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30 Coolest Answers To “What Perks Did You Enjoy As A Kid Because Of Your Parents’ Job?” From A Viral Twitter Thread
Interview With Author
Memories of being a kid often involve enjoying quality time with your parents. Often really taking advantage of something that they do. Not everyone’s parents were ice cream parlor owners and getting spoiled with unlimited ice cream was not necessarily an option, or working for NASA and making sure their kids get to marvel at rocket launches; somehow, even then, little things such as bringing used printer paper to draw on remained engraved in one's memory as the most fun thing ever.
Scott Cunningham, @causalinf on Twitter, calling himself an economist working on a cure for baldness that involves linear regression and wine, asked “What perks did you enjoy as a kid bc of your parents' jobs?“ The community delivered: the post received over 11.8K quote hits alone and nearly 7K likes. Take a look at the best ones and vote for your favorite ones!
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Bored Panda got in touch with the man behind the curious and wholesome question transporting everyone to their childhood. Scott, who is a professor in the economics department at Baylor University, is a compulsive consumer and producer of social media content, and has been basically his entire adult life. “I tweet at @causalinf and mostly interact with other economists and social scientists. I recently published a book called 'Causal Inference: the Mixtape' with Yale University Press and in my day job, write about the field of applied econometrics, particularly sex work, drug policy, and mental healthcare, as well as occasionally topics in crime and abortion policy. I have three kids and am married, one neurotic dog, and two little kittens.” He loves Ted Lasso, HBO, rap music, and laughing with friends and family.
This is the best one so far. I love ice cream way too much for my own good.
“That tweet shows how random the internet can be. I write stuff like that almost daily as a way to just engage with people on Twitter, never really giving any of it any thought. I am a very nostalgic person is all. I grew up in a small town in Mississippi called Brookhaven and just have nothing but extreme fondness for the childhood I had. And so as a result, I occasionally talk to people on Twitter about childhood. I love hearing other people’s stories, and love sharing stories of my own.”
“The other day it occurred to me that as a kid, there’s all these little things you got from your parents you never really even had thought about before,” shared Scott. “Everyone has a story like it, even if not exactly it, and I was curious what my friends and others might share.” He also added that “People engage in work first to survive, second to accumulate wealth, and maybe then to provide various 'perks' to their kids. But perks occur anyway because we live in such close proximity to our parents' lives. And sometimes we experience spillovers from their jobs, even though parents weren’t necessarily choosing it.”
Me too my friend! Those were some good times. My dad flew for continental and retired in 2000
Scott didn’t expect the tweet to go viral as he has been on Twitter for many years and nothing he has written before has gone totally crazy with likes and quote tweets. “This one was weird because it was this huge ratio of quote tweets to everything else caused not by anger, but by a desire to share similar though distinct stories about the gifts their parents inadvertently gave them as simply a function of growing up around them and their jobs. I never thought that was such a generally interesting thing, but it clearly is, probably because we aren’t always sharing those details with others. I actually don’t think I’d ever talked to anyone about those computer games and Coke machines before, not even to my wife, maybe not even to my parents, but man, was it special to me then and really even special to me still.” But the worst thing about Scott's success with his viral post is that he has no clue how to reproduce that. “They say in statistics 'with enough trials, anything that can happen will happen.' Meaning even rare probabilities will materialize with enough time and repeated effort. Well, I’ve tweeted way over 100,000 times, I bet, and one of them can go viral, theoretically, so eventually one did. I expect another one will when I hit 500,000!”
That is a very familiar story! My dad was a prof. I used to draw on those computer cards all the tine. And half in-state tuition. Graduated with no student loans. So lucky.
Love this one, dream of travelling on the Orient Express; but with their prices it may only ever be a dream
"Here is the left kidney... here is a saphire... Here is the liver... Here is argillite...
My Dad was a civil engineer as well - But we got the cool stuff - He built transit systems. Got to test ride all of the trains before they were open. Go down and see the TBM's (tunnel boring machines) at work. freaking awesome.
I cannot think of anything that would be less of a benefit. But whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Its highly beneficial to the cow as its a medical device for a medical problem. . From the kids point of view, its just cool! You might want to apologize to her just to be nice.
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i got to touch a brain from my dads work ( with gloves on and had t wash my hands 10 times)
I don't know how I feel about this, was this necessary surgery or just experiments?
Experiments and it still happens. The dairy industry are horrifically cruel
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That is not normal, have seen it on tv too. If they lay on their side filth can get in, insects,... in the summer they have to be swarming with flies. I cannot understand how doing this is a good think or why this person saw that as a perk. I am revolted
They have a cork that goes in, the hole takes you to the Rumen, it's not left open when they aren't checking on the cow. The cows don't feel pain from it being put in because they are asleep for it and they live longer because they've had more care put into growth and diet. Which also allows them to produce less methane. The Rumen is the large stomach of the cow which has multiple sacs inside.
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Ewww, I would definitely throw up. It just reminds me of the time we dissected a cows eyeball in 4th grade. I got so sick.
you and i, both. you dissected a cow's eyeball? are you serious? i couldn't even dissect a frog.
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This technique was first used by Dr William Beaumont. He did it on a human. I can't remember all the details. Vet schools will have a cow with this procedure nowadays to harvest gastric juices. They are used to treat other animals who need the enzymes to digest their food. They literally save other animals lives. If a ruminant becomes ill or because of needed antibiotics, they may not be able yo digest their food. So they get the gastric juices from the donor cow.
Yes!! I got to do this too! Great learning experience and the cow was fine. Has a special flap that seals in the stomach when not in use.
This one blows my mind. It's common practice! Cow windows are done for research and are thought to allow the cow to live longer and.... this is going to end up in a warped nightmare for me.
My uncle worked for the Dept. of Agriculture and I got to see that too!
I saw it with sheep, and it was not for surgery, just experiments. It’s horrible.
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Note: this post originally had 35 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Chief Wilma Mankiller of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma was my mentor. Every year I took pictures of her with my children and she would sit them on her lap and tell them stories. They thought she was just another Indian lady, like us, that loved them very much. Now they're in their 20s and they still remember the days and now they know that she was the first female Chief of a major Indian tribe. She told them stories that will hold them for the rest of their lives. Miss you every day Wilma.
My dad is a firefighter, so when I was little I got to climb around on fire trucks.
My dad was a milkman, whilst we never got milk free, he'd pick up all sorts that people were throwing out or had too much of when we were kids. Furniture, books, magazines, fabric, and all manner of fruit and vegetables from back gardens.
I got to spend a lot of unsupervised time in a chocolate factory after the workers went home. And I was officially allowed to eat as much as I liked. Thanks, dad!
My mom is a teacher. She's really smart, and she has more karen stories then the internet.
My mum works as a Psychologist so we used to spend a lot of time discussing some of her cases (anonymously). She used to bring IQ tests home and I loved solving them. She took me to a training about Psychosis and I sat next to other clinicians which made me feel so important. I am a Psychologist now :)
My dad used to have his students give us those IQ tests. We were three kids, three years apart. I took so many, that one day, a student ran over to my dad, "Dr Ingersoll!! Your daughter is a GENIUS!!!!" My dad just laughed. I mean, I **AM** but... I'd memorized the test. :D
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Mom was a nurse. She'd answer any question about her day, show me her journals and textbooks, and I'd help her study for professional exams. Which was 1. cool and 2. helped me be okay about blood/etc. and 3. meant I went into medicine without any illusions about how it really is. Thanks, Mom!
My dad taught AutoCAD (Computer Aided Drafting) in the early 90s, and over the summer he was allowed to bring a computer home, so we were one of the first people I knew to have a computer at home. The first computer was a black and white Macintosh. Later years he would bring home old computers and I was able to use the parts to make myself a working computer. I loved how it gave me confidence to tinker with computers from a fairly young age.
And AutoCAD is still around. Funny how long lasting it is in this fast world
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My mom is a children's book author so a couple years ago she took me to a book convention thing that didn't take visitors and I got 30+ books (middle grade, ya, na, etc) as Advanced Reader's Copies along with buttons, tattoos and posters. Some of those books are now my favorites ever.
Both parents work for American Embassies around the world. Both remarried. Step Dad was a teacher at my schools, and step Mom managed a restaurant in Guatemala. There were a lot of perks to these, but the best and most obvious was moving to and living in various countries around the world. Mostly around Africa and Central and South America. I grew up in the most amazing places, and seen amazing things. Summer jobs in the Embassies were the best!
My grandmother worked at an ice-cream factory and my mom always got a few free cones, and I kid you not, SHE FREAKING LOVED THEM
The women in my family were lunchroom ladies and my grandma got really high up in the school district. In middle school I would just walk into the kitchen at lunch and they had a special tray made up for me already with snacks and fruit punch and everything.
My mom was a teacher at my school and I got instant popularity for my elementary years! I didn’t really care but it made it easier to make friends at least. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nothing special compared to others here but my grandfather had the highest possible title in the Univerity and the perk was having an office with a computer AND access to the Internet which was basically unavailable for an ordinary citizen in my country then. And then my father's school has the first computer lab in his school and also was a computer science teacher. We were able to use this really rare resource since being about 7 which sounds funny know how big deal it was then knowing that the average 2-year-old is able to use YouTube now.
My mum works for a computing company, in the testing department, so I got to play games that hadn’t yet been released (or never got released), which was pretty cool. She also knows a lot about computers and stuff. And we get free Micro-Bits, which are cool.
My dad worked in IT and so sometimes he would let me skip school and come to work with him. They had a supply closet and a HUGE snack room, I think you know what I would do in there. I could draw on stuff, and he had a huge bin of stickers that I would go through. And you wanna know what I would do with all his friends? NERF WARS! And he also taught me how to make tons of programs
my dad worked for a bank, and at the end of each month he could take home some of that money
i wouldn't snitch, eyes everywhere, someone could lose a finger
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My dad was a mechanic at a small coach company, which ran excursions. His boss didn't have kids so would give dad free promo tickets to theme parks which was so cool! But the best part was when I got to go out on breakdowns with him in the truck. Awesome father/daughter time.
Dad worked for a well-known soda company. We had a soda fountain in our kitchen
I hated it as a kid, but my dad is a retired doctor and my step mother's a retired nurse, so I couldn't ever play hookie from school (you're not sick, see, here's all the symptoms you don't have, etc. etc.), but I had great healthcare, awesome (read disgusting to most people) dinner table conversations, and every so often got to play with the research animals.
My father, brother, and sister were lawyers and my mother was an officer of the court. The only "perk" I got out of their dinner table debates was learning that the Law is not about Justice, it's about winning.
My parents were both former paramedics, so they knew what to do when I knocked my (adult) front teeth out. It’s thanks to them that they’re still in my mouth and I didn’t have to wait for literal years to get implants. The bad part is I can never fake being sick to get out of school XD
My dad is a musician - I've been his unofficial roadie since I was big enough to carry his amplifier. Been to a multitude of gigs all over Greater Boston - Jazz, Classical, Shows, you name it. Always came right in with him carrying stuff backstage or in the pit - and more often than not could sneak out front and find an empty seat and see the show.
Parents owned hotels and restaurants. We lived in an apartment in a hotel. Every meal I ate, breakfast, lunch and dinner, was chosen off a menu and cooked to order by a chef from the time I could eat solid food till the age of 18. Also had all my laundry done for me and my room cleaned. Although I did help out behind the bar or in the kitchen sometimes when they were short staffed.
My grandma and her sisters worked for Cadbury's so we used to get tons of free chocolate. My dads job got us living in Malaysia in a purpose built village in the middle of the rainforest. It had one entrance/ exit manned 24/7 so the whole village was safe and we as kids would roam the village alone and play with friends. We had an Olympic sized swimming pool, tennis courts, ballet and gymnastics rooms, take away, restaurant, video rental (this was the mid 90's) library and huge mud hills that we used to sledge down in the rain like snow. It was the best childhood growing up and having so much freedom, I hated moving home. School was 8-1 so we had all afternoon to play sports, I could swim so well I won the commonwealth schools 2000m and 4000m races. Forever grateful for such a unique and amazing childhood.
My dad was international lorry driver and I remember going across Europe with him once. He also taught me to read a road map, and I could give directions through London at the age of 7! These days I rely on a sat nav!
Anybody else googling the requirements for the jobs where you get to meet awesome/famous people? Oh and I've got a story! My dad went to Brown and Harvard and made tons of friends that turned out to be influential (We've had the CEO of Warner Bros. over for dinner multiple times and our neighbor was on SNL a while back) and also is the CEO of a gaming app called pop.in and he gets celebs to play it so it's pretty fun
My parents were doctors, my mother at a pregnancy center. We had a VHS titled "An Everyday Miracle" showing foetal development in the womb from sperm and egg through delivery. This was when we ranged in age from 2 to 8 years, so the details of "where babies come from" were no mystery in our friendship group.
My mom works as a check in counter agent and my dad works at a hotel.So yeah, we get to travel pretty well.
my dad used to work in LA and at his office there was a giant candy wall that was my best friend
My mom used to work at the library meaning we got to sneak into the area behind the check-in counter and get mints. She works at our elementary school as a teacher now so my brother and I get to use the faculty bathrooms and sneak into the teacher’s lounge!
My father worked for the city and always brought plenty of chips with him for the rides at the annual big fair.
My mum worked for a chain bakery in the UK (Greggs) and she used to bring home big family cakes for us every saturday. My dad worked for a telecommunications company servicing payphones from all over the world and sometimes there'd be foreign currency still in them, I had an awesome foreign coin collection. Plus he'd steal stationary from the offices when he worked night shifts so I never needed to buy tippex, reams of paper, pens, rulers, pencils etc for school.
My dad was big honcho on the building side of a nuclear power plant. So I got to tour the inside of a nuclear plant as it was being built saw all the wires in the rooms, so full of wires you couldn't even walk in the room. Also saw the 10 foot thick walls around the nuclear chambers just after they were pour. Oh and the nuclear part is in the ground those big stacks are just to cool the air. This is all while nuclear things were just being built in the 70s. I want to tell you it really does have so many safeguards it's safety check after safety check It's alway operator error. They had ten back up generator just in case one failed. They only needed one. The construction site had a ghost it was better back then.
My parents worked at a summer camp. Whenever campers were gone we had access to most everything there. We would take bows and arrows and run through the woods shooting at made up targets, we played the low rope course all the time and if our parents weren’t busy they took us up the rock wall. :)
My mom is a makeup artist, I get all the free makeup! All the good stuff too KakaoTalk_...f2b174.jpg 
My mom was a title officer at this big Title company and they would make tons of cookies (the dough came pre formed, they would just pop them in the oven every morning) for their clients who would come in during the day. And when she came home she would always bring the leftovers, which was like anywhere between 5 and 25 cookies a day. I used to purposefully bring people over to brag about all the different kinds of cookies I had.
As my Mom immigrated in her 30ies, she wasn't that good in the new language. That's why she got jobs in cleaning. One of her jobs, when I was little, was cleaning a School. Funnily enough I went to that exact same School when I was older - which she could not know at the time, because it was a highly specialised School. But that's not the point. Sometimes she took me and my sister with her to work. We "helped" her or played in the classrooms. There were no toys of course, but we got to paint on the giant chalkboards with lots of coloured chalk. One time we drew the town this School was in and apparently no one cleaned it. Even the teachers and students next day liked it so much, they let it stay. Don't know if that's really true, but as a kid I believed it and was SO proud.
My parents were merchants. They sold cookies,candy,cake ,etc. We had a big storage behind our house filled with all that stuff. It was cool when you took a friend home and asked them if they wanted a cookie or something else to eat. Then go into the storage and say '' well pick anything you want''.
My dad flew medical evacuation helicopters around DC in the early 90s. He had to work one Thanksgiving and we got to spend the day at the hanger. He got permission to fly my brothers and me over DC while you were still allowed to do that. One of the most fantastical memories I have from childhood.
My dad worked security at an outdoor amphitheater for about 10 years when I was young. Got into concerts for free, awesome parking, got to go backstage a couple of times. His gate was right next to the stage so we would sit there and listen to whatever concert was going on. He quit due to the long/late hours just around the time I was old enough to really be interested in certain artists and to appreciate how awesome the job really was. He has some amazing stories!
Grandpa owned a construction company, I got a two story playhouse with electricity, a covered front porch, a balcony and flower window boxes. It was beautiful. Over 30 years ago and it's still in great shape. If we added a bathroom it could be a tiny house today!
My dad owned a concrete and construction company. He built a pool in our backyard
My dad works for Verizon, so he would get free phones and discounts on TVs, sound speakers, and other thing like that. So we have 5 TVs in our house. Idk if that’s normal, but I don’t think it is.
My dad was a chief petty officer Navy Airborne and was on the largest plane the Navy had at the time-three tailed Constellation class. It was a prop plane. He brought me and my sisters on board one time before taking off. Then they started the propellers! Scared me it was so loud! Really Awesome! We entered the plane through its belly and were handed down the ladder by sailors so they could take off. He flew all over the world and would bring back collector dolls from each of the countries. He also got permission to paint Wyly Coyote and Road Runner on the sides from Warner Brothers. He designed them and painted them himself. I'm sure it got me interested in Art then and I became an art teacher.
My dad is a journalist, and he gets posters about press freedom for free that I'd hang up in my room (yes, that was cool when I was little, and I still have them. My parents are also both art historians and can tell you a lot when you go to a museum/church with them (side effect: me and my sister were dragged into about every church we passed on trips. No-one in my family is religious, but medieval architecture is my moms specialty).
A classmate of mine got time off school to spend holidays in fancy hotels (a few weeks a year) because his father was rating them as a job.
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My dad worked for Mitsubishi and every year they had a huge Christmas fair with rides, food, Santa and show bags. All the employees would get free ice cream and show bag vouchers for each family member and the rides were pretty cheap too. Great memories.
I was an only child so i get a free dominoes pizza and lava cakes all for myself
My dad briefly worked as a deliverer for Marco's Pizza when I was about 9, and that meant we'd get a discount on pizza whenever we went there. It was pretty cool. Additionally, my mom works for the American Dental Association, so my mom and I have free dental insurance.
due to dad being military & mom security manager for dept of defense, i got an early education and awareness of politics and what drives the military industrial complex. actually, got called into the dean of student's office in high school due to exercising a personal right & then mom was called in. after hearing the situation, mom pulled out her pocket constitution, quoted it, and then asked to see the school rules to see if i had violated any of them with my words and actions. nope.
my parents helped fund a pig farm in the philipines, so when i got to visit i saw the farms, they were pretty cool, until the government took all the pigs for something silly i forgot about.. also i got to eat pig skin, when cooked its like a cracker :D
My dads an architect and my moms an art school graduate who works as an interior designer so they know like everyone in my hometown so we got to have free food from restaurant owners occasionally, and OH how could I forget my dad attempting to turn every drawing 5 yr old me showed him into an art lesson 🙄 (you know how most people got their dads attempting to help them with math homework? Yeah I got this) and I can confidently say that I can draw a pretty decent stick figure 😁
My dad was a stockbroker. Besides the comfort we felt financially, the best perk was that the market closed at 4. My dad left after I went to school and was home by 4:30. We were able to watch Jeopardy together at 6 and he coached all my school sports! The biggest perk was having a present and available dad. Wouldn’t trade it for anything!
Most of these awesome experiences would be nixed in today's litigious, PC society
My dad was a fire fighter. I used to get to visit him at the station & he would take me down the pole. So fun!
My dad was a firefighter too, they don't have a pole but we got to see Al of the firetrucks and stuff.
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My dad worked for the railroad so we had half fare tickets to where ever we wanted to go, as long as we were dependents. When I was in High School and my sister in college we went to California to visit relatives, just the two of us. We went to Disneyland and stayed at the hotel there. It was glorious. Then when I was in college, my close friend and I went to Toronto for her Irish dancing competition. It was wonderful. And my mother worked for the phone company so we had free local and long distance calls. We could talk as long as we wanted! And my mom brought home great big sheets of stiff paper with one side blank. Great for drawing but the drawback was it was pale green. I always felt spoiled. Maybe I was!
My dad is a longshoreman so sometimes I get to go into the port on days with no work (He works at one of the smaller ports) and look around. It's pretty cool. Also my mom used to work at a bus place and we got a ride (idk if discounted or free? I was too young to remember) but it was to this cool light show. Also we got to go to the work parties which were really fun. Me and my sister would participate in games with the manager and owner of the specific building she worked at, and I remember this pudding game we played that was really awesome, me and the owner vs my sis and the manager. (My team won lol). So maybe not the best benefits but still really fun. Oh and when my dad went back to college for another degree we got to see the cool machinery in the college like a vacuum thing
But it wasn't like a vacuum cleaner it was like a small vacuum chamber and he put a marshmallow in it and it was cool
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My dad was a computer consultant back in the 90s. We probably had the first home computer in the whole neighbourhood. Mum and Dad wouldn't buy a Nintendo (probably because they couldn't afford it), but we got to play games on the computer instead. It was an Amiga! My mum worked in an Ecochemistry lab and got my my first job: Cleaning test tubes. I got to wear a lab coat and everything; it was awesome! She helped me with my Biology assignments in highschool too.
My dad was a firefirefighter. Every xmas they did a party for all the firefighters kids. Each year one of his workmates dressed up as santa and came down the pole with a sack of presents. Was ace. As a teen I did the 'take our daughters to work' and got to do a taster of their training. We put on the breathing apparatus & go into smoke filled building. Fun times.
My dad was a pipe fitter. We had a pipe swing set and monkey bars, pipe stair rails, pipe fencing, pipe bicycles, the works. He handled all the plumbing emergencies in our neighbourhood. We also got an endless string of pipe fitter jokes. “She was only the pipefitter’s daughter, but she was pretty easy to bend...”
My dad was a community psychiatric nurse in the 80s and 90s. He came home one day with loads of promotional Prozac pens and a pile of Prozac bath towels.
My mom worked at a tofu place. Missing egg salad and the bbq kind were my favorite.
Not parents, but an ex-GF. She worked for Coca Cola. Employees got major discounts for Coca Cola products that they could place orders for, so I would give her money to place orders for cases of their products at the employee discount prices.
My mom worked at 'the funnybook factory'. aka a printing factory that made Christian coloring comic books. She'd bring them home for us to color in, none of them appealed to us, and she was ok with that. Just some perk of the job. From there she went to 2nd shift Medicare, inputting data. Nothing for us there. Dad was a carpenter, building houses. He built Vince McMahon's house. Said his son, (I forget his hame) had really small hands. Anyway, nothing fun there, either.
My dad was a truck driver and if I went with him his stores often gave me free goodies or "accidentally" dropped a watermelon that everyone shared. I also remember that he got discounts on returned or damaged goods. $1 for a 50lb bag of dog food $1 for 10lbs of potatoes. I remember one summer he was on his way back to the warehouse when he saw me riding my bike home. Tossed my bike in the trailer and gave me a ride to the end of our road and handed me two cases of close-to-date Polly-o-mozzarella. I ate so much mozzarella that summer... I was sick of it for a long time. but loved it at first.
What an amazing honor and blessing in your life and the lives of your children. I have this thing I call "Being In the Presence of Greatness." For example, attending a talk on one of Maya Angelou's last tours. I believe that just by being in their presence you are forever changed by that. Almost like receiving their energy. How amazing to simply be in her presence. What lessons of courage and dignity. I really believe that through her you were also in the presence of the ancestors
There used to be cool times. Parents could take or smuggle their children to work. They could carry out their duties without any problems and the children learned new skills and spent time with their parents, they learned about their profession. Now everything is secret and the parent has no respite because even going to the toilet can destroy the schedule.
My dad used to be a poor guy managing a dispatch service until he became best friends with a multi millionaire through his job, who ended up being like a brother to me and taught me everything about business and finance. Changed my life forever, almost instantly.
Chief Wilma Mankiller of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma was my mentor. Every year I took pictures of her with my children and she would sit them on her lap and tell them stories. They thought she was just another Indian lady, like us, that loved them very much. Now they're in their 20s and they still remember the days and now they know that she was the first female Chief of a major Indian tribe. She told them stories that will hold them for the rest of their lives. Miss you every day Wilma.
My dad is a firefighter, so when I was little I got to climb around on fire trucks.
My dad was a milkman, whilst we never got milk free, he'd pick up all sorts that people were throwing out or had too much of when we were kids. Furniture, books, magazines, fabric, and all manner of fruit and vegetables from back gardens.
I got to spend a lot of unsupervised time in a chocolate factory after the workers went home. And I was officially allowed to eat as much as I liked. Thanks, dad!
My mom is a teacher. She's really smart, and she has more karen stories then the internet.
My mum works as a Psychologist so we used to spend a lot of time discussing some of her cases (anonymously). She used to bring IQ tests home and I loved solving them. She took me to a training about Psychosis and I sat next to other clinicians which made me feel so important. I am a Psychologist now :)
My dad used to have his students give us those IQ tests. We were three kids, three years apart. I took so many, that one day, a student ran over to my dad, "Dr Ingersoll!! Your daughter is a GENIUS!!!!" My dad just laughed. I mean, I **AM** but... I'd memorized the test. :D
Load More Replies... Mom was a nurse. She'd answer any question about her day, show me her journals and textbooks, and I'd help her study for professional exams. Which was 1. cool and 2. helped me be okay about blood/etc. and 3. meant I went into medicine without any illusions about how it really is. Thanks, Mom!
My dad taught AutoCAD (Computer Aided Drafting) in the early 90s, and over the summer he was allowed to bring a computer home, so we were one of the first people I knew to have a computer at home. The first computer was a black and white Macintosh. Later years he would bring home old computers and I was able to use the parts to make myself a working computer. I loved how it gave me confidence to tinker with computers from a fairly young age.
And AutoCAD is still around. Funny how long lasting it is in this fast world
Load More Replies... My mom is a children's book author so a couple years ago she took me to a book convention thing that didn't take visitors and I got 30+ books (middle grade, ya, na, etc) as Advanced Reader's Copies along with buttons, tattoos and posters. Some of those books are now my favorites ever.
Both parents work for American Embassies around the world. Both remarried. Step Dad was a teacher at my schools, and step Mom managed a restaurant in Guatemala. There were a lot of perks to these, but the best and most obvious was moving to and living in various countries around the world. Mostly around Africa and Central and South America. I grew up in the most amazing places, and seen amazing things. Summer jobs in the Embassies were the best!
My grandmother worked at an ice-cream factory and my mom always got a few free cones, and I kid you not, SHE FREAKING LOVED THEM
The women in my family were lunchroom ladies and my grandma got really high up in the school district. In middle school I would just walk into the kitchen at lunch and they had a special tray made up for me already with snacks and fruit punch and everything.
My mom was a teacher at my school and I got instant popularity for my elementary years! I didn’t really care but it made it easier to make friends at least. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nothing special compared to others here but my grandfather had the highest possible title in the Univerity and the perk was having an office with a computer AND access to the Internet which was basically unavailable for an ordinary citizen in my country then. And then my father's school has the first computer lab in his school and also was a computer science teacher. We were able to use this really rare resource since being about 7 which sounds funny know how big deal it was then knowing that the average 2-year-old is able to use YouTube now.
My mum works for a computing company, in the testing department, so I got to play games that hadn’t yet been released (or never got released), which was pretty cool. She also knows a lot about computers and stuff. And we get free Micro-Bits, which are cool.
My dad worked in IT and so sometimes he would let me skip school and come to work with him. They had a supply closet and a HUGE snack room, I think you know what I would do in there. I could draw on stuff, and he had a huge bin of stickers that I would go through. And you wanna know what I would do with all his friends? NERF WARS! And he also taught me how to make tons of programs
my dad worked for a bank, and at the end of each month he could take home some of that money
i wouldn't snitch, eyes everywhere, someone could lose a finger
Load More Replies... My dad was a mechanic at a small coach company, which ran excursions. His boss didn't have kids so would give dad free promo tickets to theme parks which was so cool! But the best part was when I got to go out on breakdowns with him in the truck. Awesome father/daughter time.
Dad worked for a well-known soda company. We had a soda fountain in our kitchen
I hated it as a kid, but my dad is a retired doctor and my step mother's a retired nurse, so I couldn't ever play hookie from school (you're not sick, see, here's all the symptoms you don't have, etc. etc.), but I had great healthcare, awesome (read disgusting to most people) dinner table conversations, and every so often got to play with the research animals.
My father, brother, and sister were lawyers and my mother was an officer of the court. The only "perk" I got out of their dinner table debates was learning that the Law is not about Justice, it's about winning.
My parents were both former paramedics, so they knew what to do when I knocked my (adult) front teeth out. It’s thanks to them that they’re still in my mouth and I didn’t have to wait for literal years to get implants. The bad part is I can never fake being sick to get out of school XD
My dad is a musician - I've been his unofficial roadie since I was big enough to carry his amplifier. Been to a multitude of gigs all over Greater Boston - Jazz, Classical, Shows, you name it. Always came right in with him carrying stuff backstage or in the pit - and more often than not could sneak out front and find an empty seat and see the show.
Parents owned hotels and restaurants. We lived in an apartment in a hotel. Every meal I ate, breakfast, lunch and dinner, was chosen off a menu and cooked to order by a chef from the time I could eat solid food till the age of 18. Also had all my laundry done for me and my room cleaned. Although I did help out behind the bar or in the kitchen sometimes when they were short staffed.
My grandma and her sisters worked for Cadbury's so we used to get tons of free chocolate. My dads job got us living in Malaysia in a purpose built village in the middle of the rainforest. It had one entrance/ exit manned 24/7 so the whole village was safe and we as kids would roam the village alone and play with friends. We had an Olympic sized swimming pool, tennis courts, ballet and gymnastics rooms, take away, restaurant, video rental (this was the mid 90's) library and huge mud hills that we used to sledge down in the rain like snow. It was the best childhood growing up and having so much freedom, I hated moving home. School was 8-1 so we had all afternoon to play sports, I could swim so well I won the commonwealth schools 2000m and 4000m races. Forever grateful for such a unique and amazing childhood.
My dad was international lorry driver and I remember going across Europe with him once. He also taught me to read a road map, and I could give directions through London at the age of 7! These days I rely on a sat nav!
Anybody else googling the requirements for the jobs where you get to meet awesome/famous people? Oh and I've got a story! My dad went to Brown and Harvard and made tons of friends that turned out to be influential (We've had the CEO of Warner Bros. over for dinner multiple times and our neighbor was on SNL a while back) and also is the CEO of a gaming app called pop.in and he gets celebs to play it so it's pretty fun
My parents were doctors, my mother at a pregnancy center. We had a VHS titled "An Everyday Miracle" showing foetal development in the womb from sperm and egg through delivery. This was when we ranged in age from 2 to 8 years, so the details of "where babies come from" were no mystery in our friendship group.
My mom works as a check in counter agent and my dad works at a hotel.So yeah, we get to travel pretty well.
my dad used to work in LA and at his office there was a giant candy wall that was my best friend
My mom used to work at the library meaning we got to sneak into the area behind the check-in counter and get mints. She works at our elementary school as a teacher now so my brother and I get to use the faculty bathrooms and sneak into the teacher’s lounge!
My father worked for the city and always brought plenty of chips with him for the rides at the annual big fair.
My mum worked for a chain bakery in the UK (Greggs) and she used to bring home big family cakes for us every saturday. My dad worked for a telecommunications company servicing payphones from all over the world and sometimes there'd be foreign currency still in them, I had an awesome foreign coin collection. Plus he'd steal stationary from the offices when he worked night shifts so I never needed to buy tippex, reams of paper, pens, rulers, pencils etc for school.
My dad was big honcho on the building side of a nuclear power plant. So I got to tour the inside of a nuclear plant as it was being built saw all the wires in the rooms, so full of wires you couldn't even walk in the room. Also saw the 10 foot thick walls around the nuclear chambers just after they were pour. Oh and the nuclear part is in the ground those big stacks are just to cool the air. This is all while nuclear things were just being built in the 70s. I want to tell you it really does have so many safeguards it's safety check after safety check It's alway operator error. They had ten back up generator just in case one failed. They only needed one. The construction site had a ghost it was better back then.
My parents worked at a summer camp. Whenever campers were gone we had access to most everything there. We would take bows and arrows and run through the woods shooting at made up targets, we played the low rope course all the time and if our parents weren’t busy they took us up the rock wall. :)
My mom is a makeup artist, I get all the free makeup! All the good stuff too KakaoTalk_...f2b174.jpg
My mom was a title officer at this big Title company and they would make tons of cookies (the dough came pre formed, they would just pop them in the oven every morning) for their clients who would come in during the day. And when she came home she would always bring the leftovers, which was like anywhere between 5 and 25 cookies a day. I used to purposefully bring people over to brag about all the different kinds of cookies I had.
As my Mom immigrated in her 30ies, she wasn't that good in the new language. That's why she got jobs in cleaning. One of her jobs, when I was little, was cleaning a School. Funnily enough I went to that exact same School when I was older - which she could not know at the time, because it was a highly specialised School. But that's not the point. Sometimes she took me and my sister with her to work. We "helped" her or played in the classrooms. There were no toys of course, but we got to paint on the giant chalkboards with lots of coloured chalk. One time we drew the town this School was in and apparently no one cleaned it. Even the teachers and students next day liked it so much, they let it stay. Don't know if that's really true, but as a kid I believed it and was SO proud.
My parents were merchants. They sold cookies,candy,cake ,etc. We had a big storage behind our house filled with all that stuff. It was cool when you took a friend home and asked them if they wanted a cookie or something else to eat. Then go into the storage and say '' well pick anything you want''.
My dad flew medical evacuation helicopters around DC in the early 90s. He had to work one Thanksgiving and we got to spend the day at the hanger. He got permission to fly my brothers and me over DC while you were still allowed to do that. One of the most fantastical memories I have from childhood.
My dad worked security at an outdoor amphitheater for about 10 years when I was young. Got into concerts for free, awesome parking, got to go backstage a couple of times. His gate was right next to the stage so we would sit there and listen to whatever concert was going on. He quit due to the long/late hours just around the time I was old enough to really be interested in certain artists and to appreciate how awesome the job really was. He has some amazing stories!
Grandpa owned a construction company, I got a two story playhouse with electricity, a covered front porch, a balcony and flower window boxes. It was beautiful. Over 30 years ago and it's still in great shape. If we added a bathroom it could be a tiny house today!
My dad owned a concrete and construction company. He built a pool in our backyard
My dad works for Verizon, so he would get free phones and discounts on TVs, sound speakers, and other thing like that. So we have 5 TVs in our house. Idk if that’s normal, but I don’t think it is.
My dad was a chief petty officer Navy Airborne and was on the largest plane the Navy had at the time-three tailed Constellation class. It was a prop plane. He brought me and my sisters on board one time before taking off. Then they started the propellers! Scared me it was so loud! Really Awesome! We entered the plane through its belly and were handed down the ladder by sailors so they could take off. He flew all over the world and would bring back collector dolls from each of the countries. He also got permission to paint Wyly Coyote and Road Runner on the sides from Warner Brothers. He designed them and painted them himself. I'm sure it got me interested in Art then and I became an art teacher.
My dad is a journalist, and he gets posters about press freedom for free that I'd hang up in my room (yes, that was cool when I was little, and I still have them. My parents are also both art historians and can tell you a lot when you go to a museum/church with them (side effect: me and my sister were dragged into about every church we passed on trips. No-one in my family is religious, but medieval architecture is my moms specialty).
A classmate of mine got time off school to spend holidays in fancy hotels (a few weeks a year) because his father was rating them as a job.
Load More Replies... My dad worked for Mitsubishi and every year they had a huge Christmas fair with rides, food, Santa and show bags. All the employees would get free ice cream and show bag vouchers for each family member and the rides were pretty cheap too. Great memories.
I was an only child so i get a free dominoes pizza and lava cakes all for myself
My dad briefly worked as a deliverer for Marco's Pizza when I was about 9, and that meant we'd get a discount on pizza whenever we went there. It was pretty cool. Additionally, my mom works for the American Dental Association, so my mom and I have free dental insurance.
due to dad being military & mom security manager for dept of defense, i got an early education and awareness of politics and what drives the military industrial complex. actually, got called into the dean of student's office in high school due to exercising a personal right & then mom was called in. after hearing the situation, mom pulled out her pocket constitution, quoted it, and then asked to see the school rules to see if i had violated any of them with my words and actions. nope.
my parents helped fund a pig farm in the philipines, so when i got to visit i saw the farms, they were pretty cool, until the government took all the pigs for something silly i forgot about.. also i got to eat pig skin, when cooked its like a cracker :D
My dads an architect and my moms an art school graduate who works as an interior designer so they know like everyone in my hometown so we got to have free food from restaurant owners occasionally, and OH how could I forget my dad attempting to turn every drawing 5 yr old me showed him into an art lesson 🙄 (you know how most people got their dads attempting to help them with math homework? Yeah I got this) and I can confidently say that I can draw a pretty decent stick figure 😁
My dad was a stockbroker. Besides the comfort we felt financially, the best perk was that the market closed at 4. My dad left after I went to school and was home by 4:30. We were able to watch Jeopardy together at 6 and he coached all my school sports! The biggest perk was having a present and available dad. Wouldn’t trade it for anything!
Most of these awesome experiences would be nixed in today's litigious, PC society
My dad was a fire fighter. I used to get to visit him at the station & he would take me down the pole. So fun!
My dad was a firefighter too, they don't have a pole but we got to see Al of the firetrucks and stuff.
Load More Replies... My dad worked for the railroad so we had half fare tickets to where ever we wanted to go, as long as we were dependents. When I was in High School and my sister in college we went to California to visit relatives, just the two of us. We went to Disneyland and stayed at the hotel there. It was glorious. Then when I was in college, my close friend and I went to Toronto for her Irish dancing competition. It was wonderful. And my mother worked for the phone company so we had free local and long distance calls. We could talk as long as we wanted! And my mom brought home great big sheets of stiff paper with one side blank. Great for drawing but the drawback was it was pale green. I always felt spoiled. Maybe I was!
My dad is a longshoreman so sometimes I get to go into the port on days with no work (He works at one of the smaller ports) and look around. It's pretty cool. Also my mom used to work at a bus place and we got a ride (idk if discounted or free? I was too young to remember) but it was to this cool light show. Also we got to go to the work parties which were really fun. Me and my sister would participate in games with the manager and owner of the specific building she worked at, and I remember this pudding game we played that was really awesome, me and the owner vs my sis and the manager. (My team won lol). So maybe not the best benefits but still really fun. Oh and when my dad went back to college for another degree we got to see the cool machinery in the college like a vacuum thing
But it wasn't like a vacuum cleaner it was like a small vacuum chamber and he put a marshmallow in it and it was cool
Load More Replies... My dad was a computer consultant back in the 90s. We probably had the first home computer in the whole neighbourhood. Mum and Dad wouldn't buy a Nintendo (probably because they couldn't afford it), but we got to play games on the computer instead. It was an Amiga! My mum worked in an Ecochemistry lab and got my my first job: Cleaning test tubes. I got to wear a lab coat and everything; it was awesome! She helped me with my Biology assignments in highschool too.
My dad was a firefirefighter. Every xmas they did a party for all the firefighters kids. Each year one of his workmates dressed up as santa and came down the pole with a sack of presents. Was ace. As a teen I did the 'take our daughters to work' and got to do a taster of their training. We put on the breathing apparatus & go into smoke filled building. Fun times.
My dad was a pipe fitter. We had a pipe swing set and monkey bars, pipe stair rails, pipe fencing, pipe bicycles, the works. He handled all the plumbing emergencies in our neighbourhood. We also got an endless string of pipe fitter jokes. “She was only the pipefitter’s daughter, but she was pretty easy to bend...”
My dad was a community psychiatric nurse in the 80s and 90s. He came home one day with loads of promotional Prozac pens and a pile of Prozac bath towels.
My mom worked at a tofu place. Missing egg salad and the bbq kind were my favorite.
Not parents, but an ex-GF. She worked for Coca Cola. Employees got major discounts for Coca Cola products that they could place orders for, so I would give her money to place orders for cases of their products at the employee discount prices.
My mom worked at 'the funnybook factory'. aka a printing factory that made Christian coloring comic books. She'd bring them home for us to color in, none of them appealed to us, and she was ok with that. Just some perk of the job. From there she went to 2nd shift Medicare, inputting data. Nothing for us there. Dad was a carpenter, building houses. He built Vince McMahon's house. Said his son, (I forget his hame) had really small hands. Anyway, nothing fun there, either.
My dad was a truck driver and if I went with him his stores often gave me free goodies or "accidentally" dropped a watermelon that everyone shared. I also remember that he got discounts on returned or damaged goods. $1 for a 50lb bag of dog food $1 for 10lbs of potatoes. I remember one summer he was on his way back to the warehouse when he saw me riding my bike home. Tossed my bike in the trailer and gave me a ride to the end of our road and handed me two cases of close-to-date Polly-o-mozzarella. I ate so much mozzarella that summer... I was sick of it for a long time. but loved it at first.
What an amazing honor and blessing in your life and the lives of your children. I have this thing I call "Being In the Presence of Greatness." For example, attending a talk on one of Maya Angelou's last tours. I believe that just by being in their presence you are forever changed by that. Almost like receiving their energy. How amazing to simply be in her presence. What lessons of courage and dignity. I really believe that through her you were also in the presence of the ancestors
There used to be cool times. Parents could take or smuggle their children to work. They could carry out their duties without any problems and the children learned new skills and spent time with their parents, they learned about their profession. Now everything is secret and the parent has no respite because even going to the toilet can destroy the schedule.
My dad used to be a poor guy managing a dispatch service until he became best friends with a multi millionaire through his job, who ended up being like a brother to me and taught me everything about business and finance. Changed my life forever, almost instantly.
