I’m speaking more of material things in this thread. Not money, love sex etc…
For me it’s video games. We were pretty poor when I was young and all of my friends has NES, SNES, Genesis etc… and I would go to their house all the time to play them. I was a video game addict without any video games at home.
Flash forward to when I was 18 and entered to USAF. I could afford all the video games I wanted at the time and started buying up all the game systems as soon as they came out starting with the PS. After that I had every single game system available, except Saturn. I currently have every game system out right now.
The problem is that since the age of about 23 I haven’t really had time to play the things. I continue to buy the consoles and buy the big games but most of them go unfinished. I’ve bought many AAA titles and ended up only putting 2 hours into them before walking away to do something else. I’ve got a family, house and dog coupled with a professional career so I don’t have alot of free time to devote to gaming. I lose interest in new games very quickly and don’t like grinding through levels or finding secret paths anymore.
I think I just continue to buy the systems because I couldn’t have them when I was a kid. That’s the only reason I can come up with.
What did you not have as a kid that you probably overcompensate for now?
I know it’s kind of a small thing, but chocolate milk.
I honestly do not know why, but my mother treated chocolate milk as if it were made of gold. It was very rare in our house, and when she would make it, she would add ONE teeny tiny drop of chocolate syrup to a big glass of milk. She wasn’t stingy when it came to other treats or desserts, she just viewed chocolate milk as the most decadent of beverages that needed to be consumed sparingly.
As a result, I think I drink chocolate milk much more often than most adults (and I have to control myself from making it with a ratio of 1:1 syrup to milk).
Nothing really comes to mind. We were pretty poor, and now I’m doing OK, but nothing comes to mind. I do pretty much get whatever I want, but there is no one thing that stands out.
Junk food, unfortunately. Potato chips mostly. My parents would buy their own, but wouldn’t share with us much. If you asked for some, you got one. I have to resist buying them because I can eat half a large bag in a sitting.
I honestly can’t think of anything. My Mom was great about letting us have what we wanted, in moderation. If I had to choose something, I’d say “honest commentary,” since my Mom was the typical “you’re such a handsome young lad!” type when I was young. She’s changed now, and is more willing to be honest with me when I do something stupid or look bad.
Books, art, conversation, good food, and cleaning products.
My mom was a soap-opera watcher, who never understood the point of buying books, because “once you read it, you’re done with it. Why have it lying around?” She also didn’t like to be interrupted while she watched television, so there was not a lot of talking in my house.
She decorated with plastic “whitewashed” trellises loaded down with fake flowers, and thought that if she hung enough of those things it would distract from the fact that the place hadn’t been properly cleaned in months (you don’t want to think about how dusty those trellises were). She was also a big fan of Precious Moments, Emmet Kelley, and the Hudson Mint. Don’t get me started.
Any food that required more effort than taking it out of a box and microwaving it was too much for her. Well, occasionally she’d boil up some frozen ravioli, which she would serve straight from the pot with a slotted spoon and throw some jarred sauce on top. Then, of course, she’d leave the pot, with the water and whatever leftover ravioli sitting on the stove until it grew mold.
As a result, I have several thousand books, a houseful of original art, a fridge full of leftovers, three cabinets full of cleaning products which are used religiously, and a daughter who knows that whatever she’s saying is way more important than whatever I’m reading or watching, since my book or my show will still be there when she’s done.
Mostly clothes because we were pretty poor and I was usually stuck with worn-out hand-me-downs that didn’t fit quite right. The south Bronx was so hideous and dirty that I’ve gradually moved into more and more rural areas that are quiet and beautiful too.
And Fluffernutters. My mom would never even let us taste that stuff so as soon as I moved out I ate a whole jar’s worth of that marshmallow fluff in a few days. My mom was right and I get queasy just seeing it in a store now.
And books – especially hardcovers. I owned a few paperbacks as a kid, but no hardbacks. Now I buy hardcovers even after the book’s available in paperback. It makes me feel rich.
This thread is making me sad. We had nothing growing up, but I never knew it. We were farmers, so food was plentiful. My mom sewed all my clothes. I had three brothers, no sisters, but even then I could usually rope one of them in to playing with me. It’s interesting to look back and realize what we never had but never missed.
I had everything I needed and pretty much anything I wanted as a kid. My parents were always into the latest gadgets (microwave, VCR) and they were always really generous with me and my brother (and still are). They had good careers and were never irresponsible with their money, or anything, but there was a lot of buying stuff. As an adult, I’ve probably gone in the opposite direction. I’m very aware of reducing my consumption and we try to live very simply. I do a lot of things that my mom thinks are unnecessary and old-fashioned - I make my own cleaning supplies, we use cloth napkins and handkerchiefs, etc. It freaks my parents out that we don’t have paper towels or Lysol in the house.
Home decor. Our house was too small to accommodate much of it when I was growing up, and my parents had deplorable taste. You know that fake wood paneling often populating the walls of double-wide living rooms? I’ve seen so much of that stuff it makes my eyes hurt just thinking about it. Ditto for that nasty greenish brown shag carpeting. My stepdad was a hunter too, so we lived surrounded in camouflage, the crowning glory being a severed deers’ head stuck to the living room wall.
So I spend a lot of time (and money) making decor just so around the house. I splurge for that cool-looking carpet, the furniture with the clean lines, the bamboo plant, the Buddha statue… I try to define my space according to MY personality, not someone else’s, and above all, I try to make sure it matches.
The first time I went shopping on my own and realised that not only did I not have to buy Roman Meal bread (which I hated) - I could buy ANY bread I wanted was a revalation to me. The next time I went shopping and realised I could buy just any old thing at all, well I just threw all caution to the wind.
When I was a girl, I always wanted to have one of those great, big stuffed animals, a lion or tiger (but no bears ). Unfortunately, they were always too expensive.
So, as a grown-up, I bought big stuffed cats for my nieces, who were as delighted to have them as I would’ve been. But I had to stop myself from going on buying them more for subsequent birthdays and Christmas presents–there are only so many of those things a child can fit into her bedroom!
The girls are getting too old for stuffed animals now, but whenever I see this sort of thing in stores or toy catalogs, I am still tempted.
There were 5 of us kids, and never enough bedrooms to give each kid their own. So we grew up with a lot of shared space. For a few years, one of my sisters and I shared a bedroom which was also a passageway from the front of the house to the dining/kitchen areas.
I value my privacy now and really relish being able to have space to myself- I have a home office which is my little nest.
Other than that, we had plenty of love and affection, ready-made playmates in each other and most any other thing kids need. We had it good. Thanks Mom & Dad!
I guess pets. My mom didn’t allow pets. We have two cats and dog.
The other area might be stuffed animals. I only had two or three as a young kid. My kids have between them over a hundred I think. I’ve gone a little nuts buying toys actually for my kids.
Quiet. I’ve gotten to where family gatherings are kinda stressful just because of the noise.
Oh, and vegetables. I eat vegetables with every meal. Sometimes AS every meal. We ate them once a day when I was a kid and I didn’t know how much I adore them.
). Unfortunately, they were always too expensive.