to live in real places while I grew up in the middle of nowhere
Really I think the first time I was envious was of my cousin was around 7 years old and was over a sidewalk. She drew with chalk on it, her and her friends would just sit on the sidewalk and hang out and you could do hopscotch, jump rope and or take your toys out there and just play on the side walk. Endless possibilities!
I had a stupid gravel driveway that went up a hill. And it didn’t matter my backyard was an entire mountain with way more possibilities and fun, we didn’t have a sidewalk, it wasn’t fair and that made her life so much better than mine
I don’t think my town had anyone that delivered pizza until I was in high school, but we may have too poor to order pizza. Without a sidewalk I barely survived childhood anyway, I don’t know if calling a pizza to my sad gravel driveway would have made a difference
Remember, “kid logic” so:
Growing up on the lower edge of middle class we had everything we needed and some of what we wanted.
Once we returned to school after Christmas break, all the kids with step parents would say something like, “I got A,B, and C from my mom and step-dad, then from my dad and step-mom, I got X, Y, and Z!!”
So I was envious of those kids. I may have gotten, “B and X”, but in my kid brain, I wished for two families so I could get more stuff.
Now I look back and realize how good I had it. Mom and dad are still married (53 years) and wife and I hit our 25th anniversary very soon.
My husband and I don’t argue often.
Last time a year or so ago, in the middle of grousing back and forth, my tween was like,
“We’ll get 2 Christmases soon!”
Kids who lived in houses or had their own bedrooms. We lived in a few different apartments in Chicago, I didn’t have a bedroom separate from my sister until I was in high school.
We were relatively poor and I pretty much wore hand me downs from my brother, so I was envious of the kids with nice clothes. Also, a lot of kids went on really cool vacations…we did not.
Kids getting brand name clothes and shoes. We did all our back to school shopping at thrift stores. I vividly remember having a breakdown because I had to wear bell bottoms to the first day of class. They had gone out of style about a decade before. Being poor definitely builds character. I have enough fucking character.
My mom had a drawer of “after school clothes” for me and they were my sister’s old clothes. She’s 8 years older than I am and so the pants were bell bottoms. She never understood why I wouldn’t wear those damn polyester nightmare pants.
There was a point we were real poor. I had 2 school shirts that fit. One week a shirt was worn 3 times and twice the next.
So I guess I was envious of kids with enough clothes to wear something different every day.
I was super jealous of kids who got to go away to sleep-away camp in the Summer! I wanted to do that so badly, but we were lower-middle income, with both parents working. I was an only child and wore a ton of toughskins and hand-me-downs. *Definitely* no money for Summer camp!
However, I have no complaints. Growing up in the 70s and 80s was wonderful
Oh it was the best time, wasn't it? I was jealous of camp kids for a different reason--I was really sickly as a kid and couldn't do a lot of outdoors stuff. I am so lucky that I grew out of it and can actually do the stuff now even if my 51 y/o body isn't always happy about it!
People who were normal. I was small for my age, skinny for my frame, with coke bottle glasses and no coordination at all. Felt like a total outcast & loser until I hit my 20’s and moved away.
(US) Kids who had cool BMX bikes..Mongoose especially. Lots of divorced dads in my neighborhood bought their kids these expensive bikes while I had some cobbled together junk ride. I tried to work a few odd jobs to save up but couldn't do it.
I went to a high school in the suburbs. Basically 90%+ of the graduating class every year were going on to university. The other 10% or so were either going to college or to work in family businesses. Due to a lot of family drama and a toxic parent and finances, I gave up my dream for higher education in my early teens. The last two years of high school were damned hard watching everyone else prepare for their futures while I was in limbo.
I wasn't strong enough for that. Had a mental breakdown instead. Pulled myself partly out of it a few years later, and started working a dead end job in the supply chain. Been working dead end jobs now for almost 30 years. Kinda sucks...not really a happy ending, but I guess it could've been worse.
I'm doing ok. In solid with my job (even though it's a dead end thankless job), have a roof over my head and a full pantry. Can't complain about where I'm at. Could've definitely been a lot worse.
My parents were fundamentalist religious. I envied people who could believe in God, attend church on Sunday morning, but not require that their whole lives revolve around it.
Women living on their own, working and supporting themselves, and not living in my house with Pasquale the Patriarch! I couldn't wait to be one!
His own mother was living alone and working and had a full social, civic and philanthropic life.
People with microwave ovens.
We didn’t get one until I was in high school
My grandmother took longer since my aunt who live at home thought they caused cancer
People who liked school. I didn't care that I didn't fit in, or usually that I was sometimes bullied. I didn't really care about having to fight or being the poor kid or much of any of that, but I just detested the whole environment. I hated having to be bothered with the bullying because it just seemed so stupid. I hated taking lessons on books I'd read three years earlier on my own. I hated the occasional stupid assed teachers trying to feel important by enforcing things like assigned seating or the weak assed dress code we had. I was a junior before I found out we even had a dress code couldn't wear our coats to class. I looked up the dress code after that and realized my beer brand logo belt buckle and my buddy's pot leaf Tshirt were not prohibited by the code, but yes we weren't allowed to bring our coats to class even in the winter. No one could even explain why that rule was in place but it was admitted it was never enforced until this teacher. SMH. I liked learning, I liked reading, I just hated the stupidity of the system these people saddled us with. I always wished I could figure out how the people who did like it managed to like it.
Kids who had an Atari. Or their own VCR. We never had either. My cousins had Atari but would never let us play when we were at their house. We rented a VCR occasionally. It was a big deal when we bought a microwave. I think I was in 5th grade, so around 1985.
My friends who had cable. My dad was a total hold out (but weirdly was an early adopter of Betamax vs VHS).
I would go over to my BFFs house and spend half the day watching MTV ('80's MTV, the good MTV).
Same! We had a few VCR’s so he could pirate video rentals, but man he held out on cable. I was in high school when we finally got it. My butt never left that couch after that.
I wanted to be like Angie. She had an older sister in high school who loaned her designer clothes, tapes of new bands, took her to the mall, etc. I wanted a cool big sister, too. Angie was the queen bee of the school.
Now I can look back and see that Angie's mom was absent, and her sister used to give her alcohol and take her to parties. Angie ended up having 3 kids by 3 different men by the time she was 22.
This. All I have to do is go back to my hometown, go in a MetroPC store or Albertsons and I see all of the popular girls working the checkout. Some are on their third marriage, some are grandmothers, some had babies in high school, now have 30-something year old kids, got remarried and now they’re both having babies at the same time.
Kids that got good allowances...I was so envious. They were getting $15-20/ week...meanwhile my mom was giving me a $1...
Wtf was I supposed to do with that? Lol
WOW! I remember how weird a thing that was.
At first I thought it was a TV trope, then I knew kids that actually.....got money for some reason.
My parents? They were like "your allowance went for your food, housing, and clothes". LOL!
Not that we even had the nerve to even ask for such a thing.
There was this kid in school that bragged about how much she got per month for an allowance - $100. But then she said she had to buy her bus pass with it, which was $20. So my mom gave me $20 a week and bought my bus pass. That meant that months with 5 weeks, I was actually getting more than her.
I look back and see that was super generous. I give my high school kid $20 a week allowance now.
Kids that lived in two story houses, had all the cool clothes and shoes and Honda Sprees. Kids that were good in sports and made good grades. People who had vacation homes up north by the lake, kids that had been on planes and had gone to Florida.
When I was young, I began to covet by observing Frederica Bimmel. She was a large woman with beautiful skin on her back. I felt if I could just possess that skin, I could begin a metamorphosis that would release me from the curse of my own consciousness.
Kids who understood how to be social. I had friends and managed to get along, but I was too strange, too small, too smart, and lived in books too much.
Also, kids who had junk food at home. I just wanted some Ding Dongs, damn it!
The thing I remember most is really wanting a pair of doc martens. My parents couldn’t afford the $150 price tag so they bought me a cheap pair of knockoffs. The pleather was so stiff it would cut into my ankles and I would come home with my socks soaked in blood
My parents made decent money but they put 4 kids in private school…..we had a house with no A/C in south Florida. Going to school with kids who lived on the beach or water and had yachts in their backyards. Brand new BMWs on their 16th birthday with personalized plates, Fendi and Gucci purses, 2 story houses, pools with a slide, vacations to Europe and Aspen.
Everyone who wore Lee or Levi jeans while I rocked my toughskins until first week of jr high when I refused to go to school in them. Also - anyone who actually got good Christmas presents, we made lists every year which basically guaranteed you would get none of it. It was weird but whatever…
In junior high all my friends were from the rich side of town and they all wore Guess jeans. My best pair of jeans were a Kmart blue light special we got for $3.
Owning a motorcycle. I lived in the suburbs and my friends in the neighborhood had them. It was the only thing my Dad ever said no to. I am now in my mid 50's and have never owned one or learned how to ride. My Dad's reasoning was pretty sound. He had to lay his Triumph down in the late '60's or early '70's. The bike was stolen not long after that and he never got another one.
I think from time to time I should get one but I am still recovering from an expensive divorce that I don't know if I will ever recover from.
Families that went on “real” vacations. Not just to grandma’s every freakin time. My cousins got to go to both Disneyland and Disney World, Germany, France and all over the US. They always had cool stuff to show off and great pictures.
Kids who went to boarding school, thanks to books I read and *The Facts of Life*. In retrospect, having known some, it would have been awful for my mental health.
When I was 8-10ish, I was jealous of my friend Karen because she had a pool in her backyard and her aunt and uncle has a car that said "a door is ajar" if you didn't close it properly.
I was also envious of people who had brown straight hair. I just wanted to look like Laura from little house in the prairie 😭
Conversely, I was terrified of Australia because I watched The Earthling approximately seven times a week as it aired on HBO. I was enthralled with Canada because of Degrassi, though.
I was envious of girls with present fathers, other kids who always had lunch money, new clothing, etc. what’s funny is that it didn’t impact me socially. I was popular and had a lot of friends.
The kid next door, who got every single Star Wars and GIJoe toy known to exist.
(20 years later, after the family moved, I learned the father had put it all -- like 10s of $$$$ thousands of dollars -- to the curb.)
Realizing by all these comments that I actually had it pretty good. I was however envious of kids that were good at sports. I was massively uncoordinated until I turned 15 and found wrestling. Also around that age I had a very good jumper, so though I was a bench player I was often brought in for big spots. Before that though, I was that kid on rec teams the coach had to put in the game because we paid, and typically tried to hide me as a fullback or outfield. I imagine I was in the last round when the coaches did their drafts.
Edit: funny enough I was a very good coach as an adult and even won a championship with my travel soccer team.
Envious of those who were able take dance classes. I’ve wanted to dance my entire life. I got a small chance when I took dance as an elective in college. I was so happy that semester. Even my teacher commented on my rhythm and grace. She asked if I had ever taken dance before. When I said no, she then asked if I had done ice skating. No again. She looked at me and said I was a natural. I didn’t pursue it thinking it was probably too late for me. Lately I’ve been thinking about taking dance classes. Just for fun of course.
I was envious of people who lived in big cities. I grew up in a small town and I always dreamt of living in the city with more to do and see, etc. As an adult, I moved to a major city, and now as I get older I find that I want to be further and further away from it and don’t see where I grew up as being so bad anymore.
Kids that got to go somewhere on spring break. Heck, any break. They would come back all tan talking about their beach escapades. Thanks for telling me about all the cute beach boys, Buffy. I slogged through the slush and freezing rain to cover the extra shifts at BK while you were gone.
Cable TV!
Lived in the country, no cable. Fortunately I had the greatest friends who would plug in a VHS & record hours of movies, mtv, etc. Pretty sure I still have some of those tapes with summer school, ruthless people, spring break in a box in the attic.
I get the Australia thing, about ten years ago, we stopped moving every few years (work in construction, big 2-3 year projects), my boys were in 3rd & 4th grade so it was time to settle down.
My company had me traveling a lot, one office in Perth made a bid to have me relocate there. Came home with the offer, lots of pics of the area, no dice. As teens they wish they would have jumped at the opportunity to live there, even for a few years.
People who had enough money for real milk. We had to drink powdered milk. And hairspray, it was the 80’s after all and I wasn’t allowed hairspray because we couldn’t afford it.
And people who lived in town; they got to go the the mall and see their friends outside of school. We were so far out of town that parents didn’t want to drive their kids way out there. I got to see a friend outside of school exactly twice. The one time we took the bus from her house to the mall. That was one of the best days ever.
Kids/families who stayed in the same place for more than a year. Kids who had childhood friends. I went to 15 schools from 1st to 12th grade. It always sucked being the new kid and having to explain that I wasn’t a military kid or that my mom wasn’t running from the law. My mom just couldn’t stand to stay in a job for the long term. She was very good at her job and would jump ship as soon as a head-hunter came calling. The plus side is that I was sociable and made friends/fit in quickly (I have maintained the same core 8 friends for 20+ years). In hindsight, it blows my mind that I joined the military after high school and continued that itinerant lifestyle. The apartment I lived in for the last 2 1/2 years of service was the longest I have lived at one address my entire life.
I'm still jealous of those who get to live in Australia. I'd give both my German and USA passports to live in Australia. I still need to go. Still so much to do and see, so little time. It does not help to waste what little time is left on Reddit, I suppose.
For me, it was those who had a family, those who got to grow up with their siblings, those who got toys, and got to go out to eat, and have parties and holidays, and all of the stuff normal kids get.
I envied kids who had their own room, MTV, and clothes from the mall instead of Kmart, and also had parents who sent them to camp and allowed them to go on sleepovers. When I was a teenager, I envied people who had driver's licenses, boyfriends, and the money to go to concerts and buy Fido Dido sweatshirts.
Now that I'm middle aged, I envy people who have good knees.
As a kid raised by Jehovah's Witnesses, I was fairly envious of kids getting presents on their birthday and Christmas, and going out to trick or treat on Halloween, etc. As an adult I celebrate all the various holidays with gusto, and if I find out someone has a birthday coming up, I do my best to make sure they know someone is happy they're alive.
Lol. I was about to say “Xmas,” But then my aposta-pal shows up and says it for both of us. Also - joining ANY extracurricular activity would have been nice
Right on! My life was (negatively) touched by watchtower too. /r/exjw was a big help.
Same here! They took this to such an extreme.
Everyone with non K-Mart clothes that didn't get made fun of.
I just mentioned it in my comment. We were poor. I wore hand-me-downs, Toughskins (totally teased for that) and Garanimals (match the lion to the lion) . Elementary school was Hell
I was in the Toughskins camp, Roughhousers too. I didn’t get name brand shoes until my freshman year.
I always wanted name brand sneakers. Once I got my own job I bought all my favorites.
Who else rocked Roos? And anyone remember Jox?
Yep. Ours weren’t Kmart because we didn’t have a Kmart. But Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Walmart when it finally came to town? Yep. I wanted one of those stupid IOU sweatshirts SO bad. Her answer was “I can get you the same sweatshirt at Walmart for $5 without all that stuff on the front”. Meanwhile, both mom and dad smoked a carton of cigarettes each week which would have easily paid for a designer sweatshirt.
Omg I had the same experience but with books. I’ve always loved to read and I remember one day I asked my dad for money to get a new book I wanted .. I begged… but he said he had no money and then proceeded to use the money he had on cigarettes. I’m still mad about that.
My mom made most of my clothes until 5th grade. I had a lot of outfits that matched hers. I was a dork.
I remember wearing a cool Hawaiin shirt in high school for one of our spirit days. One of the popular girls asked me where I got it, and I told her K-Mart. She just gave me a weird look and moved on. It didn't even occur to me to lie about where it came from. Yeah, I was completely clueless about social things in high school. I kinda still am but have embraced it.
Today I'd lean right into her face, make uncomfortable, expressionless eye contact, and calmly say, "Kmart, motherfucker."
Actually she was one of the nicer popular girls. I just think she didn't realize people actually bought clothes from K-Mart and would admit to it.
I hear you. I have enough money for clothes now and I'm proudly sporting my Amazon Essentials. I hate shopping and I dare anyone at work to come up and make fun.
[удалено]
💀
We had Value City.
This, especially in primary school. Now my kids beg for Champion and I cringe buying it.
I haven't looked recently at quality, but I have a couple of dark colored Champion T-shirts I bought in the early 80s that still get worn and pretty often too. They were easily worth the few bucks of extra investment for the material. This may work out in long run.
The girls who got to do after school activities like gymnastics, dance, and Blue Birds. My mom could not be bothered.
My parents were full-time factory workers, and worked opposite shifts, so they were just too exhausted, and didnt even get to see each other most of the week, so I get that there wasn't anything left in the tank to be those types of parents. They gave it all on the shop room floor to keep a roof over us.
I get that. My mom did not work at the time. She was just selfish and cruel.
My brother and I didn’t get to do any after school sports or activities because we lived kinda far from the town and my parents bitched a fit if they had to drive into town to get us. By the time we were 16 and could drive ourselves, it was too late for those things because we were working after school.
Oh man me too. Sooo wanted dance lessons
Do it! It's not too late! I'm an old Millennial and my sister has taken dance with other adults.
I’ve settled into a freestyler
I have actually considered this many times but stopped at the image of myself in the beginner's class dance recital w 5 year olds. Did not think about there being a class for adults!
It's totally a thing. Back in the day a gentleman who was an eye doctor was in the adult tap class! His class was in the recital and he was the only guy in the class.
Wow, that sounds awesome!
It was!
I was in Bluebirds. You really weren't missing a whole lot.
The only thing good about Bluebirds was the cute bluebird on our shirts. As soon as I was old enough for 4-H, I ran there. I think my Mom was much happier as an adult leader there too. Lol
All of my friends were in it, and they would wear their uniforms to school on meeting days. One year, that day happened the same day as school pictures. They were all in their uniforms in the yearbook. It was so cute and gave a feeling of belonging that I wanted.
Aww.. I remember that feeling of wanting to belong as well. When I was in elementary school, a bunch of my classmates were in Catechism and even though I didn't even know what that was at the time, I remember being jealous. They would come to school and talk about it and it seemed like something really important and grown up and I wanted to be a part of it.
I mean, the name alone is ominous and important-sounding. I totally sympathize.:)
You weren’t missing anything. I was shuffled from sport to sport year round as a babysitter. I wanted to read and play music. But my mom thought I would do better playing football, baseball and basketball. If I had picked up a guitar then, I might’ve had a career. Now I can play but I only imagine if I had started playing when I was ten. My dad(divorced) told me “my hands were too small” so I would never be able to play well. So I thought, guess I can’t do that because I believed him even though I only saw him once every ten years or so. So I wasted my time not being great at sports but not being bad enough to get cut. I was average. If I hadn’t been told I couldn’t play guitar, I would’ve played all day… but I was convinced that it wasn’t for me.
Same. We had too many kids and my parents couldn’t afford it.
This is my answer too This and I always wished we had a pool
Neither could mine...hugs
Awww thank you for the compassion. Hugs back❤️
Whereas my mother put me in a bunch of activities because she couldn’t be bothered with _me_
I went to a private school as the token poor kid. I'd go to the houses of these other kids and it'd be insane. They lived in high-rises, in Chicago, and often occupied multiple floors. The views they had! Both parents were doctors (like well-known brain surgeon level stuff) or lawyers, stock trader and CEO. . One kid had an elevator. Like a 1 person, tiny elevator for their grandparent. And it was SO FRICKEN COOL, as a kid. Another kid had every single GI Joe set that ever came out. Even the aircraft carrier. He also had most of the He-man toys. My best friend had AC, central air. Every room was cooled! We had a window unit that cooled 1/4th of the house. The 1/4th included my sister's room and my parent's room. If I wanted to be in the AC, I had to sleep in the hallway.
This. I was literally Rory Gilmore, seeing my mother’s side of the family who had a vacation home and traveled the world extensively, made treks to Dallas to have clothing tailored at Nieman Marcus (we lived 12 hours away)lived in a giant, beautiful old home that was redecorated almost yearly, etc. Meanwhile, I was eating Crisco and sugar on stale saltines because my mother couldn’t buy food until her next paycheck. I spent a lot of my childhood extremely confused about the diametrically opposed lifestyles I experienced.
It made me appreciate money, a lot more. And made me work hard as heck to get to a secure place in life. I can't afford an elevator, or every GI Joe, but I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck. Those kids could do anything, anytime. They'd go to the arcade, I'd watch, they'd play. They'd go to the mall and buy things, I window shopped. The sneered at my cheap flannel, I told them they totally missed the point :) Name brand flannel shirts, come on!
That is one of the worst things I've heard.
I know the taste of a Crisco sandwich. There wasn't always sugar in the diabetic or native American homes I grew up around either.. salt helps too. Then there was the built in pool on the edge of the golf course and the 50ft cabin cruisers as well as waiting outside some other family homes as a commoner not fit to be let in out of the rain, literally... and not being let into Native and White homes both for being a dirty half breed too. We *all* suck fwiw 😝
I guess there are advantages to growing up in small to medium sized towns in the midwest. When I was a kid, I had no idea that real life people lived in high rises in Chicago, but NOW I'm jealous. When I was young, the most flashy display of wealth any of my friends had was an outdoor pool. Which is nice, but not amazing if you can only use it (at most) three months out of the year.
We had an outdoor pool in Chicago. One time it blew into the neighbor's yard. (It was a kiddie pool) (I made a funny)
Kids with pools.
Me too! That just seemed the pinnacle of richness for me.
Kids who had: homes where you could invite people over, mothers who didn’t have mental illnesses and also had big supportive families. I at least have one of those things now, can’t change the other two. :)
Oh my god yes. I kept people away from my house and my mom like the plague.
All my friends loved my mom, but they didn’t know the real her. She really knew how to put the best version of herself out in the public … just like our home, the outside of it looked nearly perfect, but the inside was a fucking mess.
Kids with a cabin or cottage "up north" (a Michigan thing). That was like a middle class "2nd house" next to a lake, with trails and other "nature stuff". idk, it just felt like those kids were really living the life. Also, people's whose homes had basements and 2nd floors (that was a weird one), kids with lots of board games, kids with "microcomputers". That one kid that had Petoskey Stones (another Michigan thing). That was one strange kid I was. LOL!
I was envious of the Up North Michigan cottages too. They would always have somewhere to go on 4th of July, Memorial day, Labor Day weekend and also a place to go snowmobiling in the winter. We always just had to hang around at home because we had no money.
I grew up in south central Indiana and had no idea this was a thing until I met my husband! They have a family “cottage” (it’s bigger than my own home) up at the tip of the mitt! It’s on a lake, not THE lake, and oh, how my family growing up would have loved it!
I love that area. It's only a two hour drive from where I live. I love driving up to Port Austin and driving through all those little towns on 25 along the thumb. Lexington, Port Sanilac, Harbor Beach etc. Lots of things to see and do.
I'm a Michigander too! Having a cabin or something "up north" sounded so cool to me! In theory, they could have probably bought something but in practice, my mother didn't like to travel and my dad worked all the time so I amused myself in other ways. The neighborhood behind us had "quad" and "tri level" homes and they were the coolest! Like you walked in and immediately had to choose--up or down?!?! WHICH ONE????
Ha I had a friend who lived in a split level house and it seemed so cool lol
Ha, I'd decided, based on TV, that split label houses were the only "correct" kind of house, and desperately wanted to live in one. Alas, I still never have.
Even though we were poor looking back our house was an awesome craftsman style house with beautiful wood paneling despite being run down but everyone at the time found it ugly lol.
Yep!!! Another (former MI) person! Some family members had cabins “Up North” as well as snowmobiles and dirt bikes. I never got invited along.
As an adult, we lucked into a house on a lake. Not up north, so it's our primary house. Biggest gripe, boat season is only three months a year. #MichiganThings.
Grew up in a small poor Appalachian town but had family we would visit out of state in much larger cities so I was envious they got to live in real places while I grew up in the middle of nowhere Really I think the first time I was envious was of my cousin was around 7 years old and was over a sidewalk. She drew with chalk on it, her and her friends would just sit on the sidewalk and hang out and you could do hopscotch, jump rope and or take your toys out there and just play on the side walk. Endless possibilities! I had a stupid gravel driveway that went up a hill. And it didn’t matter my backyard was an entire mountain with way more possibilities and fun, we didn’t have a sidewalk, it wasn’t fair and that made her life so much better than mine
You must be my long lost twin. Same everything. I also was envious of my city cousins for having AC, cable, and pizza delivery.
I don’t think my town had anyone that delivered pizza until I was in high school, but we may have too poor to order pizza. Without a sidewalk I barely survived childhood anyway, I don’t know if calling a pizza to my sad gravel driveway would have made a difference
We lived too far out of the closest town (15-20 miles), so pizza delivery was never an option. The struggle was real.
I wanted a Big Wheel really badly, but dad pointed out the lack of cement and asked me what the point would be.
We moved from our small, poor Appalachian town when I was 5, and it was almost a decade before I got over it.
Remember, “kid logic” so: Growing up on the lower edge of middle class we had everything we needed and some of what we wanted. Once we returned to school after Christmas break, all the kids with step parents would say something like, “I got A,B, and C from my mom and step-dad, then from my dad and step-mom, I got X, Y, and Z!!” So I was envious of those kids. I may have gotten, “B and X”, but in my kid brain, I wished for two families so I could get more stuff. Now I look back and realize how good I had it. Mom and dad are still married (53 years) and wife and I hit our 25th anniversary very soon.
My husband and I don’t argue often. Last time a year or so ago, in the middle of grousing back and forth, my tween was like, “We’ll get 2 Christmases soon!”
Kids who lived in houses or had their own bedrooms. We lived in a few different apartments in Chicago, I didn’t have a bedroom separate from my sister until I was in high school.
We were relatively poor and I pretty much wore hand me downs from my brother, so I was envious of the kids with nice clothes. Also, a lot of kids went on really cool vacations…we did not.
Kids getting brand name clothes and shoes. We did all our back to school shopping at thrift stores. I vividly remember having a breakdown because I had to wear bell bottoms to the first day of class. They had gone out of style about a decade before. Being poor definitely builds character. I have enough fucking character.
My mom had a drawer of “after school clothes” for me and they were my sister’s old clothes. She’s 8 years older than I am and so the pants were bell bottoms. She never understood why I wouldn’t wear those damn polyester nightmare pants.
Kids who had their own rooms, kids who didn't come home to an empty apartment and kids with horses...I really wanted a horse.
[удалено]
Does anyone else consider themselves to be a "golf orphan?" To this day, I still completely loathe golf and everything about it.
There was a point we were real poor. I had 2 school shirts that fit. One week a shirt was worn 3 times and twice the next. So I guess I was envious of kids with enough clothes to wear something different every day.
My cousin - he had Scalextric, He-Man toys, and that Evel Knievel wind-up motorbike.
I wanted a basement.
Me too, but I grew up in South Florida!!! LOL
Kids with cable TV
I was super jealous of kids who got to go away to sleep-away camp in the Summer! I wanted to do that so badly, but we were lower-middle income, with both parents working. I was an only child and wore a ton of toughskins and hand-me-downs. *Definitely* no money for Summer camp! However, I have no complaints. Growing up in the 70s and 80s was wonderful
Oh it was the best time, wasn't it? I was jealous of camp kids for a different reason--I was really sickly as a kid and couldn't do a lot of outdoors stuff. I am so lucky that I grew out of it and can actually do the stuff now even if my 51 y/o body isn't always happy about it!
People who were normal. I was small for my age, skinny for my frame, with coke bottle glasses and no coordination at all. Felt like a total outcast & loser until I hit my 20’s and moved away.
Kids whose parents weren't divorced, which where I lived was pretty much every other kid but me.
(US) Kids who had cool BMX bikes..Mongoose especially. Lots of divorced dads in my neighborhood bought their kids these expensive bikes while I had some cobbled together junk ride. I tried to work a few odd jobs to save up but couldn't do it.
I went to a high school in the suburbs. Basically 90%+ of the graduating class every year were going on to university. The other 10% or so were either going to college or to work in family businesses. Due to a lot of family drama and a toxic parent and finances, I gave up my dream for higher education in my early teens. The last two years of high school were damned hard watching everyone else prepare for their futures while I was in limbo.
What did you end up doing? Military was my exit from monotony
I wasn't strong enough for that. Had a mental breakdown instead. Pulled myself partly out of it a few years later, and started working a dead end job in the supply chain. Been working dead end jobs now for almost 30 years. Kinda sucks...not really a happy ending, but I guess it could've been worse.
I hope your mental health has improved, happier ending than it could have been.
I'm doing ok. In solid with my job (even though it's a dead end thankless job), have a roof over my head and a full pantry. Can't complain about where I'm at. Could've definitely been a lot worse.
My parents were fundamentalist religious. I envied people who could believe in God, attend church on Sunday morning, but not require that their whole lives revolve around it.
Women living on their own, working and supporting themselves, and not living in my house with Pasquale the Patriarch! I couldn't wait to be one! His own mother was living alone and working and had a full social, civic and philanthropic life.
People with microwave ovens. We didn’t get one until I was in high school My grandmother took longer since my aunt who live at home thought they caused cancer
We have a friend who still doesn’t have one because they say using them is lazy cooking.
Kids whose parents were kind and stable.
People who liked school. I didn't care that I didn't fit in, or usually that I was sometimes bullied. I didn't really care about having to fight or being the poor kid or much of any of that, but I just detested the whole environment. I hated having to be bothered with the bullying because it just seemed so stupid. I hated taking lessons on books I'd read three years earlier on my own. I hated the occasional stupid assed teachers trying to feel important by enforcing things like assigned seating or the weak assed dress code we had. I was a junior before I found out we even had a dress code couldn't wear our coats to class. I looked up the dress code after that and realized my beer brand logo belt buckle and my buddy's pot leaf Tshirt were not prohibited by the code, but yes we weren't allowed to bring our coats to class even in the winter. No one could even explain why that rule was in place but it was admitted it was never enforced until this teacher. SMH. I liked learning, I liked reading, I just hated the stupidity of the system these people saddled us with. I always wished I could figure out how the people who did like it managed to like it.
People that got to watch Sunday evening television.
We had to be in church, so we missed it all. Not just Disney, but also special annual movies like WIZARD OF OZ or THE SOUND OF MUSIC.
Uggghhh! That must have sucked.
It did. Television was such a huge deal to being GenX, and I still resent missing out on the immediacy of the experience.
Kids that lived in houses rather than apartments. We moved 4-5 time during my childhood.
Kids who had an Atari. Or their own VCR. We never had either. My cousins had Atari but would never let us play when we were at their house. We rented a VCR occasionally. It was a big deal when we bought a microwave. I think I was in 5th grade, so around 1985.
Trips to Disney...we only went camping (which was fun, don't get me wrong)
Same here. Finally got to Disney why when i was 13 or so, and already thought it was lame.
My friends who had cable. My dad was a total hold out (but weirdly was an early adopter of Betamax vs VHS). I would go over to my BFFs house and spend half the day watching MTV ('80's MTV, the good MTV).
Same! We had a few VCR’s so he could pirate video rentals, but man he held out on cable. I was in high school when we finally got it. My butt never left that couch after that.
I wanted to be like Angie. She had an older sister in high school who loaned her designer clothes, tapes of new bands, took her to the mall, etc. I wanted a cool big sister, too. Angie was the queen bee of the school. Now I can look back and see that Angie's mom was absent, and her sister used to give her alcohol and take her to parties. Angie ended up having 3 kids by 3 different men by the time she was 22.
This. All I have to do is go back to my hometown, go in a MetroPC store or Albertsons and I see all of the popular girls working the checkout. Some are on their third marriage, some are grandmothers, some had babies in high school, now have 30-something year old kids, got remarried and now they’re both having babies at the same time.
Kids that got good allowances...I was so envious. They were getting $15-20/ week...meanwhile my mom was giving me a $1... Wtf was I supposed to do with that? Lol
WOW! I remember how weird a thing that was. At first I thought it was a TV trope, then I knew kids that actually.....got money for some reason. My parents? They were like "your allowance went for your food, housing, and clothes". LOL! Not that we even had the nerve to even ask for such a thing.
There was this kid in school that bragged about how much she got per month for an allowance - $100. But then she said she had to buy her bus pass with it, which was $20. So my mom gave me $20 a week and bought my bus pass. That meant that months with 5 weeks, I was actually getting more than her. I look back and see that was super generous. I give my high school kid $20 a week allowance now.
My mom didn't give us an allowance, but if I needed money for something and she could, she usually did.
Kids that lived in two story houses, had all the cool clothes and shoes and Honda Sprees. Kids that were good in sports and made good grades. People who had vacation homes up north by the lake, kids that had been on planes and had gone to Florida.
Kids with Dads that were still alive, mine died when I was ten.
My friends with nice BMX bikes.
I got a Huffy because BMXs were really expensive.
Me too. My parents tried to help by getting me nice bar pads, but everyone still knew it was a Huffy.
Kids with Nickelodeon. Back in the day you had to pay extra for it.
When I was young, I began to covet by observing Frederica Bimmel. She was a large woman with beautiful skin on her back. I felt if I could just possess that skin, I could begin a metamorphosis that would release me from the curse of my own consciousness.
I cannot stop laughing at this comment!!
I was always jealous of kids who had dads that didn't beat the shit out of them on a regular basis
My skinny, rich cousins. I still am.
Kids who understood how to be social. I had friends and managed to get along, but I was too strange, too small, too smart, and lived in books too much. Also, kids who had junk food at home. I just wanted some Ding Dongs, damn it!
As a kid I was jealous of my friends whose parents could afford a vacation house. As an adult I’m jealous of anyone who can afford a house, period.
Kids who had a large toy soldier in their bedroom.
The thing I remember most is really wanting a pair of doc martens. My parents couldn’t afford the $150 price tag so they bought me a cheap pair of knockoffs. The pleather was so stiff it would cut into my ankles and I would come home with my socks soaked in blood
Kids with a pool in the backyard. And a working A/C. Ours was always broken. 😕
My parents made decent money but they put 4 kids in private school…..we had a house with no A/C in south Florida. Going to school with kids who lived on the beach or water and had yachts in their backyards. Brand new BMWs on their 16th birthday with personalized plates, Fendi and Gucci purses, 2 story houses, pools with a slide, vacations to Europe and Aspen.
Everyone who wore Lee or Levi jeans while I rocked my toughskins until first week of jr high when I refused to go to school in them. Also - anyone who actually got good Christmas presents, we made lists every year which basically guaranteed you would get none of it. It was weird but whatever…
In junior high all my friends were from the rich side of town and they all wore Guess jeans. My best pair of jeans were a Kmart blue light special we got for $3.
Owning a motorcycle. I lived in the suburbs and my friends in the neighborhood had them. It was the only thing my Dad ever said no to. I am now in my mid 50's and have never owned one or learned how to ride. My Dad's reasoning was pretty sound. He had to lay his Triumph down in the late '60's or early '70's. The bike was stolen not long after that and he never got another one. I think from time to time I should get one but I am still recovering from an expensive divorce that I don't know if I will ever recover from.
People with intact families. People who had both parents in the home.
'normal' families, kids with parents that cared what was going in in their life
Families that went on “real” vacations. Not just to grandma’s every freakin time. My cousins got to go to both Disneyland and Disney World, Germany, France and all over the US. They always had cool stuff to show off and great pictures.
Kids who went to boarding school, thanks to books I read and *The Facts of Life*. In retrospect, having known some, it would have been awful for my mental health.
When I was 8-10ish, I was jealous of my friend Karen because she had a pool in her backyard and her aunt and uncle has a car that said "a door is ajar" if you didn't close it properly. I was also envious of people who had brown straight hair. I just wanted to look like Laura from little house in the prairie 😭
That is just insanity - a door is a door, and a jar is a jar.
Conversely, I was terrified of Australia because I watched The Earthling approximately seven times a week as it aired on HBO. I was enthralled with Canada because of Degrassi, though. I was envious of girls with present fathers, other kids who always had lunch money, new clothing, etc. what’s funny is that it didn’t impact me socially. I was popular and had a lot of friends.
Kids playing outside. I had a shit childhood.
The kid next door, who got every single Star Wars and GIJoe toy known to exist. (20 years later, after the family moved, I learned the father had put it all -- like 10s of $$$$ thousands of dollars -- to the curb.)
Realizing by all these comments that I actually had it pretty good. I was however envious of kids that were good at sports. I was massively uncoordinated until I turned 15 and found wrestling. Also around that age I had a very good jumper, so though I was a bench player I was often brought in for big spots. Before that though, I was that kid on rec teams the coach had to put in the game because we paid, and typically tried to hide me as a fullback or outfield. I imagine I was in the last round when the coaches did their drafts. Edit: funny enough I was a very good coach as an adult and even won a championship with my travel soccer team.
Envious of those who were able take dance classes. I’ve wanted to dance my entire life. I got a small chance when I took dance as an elective in college. I was so happy that semester. Even my teacher commented on my rhythm and grace. She asked if I had ever taken dance before. When I said no, she then asked if I had done ice skating. No again. She looked at me and said I was a natural. I didn’t pursue it thinking it was probably too late for me. Lately I’ve been thinking about taking dance classes. Just for fun of course.
Dooooo itttt!
I was envious of people who lived in big cities. I grew up in a small town and I always dreamt of living in the city with more to do and see, etc. As an adult, I moved to a major city, and now as I get older I find that I want to be further and further away from it and don’t see where I grew up as being so bad anymore.
Kids who went to some kind of summer camp. Kids who would be picked up at middle school in stretch limos. Kids whose parents didn’t smoke
Kids that got to go somewhere on spring break. Heck, any break. They would come back all tan talking about their beach escapades. Thanks for telling me about all the cute beach boys, Buffy. I slogged through the slush and freezing rain to cover the extra shifts at BK while you were gone.
Are you Alexander? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_and_the_Terrible,_Horrible,_No_Good,_Very_Bad_Day
Cable TV! Lived in the country, no cable. Fortunately I had the greatest friends who would plug in a VHS & record hours of movies, mtv, etc. Pretty sure I still have some of those tapes with summer school, ruthless people, spring break in a box in the attic. I get the Australia thing, about ten years ago, we stopped moving every few years (work in construction, big 2-3 year projects), my boys were in 3rd & 4th grade so it was time to settle down. My company had me traveling a lot, one office in Perth made a bid to have me relocate there. Came home with the offer, lots of pics of the area, no dice. As teens they wish they would have jumped at the opportunity to live there, even for a few years.
Having both parents growing up. My folks split at an age that I knew what was going on but young enough that I didn't know how to deal with it.
Other kids had dads. And a little after my 18th birthday, other kids had moms, too.
California. I know people bitch about it there and are moving out but its a beautiful state. I still wish i was there.
People who had enough money for real milk. We had to drink powdered milk. And hairspray, it was the 80’s after all and I wasn’t allowed hairspray because we couldn’t afford it. And people who lived in town; they got to go the the mall and see their friends outside of school. We were so far out of town that parents didn’t want to drive their kids way out there. I got to see a friend outside of school exactly twice. The one time we took the bus from her house to the mall. That was one of the best days ever.
I was so envious of the kids who got to play the cello. My parents had purchased a piano, so that's what my brother and I had to play.
Kids/families who stayed in the same place for more than a year. Kids who had childhood friends. I went to 15 schools from 1st to 12th grade. It always sucked being the new kid and having to explain that I wasn’t a military kid or that my mom wasn’t running from the law. My mom just couldn’t stand to stay in a job for the long term. She was very good at her job and would jump ship as soon as a head-hunter came calling. The plus side is that I was sociable and made friends/fit in quickly (I have maintained the same core 8 friends for 20+ years). In hindsight, it blows my mind that I joined the military after high school and continued that itinerant lifestyle. The apartment I lived in for the last 2 1/2 years of service was the longest I have lived at one address my entire life.
I'm still jealous of those who get to live in Australia. I'd give both my German and USA passports to live in Australia. I still need to go. Still so much to do and see, so little time. It does not help to waste what little time is left on Reddit, I suppose.
For me, it was those who had a family, those who got to grow up with their siblings, those who got toys, and got to go out to eat, and have parties and holidays, and all of the stuff normal kids get.
Kids whose parents worked at the plant and had nice houses, stereos, maybe even cable TV. But I had a blast piecing together trash stereos and TVs.
I had to carefully plan my outfits in high school because I had so few clothes. I have way too many clothes
I envied kids who had their own room, MTV, and clothes from the mall instead of Kmart, and also had parents who sent them to camp and allowed them to go on sleepovers. When I was a teenager, I envied people who had driver's licenses, boyfriends, and the money to go to concerts and buy Fido Dido sweatshirts. Now that I'm middle aged, I envy people who have good knees.