When I was growing up, we were poor. I never knew until many years later that I had lived a “deprived childhood”. We ate things that I thought were extra special, never knowing that mom was fixing them because it was all we had. A few examples:[ul][li]Cocoa and buttered toast for breakfast.[/li]
Mom always made the cocoa from scratch – none of this Swiss Miss business. I always thought we must’ve been extra good when we were served cocoa and toast for breakfast. I’d dip the toast in the cocoa mug and fish out the bits that broke off with a teaspoon.
[li]Fresh strawberries dipped in the sugar bowl.[/li]
Sometimes for an afternoon snack, my mom would hand me and my buddies a basket of ripe strawberries and that wondrous, normally forbidden object of desire, the sugar bowl! We’d sit on the back porch, dipping the strawberries in sugar, rolling them around to get even more sugar on them, and eat them, pitching the stems into the flower bed.
[li]Often, for dessert, we’d have honey-n-butter. Each of us would get a bowl with some honey in it. We would then put a generous pat of butter in the bowl (actually, it was margarine – butter’s expensive) and mix it up until it looked kind of like spun honey. You’d spoon the mixture onto a piece of bread and eat it. Yum![/ul]So… does anyone else have similar experiences?[/li]
~~Baloo
Mom would chop up a little bit of vegetables into a packet of Ramen… I would suck that stuff right up, without any knowledge that was all she could afford to feed us for dinner.
I also had alot of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, but, hey, I thought it was because I liked them…
We weren’t terribly poor growing up, but my parents did have 3 kids by the time my Dad was 28 (and he was in the Army) so things were tight. When I was 2-7 we lived in Savannah, Georgia and there was a place where we could catch our own shrimp and crabs. I think I ate my weight in seafood every weekend while we were there. Then we moved to Germany, and seafood became a luxury. 
We did the cocoa and toast thing, too. I never thought of it as economical, but now that you mention it, I suppose it is. We ate lots of cinnamon toast, too. Mmmmmmm. And there was a place nearby where you could pick your own strawberries, we ate them with sugar, too.
It is so odd that children in those situation do not know they are poor. At least not until elementary school when all the other students will point it out to you. Bastards!
Anyway, back when I was like three, we lived in a motel for a few months. There was no stove or oven. We ate tuna fish and lots of sandwiches and other things that did not require a stove. But hey, if you put pretty hot water in a jar, add some ramen noodles and shake that bitch long enough, you get some good eatin noodles! My parents did an amazing job with what they had. I do not know how they did it. Now they own their own house, their three kids are all very successful and educated. My brother lives in a huge four bedroom house with a pool and the works and he drives a brand new car. I live in an upscale apartment complex in the rich part of the city. I drive an almost new car. They stuck with it, worked hard and things eventually got better. Everytime we moved, it was forward. Whenever we moved into a new house (always rented) it was a bigger nicer house.
Look what you did… now I am getting all teary-eyed. My parents fucking rule!
Anyway, I totally can relate to, "I never knew until many years later that I had lived a ‘deprived childhood’. "
I remember while living in the motel the house keeping lady would come by and drop off paper place mats. I guess they were for when you get out of the shower or something. Well we used to fold those things up and make swords, weapons, little books, you name it. Those things were awesome. I thought they were just the best things and all they were was big sturdy paper about the size of a towel. What we couldn’t make outta sturdy paper…
Plus we had Happy Meals sometimes and played with the toys. And the motel had a pool! I bet the ‘poor’ people did not have a pool and sturdy paper to make toys out of. 
Bear, you reminded me of when my sister and me were younger and we would make Barbie houses and furniture out of shoeboxes and bits of cardboard. I remember we didn’t have a Barbie car, so we made one out of a rollerskate. Our dolls didn’t have many outfits, so we’d make them out of worn out sheets and rags.
We’d make our own paper dolls, too and clothes for them. I remember one of the best gifts you could get me back then was a pad of unlined paper…we always had to use the backs of my dad’s computer print outs.
You know, I look at my son and even though we’re not rich, he has so much more than I could ever have imagined having at that age. Sometimes, it just seems like he is missing out…not as much chance to use his imagination.