Television
My father, for reasons that make sense if you know him, either restricted, banned, or otherwise seriously curtailed our TV watching with a series of weird, non-sensical, bizarre rules for most of my childhood. Now that I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, I watch ridiculous amounts of TV.
I know I’m rebelling against something that I really don’t need to rebel against. But …
We won’t talk about the junk food that I began eating like a crazy person the second I could buy it on my own.
Video games! I wasn’t allowed to have them when I was a kid because they “weren’t educational.” I had an Apple IIGS instead, which was cool, but everybody ELSE had a Nintendo. My first grown-up paycheck went to a N64.
Also Real Food - my dad had a heart attack when I was little (and a second one later on) and it was all fake-ass butter substitute and skim milk and Egg Beaters when I was a kid. Went to college and bought butter and eggs and never looked back.
amarinth, did you have my childhood? I actually don’t watch TV, but is was definitely curtailed in my childhood. I actually feel like my TV/video watching skills didn’t fully develop. I’m terrible at following a movie with any kind of complicated plot.
And I am mostly over the junk food thing now, but in the early days I delighted in things like Hamburger Helper or white bread, baloney, and Kraft singles sandwiches with mayo.
Fresh vegetables. It’s been years since I’ve had anything from a can and rarely do I ever buy frozen. It was like my parents didn’t really know where the produce section was in the grocery store.
Nice clothes. I was a chubby kid so I didn’t have the same options for trendy clothes so I make up for it now by paying a lot of attention to my clothes. I lost a lot of weight so now I can wear hip clothes for slender folks.
A social group. When I was a kid I grew up kind of in the sticks and didn’t have a whole lot of friends that lived right close by. So as an adult I went out and became a party promoter and went to parties all the time. I spent a lot of time cultivating tons of relationships and now I am a homebody shut in and don’t even talk to some of my closest friends most of the time.
Junk food… we never had “sugar cereals” or any kind of snacks (chips, cookies, etc.) So once I was on my own, I would bake a batch of cookies or a cake for myself, just because I could. Or I would buy Fruit Loops or Captain Crunch or whatever I wanted. I suppose that’s why I blew up like a balloon after I went off to college!!
Orange juice, and pets. Mom always did that 4 oz. glass of juice, no refills thing, too. Granted, she was trying to feed a family of five, but she made it seem like the most decadent thing in the world to drink more than that in one day. You could eat as much fruit as you wanted, but juice was expensive. Now I drink as much as I want.
We were not allowed to have any pets that couldn’t be confined to a cage or tank. She dislikes dogs, and isn’t fond of cats. One of my first acts as a married woman was to get a cat, and I’ve had nearly a dozen since then…have three right now (well, two are TECHNICALLY my son’s…)
Clothes. I wasn’t severely deprived or anything. But my mother thought it was somehow ridiculous or vain to have many clothes (read, more than five outfits for school). She also didn’t think we should care too much about style or dressing in a flattering manner. She make us keep clothing long after it was worn out because she believed you should have to buy underwear, coats, etc. once a decade or so. Even though I was the oldest of four girls, I still wore a lot of hand-me-downs. Mom would get them from the neighbors or family friends, or she would hand me down items from her own closet.
The funny thing was, my parents are and were very well-to-do, but Mom grew up poor and couldn’t get over it.
Of the four of us girls, three of us heavily compensate for this in adulthood. We are not label whores or anything, but we take care to wear flattering clothes and spend money for quality items. I replace coats, purses, and shoes at the first signs of wear, or when they do not fit perfectly anymore. We also tend to have larger than usual wardrobes.
Air conditioning. I had migraine headaches as a kid and in the summer it was pure hell. I would lay in bed sweating with a bucket next to me. I got the family fan to cool me off but it was little comfort. When we got air conditioning I made a “Gone With the Wind” pledge never to live without it. I keep a spare unit in the attic just in case.
Not that I didn’t have privacy as a kid, since I had my own room ever since I was about ten years old, but I especially value my privacy now that I’m old enough and I live by myself. I don’t think I could stand having a roommate (unless they were a SO), because I just loving having privacy and peace and quiet.
I also really enjoy getting to buy whatever I want to eat. My parents did buy junk food occasionally, but not all the time. No sugared cereals (Cheerios or Shreddies or puffed wheat were what we usually got), ice cream on occasion, and chips only if they were to go with a specific meal (e.g. if we were having burgers for supper).
Privacy. Peace of mind. The ability to choose not to have toxic people in my life.
My parents weren’t really poor, they were just really stupid:
Quality products. No more buying $5 pairs of shoes, like, every month. Now I pay $100-200 and they last for years and years, and they feel good on my feet. No more putting up with broken stuff that’s been taped and glued and wired together, with pliers replacing knobs and levers, and no more putting up with not being able to use half the functions of a thing within a few days of purchse. Did you know you can actually return faulty products, or when they wear out, buy new ones?
Delicious food! No more saving $.15 for crap that tastes like plastic, sits in my stomach like a brick, and causes all sorts of unmentionable digestive problems. I spend an extra $5 or $10 a week over what I was raised to spend on groceries, and I feel like royalty.
Going to the movies, Ren Faires, amusement parks, and actually enjoying myself. I can buy popcorn, AND candy, AND something to drink, if I want! I can go on rides and throw things at targets and bring home souvenirs and the world keeps turning, after all. I love bringing along a friend and their kids, and saying the word, “yes.”
I feel kind of sad for some of you, and mine is quite trivial in comparison to some: a long lead up to Christmas. My mum was a primary school teacher when I was growing up, and our house Christmas decorations were used to decorate her classroom. Consequently, we never got to put up our tree or decorate the house until after term finished and she dismantled them at school - usually a couple of days before Christmas Eve.
I totally over compensate now, and my husband has made me promise nothing goes up before the 1st December! See - told you it was trivial.
