It's easy when you grow up in a privileged environment to think that the way you live is how everyone lives. They don't know any better. The time comes, though, when they see how the real world actually is. The following people share their stories of how they found out they were living the good life and how it changed their lives.
(Content has been edited for clarity)
He Made His Maid Cry With His Kind Gesturee
“My mom organized a big birthday party for me at our country club and told me I could invite all the friends I wanted so we could play soccer all day. I made sure to invite all my friends and also decided to invite my maid’s son, a shy but friendly kid with whom I played with from time to time at home when the maid couldn’t find anyone to take care of him while she worked.
The kid was obviously very happy about the invitation and ran to tell his mom, who pretty much teared up and came to thank me. My mom was also very happy when she found out and made sure to pick up my maid and her son the day of the party since they wouldn’t have been able to afford transportation to the party either way.
To me, it was the first of many realizations of how lucky I am and how messed up the world/system is.”
Debt Free Is The Way To Be
“I didn’t realize how well off we were until I was applying for college. I got a scholarship that paid for 100% of my college in grants, minus my expected family contribution. I had grown up in a modest house with frugal parents, and I was shocked at the amount the school had calculated that we could afford. I talked with my parents and they said that paying that amount wouldn’t be an issue, and I wouldn’t have to take out any student loans.
That’s when I realized that frugal didn’t mean poor. Yes, we never ate out a lot when I was a kid, but as an adult, I rather prefer being student-debt free.”
The Big House Gave It Away
“I lived in a small apartment in a safe, but unfashionable and remote part of Brooklyn for the first 12 years of my life. I went to public school where many of my classmates were poor. We rarely went out to eat, and I rarely got new toys/clothes just because I asked for them.
However, my parents invested in my college fund, took me on nice vacations, and always made sure I had everything I needed. My mom made home cooked meals every day.
When we finally moved to a big house in the suburbs and I discovered that I was seen as a ‘rich’ kid due to the size of the house. It was a rather big shock. My parents’ frugal living for the first part of my life really didn’t make me think I was particularly well off.”
Working Hard To Get Nowhere
“When I started dating my ex, I realized how privileged I had been. She grew up on a reservation and was working two jobs to put herself through community college. I had coasted through life and was making four times what she made through two jobs.
I got to see how hard working she was and she still needed food stamps to make ends meet. She wasn’t lazy, she desperately wanted an education, yet she was constantly struggling.
That was the first year I voted for a Democrat.
All of my preconceptions about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps were rocked to the core. I realized I had so many more opportunities handed to me just because of my family and the people we knew.”
A Ball Gown To Some, Rags To Another
“My best friend and I were making our Catholic Communion and she refused to show anyone her dress. She went on and on about how it was so fancy and so expensive. She said her family had saved for months so she could have it, blah blah blah.
I never liked getting dressed up (proper tomboy that I was) I couldn’t understand why she was making such a huge to do over a stupid dress; my mother couldn’t get me to go shopping with her, so she just picked one up for me.
Communion day arrives, everyone tells me I’ve got a lovely dress on, I’m all, ‘It’s no big deal, just a dress, nothing fancy at all.’ Guess who came in wearing the exact same dress? That’s when I saw how much I take for granted and learned to appreciate stuff more.”
But Where Is Our Chauffeur?
“I grew up in a city with a lot of rich people so I was one of the poorer kids at school. My mom loves telling people the story of how I came home from a friend’s house and asked if we were poor. I thought we were poor because we didn’t have a chauffeur. We had two maids living with us but my mother had to drive her own car like a peasant! The kids I went to school with had maids, chauffeurs, tutors, and gardeners all living in the servant’s section of their house. We only had two rooms for servants in our house so we must have been destitute!
I then moved to Australia where I met people who thought their family having money was something to show off about. They would take me to their huge houses, show off their fancy cars and all the latest consoles. I met one guy from a very wealthy family who invited me to his house while the cleaner was there. I was chatting to the cleaner and asked her where her room was, she laughed and said this family doesn’t have enough money for a live-in maid.
It weirded my friend out because I was quiet for a while. I realized that my parents had a load of money and gave me all the best things, they just didn’t feel the need to spend it excessively. If I wanted a new game I had to ‘earn’ it by getting good grades. They wouldn’t buy me a car because we had access to excellent public transport. They didn’t hire a chauffeur because they both knew how to drive. I didn’t get every little thing I asked for because they wanted to be my parents, not a vending machine. I also realized it is NOT normal to argue with your family about which major world city you will all meet in for Christmas, having still not decided by the 15th of December. Someone had to explain to me that ads for cheap tickets aren’t scams, that I was so used to paying last-minute prices that starting prices looked ridiculous.
I’m kind of glad that my parents let me think we were an average family, but sometimes I feel like a jerk when I realize how much I took for granted.”
What Do You Do When No One Expects Anything From You?
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“I didn’t realize how privileged I had been until I was over 40. I didn’t have a typical privileged childhood. I didn’t get new things during the year but received lots of gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I had a mentally unstable parent and money got tighter as I hit my teen years. I was given a car but had to work for fuel, insurance, new clothes, spending money, etc. Our house and furniture were not nearly as nice as what my friends had.
Over the last year, I’ve gotten to know quite a few of the low-income teens who live in my community. Most live in the part of town where shootings are not unusual, most have no father in the home and many live in public housing. In my community, most of these kids are minorities.
I look back now and think of what I did have: parents who wanted to know where I was and what I was doing, never had to worry about food or clothing, always had decent shoes to wear to school.
Most importantly, I had parents, teachers, school administrators who expected me to do something with my life. I was talking to a kid not long ago. He’s a senior, athlete, decent grades, good kid. Not one person has had a conversation with him about college or tech school. It’s like no one expects him to overcome poverty.
There is no standard definition for the privilege. One might think they’ve been dealt a crap hand, but often there are many who would love to have what you have.”
Garbage Everywhere And Trash Bags For Suitcases
“I realized how privileged my upbringing was when I made a friend who grew up in a literal hoarder’s home and had never been outside our state before. She told me garbage covered the floor of her and her sister’s bedroom and she didn’t know there was carpet until the house got foreclosed and they had to move out. Regular vacations and a clean home were expected in my life.
She also wore shoes until they were literally falling apart. My sneaker-obsessed coworker and I bought her some really nice sneakers and she was so happy she cried! Luckily, my parents taught me to be thankful and generous and when she was able to get scholarships for a study abroad program, I gave her a suitcase of mine because she was planning to use trash bags. I felt sick to my stomach when she told me that. I’d had friends with less money than my family but her life was so different that it really hit home for me that a lot of other people genuinely struggle with so many things I take for granted. My parents aren’t necessarily rich but they are very good with money and live below their means.
She is doing amazing by the way! Her hard work at several internships has allowed her to get a job before she graduated and now she is saving up to buy a car! I’m so happy for her.”
A Privileged Divorce
“My friends always talked about their parents having messy divorces. I never really understood. My parents just fell out of love, moved on. Then when I got older, I realized they had a prenup so there wasn’t anything they could really even have fought over.
Another one would probably be how even after their divorce my mom continued to be a stay at home parent because she made enough from child and spousal support to comfortably support my sister and me who lived with her 98% of the time as well as herself while not working and rescuing dogs on the side. I also didn’t realize until I was in university that a lot of kids have to pay their own way and take out loans to be able to go to post-secondary school. Meanwhile, I was on a full ride academic scholarship while getting to keep the money from my university fund my parents set up.”
Finding The Positive Side
“Pretty recently I reflected on the life that I’ve led and could see how fortunate I am to have had the childhood that I had.
My parents told me they loved me regularly.
My parents were both employed for most of my childhood. My dad developed a severe drinking problem when I was a teenager and lost his job. However, my family managed to stay in our house throughout his unemployment.
When I was working a garbage job, my dad got me an interview with the company that he worked for. Without a college degree in 2012, I got a job making $40k a year. I’ve since earned my keep at the company and surpassed my father’s position. I still would not have been able to have gotten this job without him being my father.
When I decided to go to college last year, I was told that I had been left about $30k in an education fund by my grandparents. So when I graduate, I will graduate with no student loan debt.
My family certainly had its issues with a lot of abuse, mental illness, and a whole slew of other stuff. However, I can’t complain too much. I’ve come to realize that I’ve lived a life of such privilege, that I have no right to not be thankful for anything that comes along.”
Rich In Experience
“I realized pretty early on how privileged I was. As a child, I was so angry at my parents because they wouldn’t buy me Nikes and I had to wear clothes that my cousins wore before me. They also refused to buy a TV, meaning I could never watch the cartoons like all the other kids at school. I could never eat the cool cereals in the morning like the other kids. I didn’t get a Gameboy either. I felt like an outcast partly because of all this (it certainly gave the other kids reasons to pick on me).
But probably around the age of 9-10, I realized my parents were doing this on purpose, both to give me a better education and to save up for better things. They pushed me to learn an instrument, which they paid for (the instrument itself, but also the classes in a prestigious music school and camps in the summer). They also made me travel, brought me and my siblings to the beach, to hike in the mountains, etc, every summer. They fed us good quality food all the time. Most of all, my dad taught me German even though we were living in France and making me speak German required exceptional persistence on his part.
I realized what separated me from a lot of the other kids were actually things that made my life a lot richer, and experiences that would forge me in a much deeper way.
So I guess I was privileged, not so much money-wise, my parents were paying off the house and we didn’t have a ton of money for my first 15 years, some months money must have even been really tight in hindsight, but more in terms of the education and experiences they got me to live.”
Walking a Mile In The Less Fortunate’s Shoes
“I never truly realized the extent of my privilege and upbringing until my mother passed away during my senior year of college.
She paid for school out of pocket and paid for all of my bills. She gave me $800 a month for all other expenses, all so that I could spend the entirety of my time on my school work. She would tell me that getting straight As would help me out later in life more than bagging groceries for 20 hours a week. This led me to have a lot of free time for extracurriculars that buffed my resume.
I had a 4.0 for the majority of college but dropped significantly when I waited tables my senior year to support myself. I still graduated with a high GPA and was an appealing applicant for graduate schools.
My Masters experience showed me how much more difficult it is to be an exceptional student if you’re working 50 hours a week and stressing about money.”
It’s All About Trust
“It took me a while to realize my childhood was privileged. Not in the traditional upper-middle-class-without-realizing-it sense. I’ve known that my family wasn’t hurting for money since about middle school. However, I didn’t realize that I was privileged in another sense: my family, extended family, teachers, and other adults in my community were by and large trustworthy, dependable, and well-adjusted. I had grown up accustomed to trusting other people by default, rather than viewing trust as something that’s built over time and negotiated through a relationship with a specific person.
As a result, I was pretty naive entering college. I took people at face value and didn’t realize that a significant number of people are duplicitous, malicious or otherwise untrustworthy. I got scammed out of money a few times and learned my lesson.
More broadly, I came to realize that a lot of seemingly well-intentioned people are simply not trustworthy for one reason or another. You can’t rely on them to do what they say they’ll do, and not because they’re lying about wanting to do it, but because they’re distracted and they forget about it or are simply not capable of doing it.
Essentially, my privilege was having this innate security that came from trusting nearly all the adults in my life reflexively. I never had to think about whether someone could be trusted; I just assumed the best about everyone and never had to learn otherwise until I had grown up.”
No One’s There For Jake
“In middle school, I realized how privileged I was. After my first ever football game both my parents and grandparents were there and filmed the game on a camcorder we had.
My best friend Jake, who is still my best friend, had no one come to watch him play. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where Jake’s parents were. That was the day I learned about divorce and parents having to work multiple jobs because Jake’s mom was in jail and Jake’s dad didn’t finish high school and had to work multiple jobs that didn’t pay well.
It was quite the wakeup call for a 13-year-old kid who grew up in the suburbs, had parents who were still married and both have postgraduate degrees. Who basically only bad stuff happened to when he was an idiot and didn’t listen to his parents.”
The Boy Cried As He Described His Life
“I lived in New England most of my life. I moved to very, very rural Tennessee. I realized it in 8th grade when we had to make parachutes and a container to protect the egg from when we dropped it off the roof.
We decided we’d get a soccer ball, fill it with packing peanuts and other stuff. My group (of three people, me included) looked at me and asked where we could get that stuff.
I said, ‘I can just have my mom buy it?’ They sat there silently and agreed. I went to pick them up later and go to Walmart. They quietly sat there, obviously embarrassed, and followed us around the store.
We grabbed pizza and wings on the way out. After person 1 and my mom got inside, the boy on my team began to cry. He asked me about my family, and told me about his life with food stamps, living in a two-bedroom trailer way out of town (no way to get there but to drive) with four people living there, how his parents had to go without basics so he could play soccer.
It really changed my perspective, so I did all the work on the project and just lied to them until it was time for them to go home.
Our egg smashed everywhere.”
Recognizing Your Privilege
“I went to college on an honors scholarship. Not quite a full ride but almost, and neither I nor my family had to take out any loans. I was really, really proud of getting that scholarship and was in a program at school for other folks who had the scholarship; we got access to higher level classes, we got first pick of courses, etc. I got to talking to other folks who were in the program with me and began to see patterns in our backgrounds.
We got the scholarship because we were smart, well-rounded kids who worked hard and did well in school, but unlike some folks who received other scholarships or grants, none of us were self-made. We chose to take advantage of opportunities that had been handed to us all of our lives, whether it be through travel, extracurricular activities, continuing education, unpaid internships, etc. While I was a hard worker, the things I worked hard at were luxuries. Lots of kids didn’t go to STEM summer camps or sleepaway camp. Lots of kids didn’t get to have resume-building unpaid internships in high school because they had to work paid jobs to save for college or help with bills. Lots of kids never got the opportunity to learn another language or go outside the States. Lots of kids didn’t get their parents’ help with homework because their parents were working or didn’t have the education themselves. Lots of kids never got music lessons or sports lessons. It was really jarring. I never saw myself as THAT privileged because we didn’t go on fancy vacations or eat at fancy restaurants or drive fancy cars or get large gifts for holidays, but it wasn’t that my family didn’t have money and resources, they just chose to allocate it differently than I imagined ‘rich’ families would.”