Show me the money, if you've got it! Growing up wealthy is something most people only dream about. And children who grow up with money don't immediately realize the meaning of rich or the differences between their lives and the lives of their friends. And that moment can be quite the culture shock.
Imagine being six and you attend your first party. And much to your surprise one of the people from the household answers the door and you're thinking... "Where is your butler?"
Talk about a sharp look into how the other half lives.
Redditor itsohsodemi wanted to hear all about the times people accepted that they had financial privilege, by asking:
People that had rich parents growing up. When did you realize you were rich?
I grew up poor so I can only remember being shocked by friends having all the toys I had been asking for in duplicate. That was fun to witness. That was when I learned rich people were real and not just characters on "Dynasty."
LUCKYY!!
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"When I started talking in school about the pros and cons of Disney World vs Disney Land, and people were like "YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION?! LUCKYY!!"
Constant Fun
"Apparently it wasn't normal to go on holiday once a month."
"It's doable if you lower your standards and you're a family of 1. I made 45k and went on mini vacations every 3 weeks. Motel 6, spirit airlines, and public transit. $200-250 was all it cost me to fly away for the weekend. Not everything needs to be $800 flights to Cancun with $400/night luxury hotels!"
- koosley
My meniscus...
"I had a knee injury and was limping around everywhere ~14 years old. My parents told me they did not have the money to see the doctor. When I repeated this to my soccer coach he was in shock and pissed. Told me, "Do you know how much money your parents make?" I think he had a strong word with them and my parents took me to the doctors. Found out they were Multi Millionaires and my Dad was a CEO. My meniscus was torn."
Paycheck to Paycheck
"My parents were wealthy, but since they were good ol' Midwestern folks, they also wanted my siblings and me to work early and work hard. I got a job at 14 at a local sandwich shop and had a co-worker who was around the same age. I just assumed that she didn't need to work and was only doing it for the "character building" aspect like I was. I asked her what she was going to do with her first paycheck."
"Assuming it would be something fun, and she told me she was going to give it to her parents because they were really struggling and needed help with the bills. I was shocked. I had never met someone who needed to help their parents with bills at only 14-15. She was a really sweet girl. I hope she and her family are OK."
Free!
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"My friends talk about their student debt. I graduated debt free with my Masters Degree."
Ah to be debt-free, to have health insurance, and to be able to visit Disney World anytime you wish... the luxury of it all. How can I get adopted by some of these people?
We're Fine
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"When the 2008 recession had absolutely no effect on us and we still had tons of music lessons and other expensive hobbies and still went on vacations. Also when my parents bought me a horse. Not a pony, a full sized American Saddlebred (though I was a horseback rider and still was up until I was in college). We still have him too. :)"
"salary"
"When my dad's friend lost his job and lost his house in a divorce, my did casually went out and bought him a new house, replaced his car and gave him a monthly "salary" for his friend to go and live his life on so he can remember that life can also be amazing. It was also the time I realised my dad (and mum) are freaking incredible. Miss that man. He was one of the good ones to get lucky with money. The man wore the same jeans every day but bought his friend a house."
People Reveal The Things That Are Unnecessarily Expensive | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Sometimes shelling out the extra cash for better quality is totally worth it. It can cost money to keep replacing cheaper items repeatedly. But some items ar...Hey Richie...
"When a kid in my class (who as it happened didn't live that far away from us) bragged the day after Halloween that he and his friends had gone trick-or-treating on our street "where all the rich people live." I had always known we were well-off, but would not have described us as rich because a) we didn't have live-in staff b) our property was not fenced off and c) my parents always drove themselves. I.e., we didn't live like Richie Rich."
I am the boss.
"Dad came home late from work and I had been eagerly waiting for him for a reason I don't remember now. I do remember clearly him coming up the stairs and me asking him why did he take so long, didn't his boss allow him to leave on time? His answer was: What are you talking about? I am the boss. It suddenly hit me that the hundreds of people he had around him all day weren' t exactly his pals."
The Deed
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"Dad owned a financial advisory company. never knew I was rich because since he was so financially literate, he just invested a lot and didn't splurge. When we moved into a new house I accidentally found the paper for the house listing and saw that the house we were moving into was a million dollars."
- Cam_CSX_
escaping suburbia...
"When I moved away to go to college. I had always dreamed of escaping suburbia and the nuclear family. I never realized how privileged I was to have fresh paved roads, low noise pollution, street lamps, light police presence, pets, access to nature, double pane windows, and a thousand other perks not appreciated until lost."
"(Also, in elementary school, I went on a field trip to SF. I saw homeless people for the first time in Civic Center Plaza. In my hometown there were no homeless, or if there were they were kept out of sight)." ~ nick1812216
Same city, very different part of town...
"My mother and father were divorced, and so I had 2 very different lifestyles at the same time. During the school year, I lived with my mother. She was self-employed making scrapes compared to others. We lived in a trailer behind my grandmothers house. I often wore the same clothes for several school years. During the summer, I was with my father. Same city, very different part of town."
"Basically the Hollywood of our city. He too was self-employed, but making much much more. I pretty much had everything I needed and then some. But after talking about our cabin with a swimming pool to my other friends, I realized no one had any idea what I was talking about. Most of my friends thought I was basically homeless and couldn't understand why I would suddenly show up well dressed for events." ~ Pitiful-Sherbert-326
Toy Story
"Not quite the same, but my wife, a teacher, had asked me to find a number of our children's toys that had specific characteristics for a couple science experiments at school. I also included some redundant toys in case the primaries didn't work out or got broken. All the kids in her class were amazed her children had so many toys (probably .5 to 1% of their total toy inventory) and were worried our kids would miss them while they were gone. Heart breaking." ~ Reikko35715
2008
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"Dad always told my brothers and I how fortunate we were as we grew up. However, it didn't hit me until I learned that 2008 was a thing 6 years after it happened." ~ ohboythisisawkward
Fortune 500
"My parents were always super frugal (we camped instead of hotels on road trips, siblings had to share ice cream cones, rarely ate out at restaurants) but then my parents bought a jet ski, new car, and a boat all within a couple months and I went "wait..."
"Turns out Dad was a VP at a Fortune 500 company, but his emphasis was always on paying for education and experiences and passing down fiscal responsibility rather than being flashy." ~ BurlyNerdGetsTheWorm
until I was homeless...
"When I realized just how outrageously lucky I was. Grew up in a town with people ten times wealthier than we were. Went to a well-known boarding school with sons and daughters of billionaires. It majorly skewed my idea of what "rich" was, despite having multiple houses, boats, cars, and family trips all over the world."
"One side of the family is very old money, the other self-made hoteliers, and my parents both highly intelligent and hard-working successes, but my younger years were spent in a bubble of people where everything was just orders of magnitude grander. I never had the proper perspective until I was homeless." ~ TheAndorran
Thanks, Dad...
"When my Dad's health became a concern, he sat me and my siblings down and showed us his will and how to get into the financial accounts should anything happen. None us knew we would each inherit a sum where we wouldn't have to work again, if we didn't want to. This man raised us to go without nothing so he could give us everything. Thanks, Dad." ~ JustCallMeYarr
Berlin
"My dad was pretty well off when I was a kid. We moved into a three story kinda house kinda mansion in the suburbs right outside Berlin. It was the perfect childhood. I would say many Germans are relatively sparing in what they spend their money on and being flashy isn't as popular in certain communities."
"But my parents indulged in creating a beautiful home and always made sure we had everything we needed (and more). Most of my friends lived in apartments within the city, and looking back, although it wasn't apparent at the time, it's a very different experience."
"There were a handful of other kids that lived in the same suburb. It wasn't until my preteens when we moved to the US that I realized how much that lifestyle impacted my childhood. I went from having my own bedroom and play areas and an entire garden and forest, to living in a one bedroom with four people." ~ poofity-passington
Wow
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"When my friends started commenting on how big my house was. or when I realized I wouldn't have to be in student debt. wow." ~ flip-wizard
Special
"I'll play this game. My dad recently sold his company for good money. He worked his way up from bottom to owning. I am in no way set for life on that sale... he is (I don't expect to be). I realised I had a wealthy dad when I sold my first house to move closer to home, he recently sold company and offered to buy out mortgage. So currently my bank is bank of dad. He still expects full money but no interest. I realise how special I am." ~ Jeff_Cunningham
The house, the opulence of a home is the first dead giveaway. The limo is the other. Be rich, have fun with it. I just wish everyone was more humble though and knew how to use their financial freedom for the greater good.
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For many childhood memories are overrun by living nightmares.
Yes, children are resilient, but that doesn't mean that the things we see as babes don't follow us forever.
The horrors of the world are no stranger to the young.
Redditor -2sweetcaramel- wanted to see who was willing to share about the worst things we've seen as kids, so they asked:
"What’s the creepiest thing you saw as a kid?"
Serious Danger
"Me and my best friend would explore the drainage tunnels under the Vegas area where we grew up. These were miles long and it was always really cool down there so it was a good way to escape the heat of our scorching hot summers. We went into this one that goes under the Fiesta casino and found a camp with a bunch of homeless people."
"Mind you we are like 11 years old lol. And we just kept going like it was nothing. It wasn’t scary then but when I look back at it we could have been in some serious danger. Our parents had no idea we did this or where we were and we had no cellphones. We could have been kidnapped and never have been found."
oofboof2020
Waiting for Food
"I was at a portillos once when I was 12 and I was waiting with my little brother at a booth while my parents got our food. This guy was standing with his tray kind of watching me then after a couple of minutes he started to walk over really fast not breaking eye contact with me."
"He was 2 feet from the table and my dad came out of nowhere and scared the s**t out of him. He looked so surprised and just said he wanted to see if I’d get scared or not. He left his tray full of food near the door and left. My folks reported him but we never went to that location again since we found a better one closer to home."
nowhereboy1964
Captain Hobo to the Rescue
"When I was a pretty young teen, my friends and I were horsing around in San Francisco and started hanging out to smoke with some homeless guys. Another homeless dude came up and began aggressively trying to shake us down for anything (money, smokes, a ride, drugs- all of it) and wouldn’t take no for an answer."
"We got in over our heads and could tell this guy was now riling the other 2 guys up and they were acting like they wanted to jump us. Some grandfather-looking old homeless man appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us to get the f**k out of here- nice kids like us don’t belong down here at this hour!!"
"Captain Hobo saved our lives that night. My parents sincerely thought we were at a mall all day lol."
FartAttack911
Survival
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"I was 7 and survived the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Witnessed the wave rise way above the already massive palm trees (approx. 40ft?) and my family and I watched/heard the wave crash into the ground from a rooftop."
faithfulpoo
These Tsunami stories are just tragic.
On the Sand
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"We were a group of kids who went to swim in a local lake. And there was a dead body on the beach with their hands raised and their legs bent unnaturally that local police just took out of the same lake. I've never put my foot in these waters again."
oyloff
Be Clever
"I was walking to school and I was about 5 or 6 years old and some guy pulled up beside me in his car and asked if I would get in. He also offered me sweets to do so. I said no. The creepy bit was when he calmly said ‘clever boy’ to me, then drove off. I’ve never even told my parents or anyone else about this as it would most likely freak them out."
OstneyPiz
Bad Jokes
"Dad's side of the family pranked me by burying a fake body on our back property and had me dig it up to find valuables. Was only allowed to use a lantern for light. They stuffed old clothes with chicken bones. Sheetrock mud where the head was... Random fake jewelry as the treasures... I was like maybe 10 or 11.. I remember digging up the boot first and started gagging because it became real at that point."
Alegan239
YOU
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"Woke up to find my little brother staring at me in the dark, asking, Are you really you?"
PrettyLola2004
Siblings can really be a bunch of creepers.
No one should talk to others in the dark though.
Not all pet owners have the same relationship with their pets.
While anyone who decides to become a pet owner, or pet parent as some say, love their pets equally, some never ever let them leave their side.
Taking their pet with them to work, running errands, even on vacations.
Many pet parents even allow their pets to share their bed with them when going to sleep.
For others though, this is where a line is finally drawn.
Redditor Piggythelavasurfer was curious to hear whether pet owners allowed their pets to share their bed with them, as well as the reasons why they do/don't, leading them to ask:
"Do you let your pet sleep in your bed? Why/why not?"
The Tiny Issue Of Water...
"Absolutely not."
"I have fish."- Senior-Meal3649
Everyone Gets Lonely Eventually...
"I adopted an eleven year old cat the day before Halloween."
"She has mostly lived in my closet since I got her, and she hasn’t been too interested in coming out."
"Last night, she came out of my closet and jumped up on my bed, and crawled under my covers and curled up by my feet to sleep."
"I was so happy!"- YellowBeastJeep
The Comforting Reminder That You're Not Alone...
"I recently lost my Greyhound but I used to let him sleep on my bed with me."
"The company was nice and he was no trouble to have on my bed."- HoodedMenace3
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What Do You Mean Allow?
"I have no choice."
"She is a cat, cats do whatever they want."- Small_cat1412
"He lets me sleep in my bed."- Poorly-Drawn-Beagle
Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
"I carry my old boy upstairs to bed every night."- worst_in_show
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Who Needs An Alarm Clock?
"I let my two cats sleep with me."
"They're so full of love and just want cuddles all the time."
"And so do I."
"We've all developed a lil routine."
"Get to bed, oldest sleeps on my feet to keep them warm, youngest lies in my arm while I lie on my side (she the little spoon), then when I snooze my alarm for work in the morning the youngest paws at my face and meeps loudly to wake me up."- GhostofaFlea_
Whose Bed Is It Anyway?
"Yes."
"They're also kind enough to let me squeeze into whatever space they've left for me."
"Although I do get a few dirty looks off them."- Therealkaylor
"I found this tiny kitten screaming her head off under a car."
"Would not come out."
"Got some food and some water in dishes."
"I stood by the tire so she couldn't see my feet."
"She got curious about the food and water and started gobbling it down."
"I thought she would bolt when I squatted down."
"She was too busy eating."
"I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and all four legs went straight out and she tried to scratch me to death."
"I got her in the door and tossed her toward the couch."
"She ricocheted off the couch as if she was a ping pong off a table and I lost sight of her."
"I put out food and water and a sandbox and did not see that kitten for three days."
"On the third day, I came home and she was on my bed pillow."
"I thought she would bolt when I came near, but she didn't."
"I wanted to sleep so I tried to scoot her little butt off my pillow."
"She would not go."
"I put my head down to sleep and that is the way it was from then on."
"She ran the roost."- Logical_Cherry_7588
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Sleeping Is A Prerequisite...
"No, he's a cat and he cannot keep still during the night."
"He walks across the headboard, opens the closet doors, jumps into the windows and rustles the blinds, etc."
"If he would sleep he could stay, but alas, he's a ramblin' man."- Spong_Durnflungle
Saying No Just Isn't An Option...
"'Let'."
"Lol."
"It's a cat's world and I'm happy to be on her good side."- milaren
Felines Only!
"The cat does, the dog doesn't and the horse certainly does not either."- Xcrowzz
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Is That My Hair On That Pillow?
"My dog is perfect."
"She comes up, cuddles til we start to fall asleep, then gets down to sleep on her bed so she doesn't get too hot."
"Jumps back up in the early morning for wake up cuddles."
"The hair everywhere is the only downside but she is so cozy, what can you do."- HoodieWinchester
It is easy to understand how some people are able to fall asleep more easily knowing their friend and protector is there, in bed, with them.
Though we can't blame others who don't want to run the risk of being scratched or bitten in the middle of the night either...