Mom, I forgive you for never taking us to Disneyland. I’m over it. : ) Now that I’m older, I understand why we NEVER went vacationing in Mexico. I would’ve loved that we tried to (or did it just once).
Yeah, if it was something other kids wanted I wasn’t getting it. Or much of anything else either. We had a dog that was no treat, did have a piano but I didn’t want piano lessons. I did get a bicycle but I’m not going to go into that story.
Mostly what I got that I wanted I had to find a way to pay for, and even then a lot of things weren’t allowed. I did plenty of things wrong, they kept a list, but mainly it all came back to getting bad grades in school and having a mind of my own. I left when I was 18 and never asked them for anything after that.
You didn’t do anything wrong, life just sucks sometimes.
Now, they are being marketed to boys as well. It took a campaign by children to make it happen.
a dog.
also, a cat and a horse but mostly a dog.
You did nothing wrong. Forgive yourself and then forgive your parents. Some people just don’t have the ability to deal with children. Often, this comes from their own upbringing. And theirs was probably during the Depression. {{{ThelmaLou}}}
Ooh, I forgot. I (like you and all kids everywhere) desperately wanted to go Disneyland. I was taken once by my best friend’s family, but my parents would never go. I don’t remember the reason given, but it was probably expense and scorn for something so silly.
Then, years after I became an adult, my mom revealed that she and my dad secretly went to Disneyland, probably when I was at school. I must have looked utterly shocked and gobsmacked, because she immediately clammed up and never mentioned it again.
Aww… Thanks.
We lived in San Bernardino CA when the original Disneyland was built. My parents also would never go-- expense, crowds, etc.
This, however, is a mind-blower–
WTF??
My parents weren’t particularly strict about what I was allowed to have, though mostly I had to buy things myself with allowance money.
Once, though, I had a catalog of Commodore 64 games to order. One stood out as I had also seen it in magazines: Sim City. I asked my mom and she said no.
I didn’t press the matter, but years later I played the game and it was everything I hoped for (and started a lifelong love for the genre).
I never found out why she said no, since it’s an entirely wholesome game, but in retrospect the only thing I can think of is that she thought I said Sin City. That probably would have been inappropriate for 12-year-old me.
The first time I played SimCity was on the SNES sometime in the early 90’s, when I was around that age – 12 or 13. I was instantly hooked. I had played it at a friend’s house because we didn’t have an SNES and I couldn’t borrow the cartridge. When I excitedly told my mom about this wonderful new game that I had played and mom we really really needed to get a Super Nintendo like yesterday can’t we pleeeeease because I absolutely love this SimCity gam–
“What?! What kind of game is Sin City?!? I will not have a game like that in my house!! What’s wrong with Scrabble or Pictionary??”
"Mom. MOM! Stop. SIM City. SIM. With an M. Its for the Nintendo. You build a city with trains and roads and buildings and things like that. A city.
“… oh. Sounds boring.”
I have an SNES in a box in the garage somewhere and now, at age 41, will likely never get rid of it because I have a way to play the OG SimCity if I want to. Although SimCity 2000 was the best one.
That leads credence to my theory! Perhaps if my mom had repeated the name back to me, I could have corrected her. BTW, you can play the games online at archive.org. For example, SimCity 2000:
SimCity 2000 : Maxis : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
I enjoyed all of them quite a lot until the 2013 version, which I blame EA for wrecking. Fortunately, Cities: Skylines was a very decent alternative.
A lot of the “decent” video games (by the standards of the day) in the middle or late 1980s cost about a hundred dollars in Canada, sometimes more. This is the equivalent to over $250 today, which seems like a lot, even for a very good game. Maybe it was that?
I would have bought it with allowance money. I made maybe $5/wk and was good at saving, so a game that cost $30-40 would have been within my budget. I don’t think C64 games ever cost much more than that (USD). I was allowed to buy a ~$90 LEGO set.
We weren’t allowed to watch MTV when visiting my grandparents in Michigan. They had basic cable and we didn’t so MTV would have been a real treat.
I started reading Stephen King books when I was eleven or so, and was a big horror fan by high school. But I wasn’t allowed to rent horror movies, for the most part. I got Christine into the house once (and my dad insisted on watching it with me and complained endlessly about the language), and we went to see Cat’s Eye (which was PG-13 and fairly harmless anyway). When I got my first apartment in uni and my first TV and VCR all to myself, I finally plunged into the franchises I’d always heard about, like Friday the 13th, Halloween and the Elm Street series. Few of which really lived up to the hype, and all of which seemingly were missing the extremely gory pics I’d sneak a look at in Fangoria magazine.
I honestly can’t think of anything. I didn’t always get exactly what I wanted because of the cost, but there was usually a suitable (and cheaper) substitute. They were also very lenient about my comings and goings, especially as a teen. I had the run of the city since I was ten years old.
Toy guns. My mother had pacifist feelings and thought that pretend shooting people wasn’t appropriate play. So no cap guns or pretend six-shooters. Makes sense now.
Any thing my parents bought me would be a cheaper substitute, not of what I wanted, but of something barely related to my request. I don’t remember how old I was when I stopped answering when they asked what I wanted for a birthday present. I knew I wasn’t getting it, not even close.
This thread reminds me of how my brother and I used to torment each other when we were little kids, watching Saturday morning cartoons and toy commercials.
“Huh. I bet you want that.” 
“I do not!” 
“Good. ‘Cause you’re not getting it.” 
I don’t know your age, but toys were certainly way simpler in the 50s than now. I was thrilled with a Fort Apache set or a Hula Hoop, a few bucks worth of plastic. My closest sibling in age was ten years older, so by the time I was eight, she was out of the house. Fewer kids means more loot. 
Had horses, sent them down the road when I got out of dog trialing. If they don’t have a job, they’re just hay converters 