Taking as long as I want to in the shower/bathroom. I grew up in a one bathroom house with my parents, 3 siblings, grandmother, 2 cousins (they lived with us for a couple years) and so there was usually a line for the bathroom. Now if I just want to stand and soak in the hot water and steam I can. If I want a long relaxing bath, no trouble! I just do it. And since we have more than one bathroom, I don’t have to worry about someone knocking at the door and telling me to hurry up. Luxury I tell ya!
A couple of things for me.
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Indoor cats. My mother didn’t like indoor pets, so I was never allowed to have one. We always had a cat or two, but they lived outside and they never seemed to last for long. The one time I was allowed an indoor cat (he was a Christmas present) my mom lasted for about a day and then he disappeared. I’m still not sure what happened to him–whether he got out, or she took him back, or what. Now I have five indoor cats and we all get along just great.
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Mexican food. My mother pretty much wore the pants in our family–if she didn’t like something, we didn’t do it. She didn’t like Mexican food, so we almost never went to Mexican restaurants–and never to Taco Bell (I know, no great loss there, but I was a kid). It wasn’t quite so bad because I grew up in a small town that was full of rich hippies who didn’t like their town marred by fast food, so the only fast food we had was KFC, out on the edge of town like a poor relation. But the Mexican restaurant thing was kind of annoying, since the little town in question was in southern California and the whole area was full of good Mexican restaurants.
Oh, and as a sidebar–I was surprised to see that others have read “Helter Skelter” in fourth grade! I did too, along with “The Rape of the A.P.E.” by Allan Sherman, “The Ungodly” (a Donner Party bio), and “Killer” (the diary of a Mafia hitman). My dad had a subscription to the Playboy Book Club, and my parents didn’t care what I read.
For me it’s warm clothes and shoes. My family was quite well off when I was growing up, but for some reason my dad felt that fifty bucks was more than adequate to outfit a kid for school, even all the way through high school. So I had a fairly okay baseline wardrobe, except for anything meant specifically for cold weather. My feet were always cold because I’d be wearing Keds canvas sneakers and thin vinyl boots in snow or torrential rain and my feet were always wet. So now I have Caterpillar leather hiking boots and wool socks and multiple pairs of boots with thick soles that are waterproof. Likewise wool and leather coats that keep me warm no matter what the weather is, along with wool sweaters and silk long underwear. I don’t care much about appearances but I flatly refuse to be cold just because the weather sucks.
Fresh veggies are a biggie–it was always those nasty frozen blocks when I was growing up. Salads had three ingredients max plus dressing; iceberg lettuce, tomato and onion. I thought I didn’t like vegetables but after I moved out with my ex (a recently lapsed vegetarian at the time) I discovered that I didn’t know jack about vegetables but it was sure nice to learn diffferently.
Whole wheat bread–my dad refused to have anything but Wonder bread in the house. I used to buy Oroweat Wheat Berry bread with my allowance!
Cats–my mom is direly allergic even though she loves cats so I couldn’t ever have one growing up. I haven’t been without a cat in thirty years.
I have allergies to polyester fabric and one of the greatest things about buying for myself is that absolutely none of my clothes or linens has even a speck of poly critter in it and I don’t have to scratch constantly. Sheets have a minimum of 300 thread count–anything less is dog bedding.
It was also nice to be able to STOP drinking milk and orange juice–I’m lactose intolerant and despise orange juice but the rule was we had to have a big glass of each every damned day and my stomach really hated it.
What I cherish is not having things.
When I was a kid we had caseloads of pop (never diet), everything had to have butter on it, we bought pastries every week eve though we couldn’t afford them. And so on.
Now I never buy pop, I don’t put butter on anything, I don’t eat red meat, I don’t have cable TV (Netflix is better and cheaper IMO). I don’t have to go to church anymore either. I don’t miss any of this stuff at all. I know this isn’t living to a lot of people, but I’m much happier for it.
Being on time. My mom was always late for everything, so I was always late. I hated showing up after things had already started and not knowing what I’d missed. Now my friends always make fun of me because if I’m not exactly on time it’s because I was ten minutes early.
Bread and rolls at the buffet.
We didn’t go to the buffet that often, but when we did it was the Old Man chastizing one or more of us to, “Put down that bread. Ya got lotsa bread at home. Eat more meat. I aint payin’ these prices for cheap bread.”
Now, the FIRST thing I go for on the buffet is bread. When the kids were still at home and we went to a buffet, I never critcized their choices.
One of my rituals with my 2 year-old grandkid is sharing bread. Give her a piece of her own and she shuns it. Break her off a hunk of your bread and she scarfs it right down.
Also, privacy. We were a good Catholic family with 6 kids. Actually, I got marginally more privacy than the rest, being the only boy. But it was still not enough.
Hills and mountains: growing up in Florida, the biggest hill within 200 miles was about 250’ tall. When I first saw the Rockies, all I could do was stare at them for hours. Now I live in one of the hilliest cities in the world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My own music: growing up, my parents always had control over the stereo, and that meant either classical, “smooth jazz” (think Kenny G, not Miles Davis) or the ubiquitous “light rock, less talk” stations. While I don’t remember my parents ever actively discouraging it, my mother had a bad attitude toward anything harder than the Beatles and would turn it off with an, “I don’t wanna hear it!” I still enjoy classical, but if I never hear Kenny G or the Eagles again it’ll be too soon.
I realize cars are a luxury to many people, but for me it’s the opposite. I grew up in the suburbs, and the car was always a place of infinite boredom where there was nothing to look at (no mountains!) and you couldn’t escape the lousy music. For me, not needing a car is the greatest thing in the world, and I’m quite happy to pay twice the price for a home half the size if it means not driving.
I’m surprised no one mentioned this one yet:
-that *eeeevilll *rock & roll music. It will have you getting drunk, taking drugs, and having sex, just listening to it on the radio, dont’cha know… All my parents let me listen to was classical, yet they couldn’t tell me the difference between Wagner and Mozart. It was just what nice (read: upper class) people listened too. Now I love Queen, Genesis, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and what all the bad boys in school were listening to.
-same for blue jeans. They were for those "#%$ hippies or mucking out pig pens (read: lower class people) I confess I take perverse pleasure in dressing our 5 year old in jeans to visit grandma.
-veggies other than carrots or peas that had not been boiled to barely cohesive mush. Discovering broccoli, steaming, and stir-frying were epiphanies for me, let alone fresh grilled asparagus.
-ethnic cooking of any kind, although in all fairness, north-americanized Chinese was as exotic as you could get in the 70s in suburban Montreal, and we had that pretty often.
-traveling to other places than Florida, that are not exact replicas of home only warmer with a beach. Heck, even Cleveland and Dallas felt exotic, let alone Paris, England or Japan.
But all in all, it was still a pretty good, happy childhood. The grief only came in adolescence…
Still, man do I love being a grown-up.
Thanks - you’re right! Seems like just about everyone can name something.
Beef. Pork. Sausages. Eggs. Bacon. Burgers. French fries. My father is a retired doctor, and if you grew up in a doctor’s family during the original Cholesterol Scare of 1970, you rarely got to eat any of the above. There was no such thing as “good cholesterol” in those days, and avocados, nuts, and olive oil were as bad as butter and lard.
The thing that made it bad for us was that my brother refused to eat any seafood, so we had to have chicken several times a week. Chicken, chicken, chicken, and more chicken. Did I mention chicken?
My mom was always pretty frugal. A couple of times I really “felt” this was when we had Scholastic book orders at school, and every year when it was time to buy school supplies, and at movies. I rarely ordered books, I never got the big box of crayons, and I rarely got soda/popcorn.
Now that my son gets Scholastic order forms, it gives me profound satisfaction to place an order. I probably like it more than he does. And back when he was asked to bring crayons to school, I always bought him the big box. WITH SHARPENER. I also almost ALWAYS buy a drink when I see a movie at the theatre. It feels like a decadent luxury–which it kind of is, given the price.
In a different categary–garlic. Freshly ground pepper. And other spices. My mom didn’t use many spices. Food was midwestern, comforting, and bland. My palate developed once I left home.
My mother did (does, actually) her best to provide us with the little luxuries, so I can’t really think of anything. Wow… I’m so lucky.
As the oldest in a family of five kids, raised by parents who were and are rather set in their ways, I hereby submit the following list:
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My own room.
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Privacy.
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Real Levi’s, not just whatever the K-Mart store brand was in the 80s.
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Ethnic food other than Salvadoran (the food I grew up with), Mexican, and Chinese beyond the Panda Express-type takeout we got every few weeks. Attending a university with a large international student body really broadened my horizons, especially when it came to food. I tasted Japanese and Armenian food for the first time in college, and my current co-workers introduced me to authentic Chinese food. Nowadays I make the trek to 99 Ranch and Mitsuwa markets whenever I get the chance.
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Real tea. My parents rarely drank tea, and even then it was either Lipton teabags or various herbal concoctions prepared whenever one of us got sick. Now I can’t imagine life without at least one box of Japanese green tea in the house.
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Soy milk. I didn’t realize I was lactose intolerant till my 20s, and it was only when I discovered Trader Joe’s that I discovered soy milk. Now it’s another must-have item for me.
What did I lack in childhood that I now savor?
This enormous censored 
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Same for me. While my mother’s side of the family is Scottish/Irish, the bigger explanation for the utter blandness of my mom’s cooking is twofold: her parents grew up during the Great Depression, and her father was an alcoholic whose dinner of choice revolved almost solely around roast beef and potatoes. A common meal around our house was “beef stew”, which, according to my mom’s “recipe” was made by placing stew meat, potatoes, and carrots into a crock pot and adding water and perhaps a pinch of salt. I could never taste anything but the carrots, the flavor of which infused everything else in the pot. When I was about 12 my dad took me on a three-day hunting trip with his buddies. One of his hunting buddies was a much older man who made beef stew over the campfire for dinner one night. I groaned when I heard what was being served, but I dutifully accepted a bowl (mostly because I was honestly hungry after trudging through the woods all day). When I looked at it, I didn’t believe it was really stew. All the stuff was sitting there in this nice brown gravy instead of muddy-looking water with grease floating on top, and there were things like onions and peppers in it. And when I tasted it, it was amazingly delicious! Nowadays, I love a properly-made beef stew.
When I was a kid, eating out was a very rare occurrence. To further illustrate my mother’s bland tastes, on the even more rare occasions when we would go to a pizza place, she would select as a topping … sliced tomatoes. It wasn’t until my paternal grandparents took me out for pizza that I discovered tasty toppings like pepperoni and sausage and olives and mushrooms … To this day, I’m a pizza fanatic, and I want all the spicy meats on mine. And crushed red pepper.
Mexican food was unheard of when I was growing up. Love it now.
Going back to my mom’s parents: I feel sorry for my grandmother. It wasn’t until after Grandpa died that we discovered Grandma loved the hot sauce. And onions, and peppers, and spicy sausage, and just about anything else with a full, robust flavor. She just never got to cook any of that stuff when Grandpa was alive, so my mom didn’t learn how to cook (or even acquire a taste for) that stuff. All stuff that I love to eat myself.
I credit my mom’s bland cooking as the reason I became a professional cook.
Like many others, I enjoy ethnic food that I never knew as a child. My mom was a good cook, but the craziest thing she made was tacos, which consisted of hard taco shells (tortillas? what the heck are those?), very-mildly-spiced ground beef, and cheddar cheese. I never had any kind of asian food until someone took me to a chinese restaurant in college. I chuckle now when my five-year-old daughter talks about having sushi; I didn’t have the vaguest idea what sushi was until I was an adult.
Also, soda. We almost never had it at home. Sometimes when we were on a trip somewhere, my sister and I could have a can of soda, but we had to split a can. Letting a child drink an entire can of soda was viewed as one step short of giving him hard drugs.
I feel obliged to close by saying that my parents provided for us very well, and I never lacked anything I really needed. All of the “deprivations” I experienced were just little things that stemmed from my parents growing up in fairly poor households and being deeply frugal.
Choosing what to watch on TV, and having the cornucopia of choices on cable (plus DVDs and DVD rentals). When I was a kid, we had only the one set. Eventually we got a second TV (which was mostly devoted to Atari) but didn’t get cable until about a decade later, and we were fairly late adopters of VCR tech, and even then we went with a Betamax, and you know how well that format succeeded in our cruel and cynical marketplace. :smack:
Now even without Tivo I’m satisfied with my choices at any given time. I’ve also been sitting out of the Blu-Ray vs. HD battle, because once burned, twice shy.
Fresh spinach. I never knew stuff like brocoli heads and spinach could be eaten raw; Mom always bought those awful frozen blocks and boiled the shit out of 'em (often the broccoli would be served a sickly yellowish-green) – and the only flavoring we ever added to them was lemon juice. I didn’t know that many people eat cooked broccoli in melted cheese sauce – which can be nasty too, but at least it’s an option. Now I buy fresh spinach, de-stem the leaves, and have fresh spinach salads and add it to soups.
Pasta, pasta al dente, and fresh pasta. I didn’t know what “pasta” was supposed to be, exactly. We only got the boxed spaghetti, and Mom again would boil the shit out of it until it was too mushy, and the spaghetti was further cooked with the sauce instead of adding the sauce to it at the table, which further mushed it up. Now I buy various pastas, I cook them properly, and I’ve even indulged in fresh pastas on occasion.
Butter. We had butter for baking and nothing else, because margarine was understood back then to be healthier. :smack: And we never used olive oil. It wasn’t until I was on my own that I had a salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing.
Fresh garlic and jars of chopped garlic in oil. Granted, the latter is a bit of a cheat, but it’s very handy and economical, and both are better than powdered garlic and garlic salt.
Sodas, candy, junk food, fast food… very tightly rationed when we were kids, and we were healthier for it, but oh, I’ve made up for it since.
This reminds me! Not from my childhood, but my first marriage. My not quite foil hat wearing ex would not have a cordless phone in the house because THEY could listen in so easily. My thought was, So what? Who cares if some nosy neighbors overhear me telling my mom that her grandson tried a new food today?
Now I will admit to a little bit of smug satisfaction when I hand my son the cordless phone to call his dad.
Add my name to the more than one drink at a restaurant list. Free refils, which were not nearly so prevalent when I was a kid eating out with my family, have taken some of the joy out of this one, but even at restaurants that don’t offer them, if it’s hot or I’m just thirsty I’m drinking my iced tea as soon as it arrives and I’ll get another one if I feel like it.
Also, soda at the movie theatre. We never bought drinks. We went to matinees, and we did get popcorn, but “$2 for a cup of soda??? If I spent $2.00 on soda at the grocery store we’d have so much you wouldn’t be able to carry it!” Okay, I get that, but if that’s your policy don’t put salt on the popcorn please!
I have several flavors of jelly/jam preserves in my fridge - all open at the same time. And two boxes of cereal, also open at once. This was NOT allowed! The cereal makes sense, and while we do make my son finish one type of “kids” cereal before opening a new box we usually have a box of raisin bran and a box of cheerios going at the same time. And we usually finish them before they go stale. I don’t really understand the jelly rule, though.
I thought of one more thing: the ability to stop to pee on car trips whenever I want to/have to. I come from a family of dromedaries. Seriously - both my mom and sister can hold it for five to six hours. I was the odd girl out on all car trips, often having to go every two hours to their six. My mom would refuse to stop the car, so I’d sit there for three or four hours, getting more and more uncomfortable until I was squeezing my legs together for dear life, until one of them would finally - FINALLY - have to go.
Now I luxuriate in being able to stop whenever I need to. And I swear to myself I won’t ever refuse to pull over for my son when he needs to go.
Freedom.
Also, the freedom to set the VCR timer.
Seriously. My mother was deathly afraid that the VCR would catch fire if it was every allowed to operate unattended. For this reason, I was royally chewed out when my mother discovered that I had set it to record one of my favorite programs. Right after that, we were commanded to always unplug the VCR whenever it was not in use.