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“Wait… You Don’t All Have This?”: 40 Wholesome Moments Of Privilege Realization
Article created by: Shelly Fourer
When you grow up in a wealthy family, it’s incredibly easy to think that what you see around you is how the entire world actually functions. It’s only when you step outside that bubble that this illusion starts to crumble. And as the scales fall from your eyes, you start to realize that what’s ‘normal’ for you is nothing like how most working people live.
Today, we’re looking at some incredibly honest stories, as shared by rich folks in a few captivating online threads. They bared their hearts about the moments when the penny dropped and they finally began to understand just how privileged their backgrounds really were. Check out their experiences below.
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#1
I come from a very wealthy family, I didn't realize I was rich until I started going over to my friend's house around age of eight and they never had a PlayStation and so on so we always played outside. When he came over to my house he was super jealous and mentioned how he could never have anything that we had. Every time I went over to his house his mom would make his mac and cheese and other things while I'm used to having steaks and other expensive stuff on a daily basis. Even though I could literally buy whatever I wanted I was jealous of my friend because his parents seem to show more attention to him, and he was jealous of me for having things when those things only really were a distraction. Growing up rich really isn't as cool as you might think it is.
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#2
I grew up upper middle class and well off. I had the first eyes opening experience at 17 going out of high school when, during the summer holiday I met a student from the same highschool working at the mall.
We chitchatted and i told him « it’s brave of you to work during Summer before starting university »
He answered baffled that he was not working for summer but actually working there long term. The naïve me was like « why don’t you go to university it’s better for you » … « because I have no money for that »
I will always remember that moment with a bit of shame but also the moment where I truly started to grow and be concious of other people lives and difficulties.
#3
College. None of my friends had been skiing. I'm from a plain state with no mountains nearby. .
#4
So my family used to be very rich in Asia (I grew up with a nanny, my parents had a personal driver, and we lived in a penthouse downtown), but is now solidly upper-middle class (top 5%) in North America. Because we can no longer afford the luxuries we used to have, my dad in particular always used to tell me that we were not very well off, and middle class at best. I initially believed it, since the schools I attended were full of people much richer than my family was.
My privilege didn't fully hit me until college, where my roommate told me she had never been on a plane before coming to college nor ever been out of the country because her family couldn't afford it. Meanwhile, my family usually traveled twice a year, and our idea of being budget-conscious was staying at a four-star hotel instead of a five-star one. She worked 20 hours/week to save money to buy the cheapest textbooks she could find while my parents gave me $500 at the start of the semester to buy books.
My parents still insist that we're middle class, but I've realized how lucky I really am.
#5
Around high school I would always try to get my friends to go out to eat with me. It was just weird to me that they didn't have extra spending money. One day it just hit me that we were used to different lifestyles.
#6
I grew up upper middle class, but still ridiculously privileged. I realized that after I became friends with someone whose family was impoverished for the first time, and was invited over to the house her family rented. The bedroom that she shared with her sister was the size of my walk-in closet, and my bedroom was bigger than their living room, dining room, and kitchen put together.
#7
I grew up not knowing my family had money. My friends would marvel at our house. We would take tons of vacations. I've experienced more as a child than I will likely ever be able to experience as an adult. My parents were in the medical field. My step-father is much older than my mother. His children will likely inherit whatever is left after their many travels (which I support- spend it rather than leave it). It just never was a "thing" for me. I realize now that some of the guys I dated were probably more into the money than me... and that some of my friends were as well, but I'm a housewife now. 2 kids. Living a simple life. The people who were really there for me are still a part of my life. The people who thought that I was some sort of cash cow have vanished. It's still it's a perfect existence.
#8
My greatest realizations have probably come from my boyfriend who I met in college. His family wasn't 'poor' but they didn't have huge amounts of cash lying around and had times when things were tight. Whereas for me growing up we thought nothing of saying "going to the x house this week!" So just casual conversations with him are always interesting. He often tells me I'm hilarious.
My dad did make it his mission in life to make sure his kids understand that so many people struggle, we all volunteered with charities. But the thing with those extremes is that you are still clueless about the middle part.
#9
Grew up with money and then we lost it all, parents got divorced, etc.
Moved into a condo with my mom when I was 10. Had never in my life seen a can opener or ice tray since we had automatic ones for that.
My mom said that was when she realized how privileged, but sheltered we had been.
#10
I found it weird that although I knew many people who were unhappy with their looks, non of them would ever consider plastic surgery to perfect their flaws as I did. That was when I realized not many people have $10k lying around for cosmetic surgery.
#11
I grew up in a upper middle class neighborhood and went to public schools in the area that were full of kids just like me. I thought I was pretty middle class. Then, I got to college and realized that some people's parents weren't paying for their college, or their housing, or their books, or their groceries, or their transportation. I guess I kind of grew up in a bubble.
#12
Mid 20s. I grew up in a McMansion on the east coast. Multiple vacations a year, annual Disney trips, got a car when I turned 16 etc. Ever see those buzzfeed listicles about being a rich kid in the 90s - I had everything on those lists, multiple gaming platforms, iMac… my class ring had diamonds in it (so stupid). I didn’t realize that wasn’t normal until I started dating people and going home to meet their family. I was very much in a bubble of similar people growing up and my parents were not great at teaching us how other people lived.
#13
I never realized how well off I was as a kid because the entire community I grew up in were people of similar income. In fact, compared to some of my neighbors we had less (our house didn’t have a pool).
One summer my father had a business trip to Hong Kong and took me along for a change of pace. During the trip he took me down to the poverty-stricken slums through a local contact. I still remember this more than 30 years later and taught me to take things for granted.
#14
I was born into a wealthy family in a little town in Russia. In my very early years I lived like any other working class family, my parents lived in a small apartment that they got from their parents. It wasn't until my little brother was born that I realised that my family was wealthy. Just before we brought him home from a hospital, my parents had built a 6 storey house, just for the 4 of us, in the heart of the city.
As a child I never really questioned it, my parents didn't really spoil me, I thought it was the norm, until I started going to school.
I had a friend that would often come to my house after school but one day we went to her 1 bedroom apartment that she lived in with her parents. (She was by no means poor, it was just the norm) After that we stopped coming to my house as it made me a bit uncomfortable.
I knew that my family wasn't poor, but also knew that we weren't the richest. I never bragged about my family's wealth, if anything I was always jealous of how close my friends were with their parents since I've barely seen mine.
I for some reason took upon myself an idea that my parents' wealth was not mine. To this day, I don't ask my parents for anything, as I don't want them to feel like I'm only speaking to them because I want money.
TLDR: When I first went to my school friend's house, but eventually always had a gist of it.
#15
I didn't grow up rich but I was rich in comparison to the people around me since I was raised in a poor environment. My parents were from Asia and lived the stereotypical American dream immigrant story and came to this country really poor, when I popped out, they had made it to the point we were able to call ourselves "middle class" but bc I still grew up surrounded by minorities and attended city public schools where people around were scrapping by, I hated my environment personally and never felt safe, I was seen as rich by some of those around me, even though my family still lived the humble lifestyle: clipping coupons, waiting for on sale events, saving money.
I eventually won a scholarship to a Private University and met truly rich people. I was a lot happier in this environment bc it was safer and people were a lot nicer but sometimes originally envied the people that had such a truly easy life. I eventually came to recognize money is really relative, and I was rich compared to most of the world and really came to appreciate things when I thought about how screwed up and unfair life could be and decided to get involved in community service work and even spent nights staying at shelters, breaking bread, living, and befriended many of the poor.
Many of the people around me, though poor, were incredibly nice, and when I speak with them and they tell me stories of having to not even be able to afford leaving their state, not being able to even go to college bc of finances, being still stuck working min wage jobs, or even worse, no job, I came to realize and really appreciate I was really blessed in many ways and today I just graduated college not too long ago actually lol and truth be told, and while still lost what I want to do career wise, know it's a life long passion to do something I can give back to society.
#16
Grew up with rich but deeply dysfunctional parents.
It was a situation where my parents were rich but my siblings and I were dirt poor.
I was planned but my parents resent spending a penny on me and never let me forget it.
They were always pointing out people with less money, so there was never a moment when I didn’t know that other people weren’t as rich as my parents.
They are the definition of being “so broke that all they got was money”.
#17
Grew up comfortably in a very wealthy suburb because of frugal parents -- the quality of my public school education. Because the school district is funded by property taxes and there was a conscious decision to focus resources on a single high school with world class facilities, I had opportunities and experiences that are unfathomable to others. I always knew my experiences weren't normal, but I had no how truly outside the norm they were.
#18
I'm not exactly 'rich', but my father is a really successful businessman so he actually keeps like 5 families afloat all by himself.
I thought that was actually a normal thing with families.
#19
I was actually pretty painfully aware of it. My nanny (thankfully) constantly told us how lucky we were. I actually grew to be ashamed of and embarrassed when my dad picked us up at our (private) school with his porsche. But private school in a wealthy area means that most everyone was at least upper middle class (if you had a scholarship). My classmates complain about how many of their peers have legacy at Stanford and Harvard.
#20
When people kept joking about how many instruments are in my house. Also when my parents bought me a half ounce of gold for maintaining close to a 3.0 GPA.
#21
I thought different towns just had different lifestyles. In one, everybody was the practical farming type that didn’t need luxury. In the other, most kids go on international vacations during breaks and everybody got a car at 16. Only the rich kids got new cars, everyone else got a hand me down car. Apartments were for 20-25 year olds and nobody else.
This didn’t even last through high school, but yeah, I did not realize how much of a wealth bubble I grew up in.
#22
When I got to college and was one of a few people who didn’t have loans/have to work a part time job to be there. My parents had a very frugal, low-key lifestyle so I didn’t realize that having my college covered was very unusual and rich!
#23
I had never thought of myself as upper class as a kid, I had a single dad who was a firefighter and lived in NY.
Moved to MT when I started high school and thought a lot of it was just more exposure coming from a developed area to rural. Mentioned I had a nanny because of my dad's work hours, she'd come stay at our house overnight most nights. This blew people's minds.
Also just regular exposure to good food, especially seafood. Might have been the area again, but most people out here hadn't tried lobster or mussels.
#24
Probably when my parents started getting really nice cars. Dad bought Ferrari’s and we moved into a million plus dollar house when I was 13.
#25
When 3/4 of my college classmates had student debt, but my parents bankrolled my tuition.
Saved them a lot by going to a cheaper school, got my degree used 10% of what I learned. It was an awkward 4 years.
#26
I grew up in the Northeast US. We went to Disney World twice a year each year. This was in addition to many other vacations we would take throughout the year. We’d always stay at a deluxe resort, stay for a week, etc. I found out when, during our senior high school trip to Disney World, that that’s not normal and that Disney is typically a “once in a lifetime” trip for a kid, not a regularly scheduled vacation.
And I now live in Orlando and go to theme parks all the time…
On the bright side, I do appreciate how my parents were extremely into making sure that we knew that rest is essential and that it’s good to take breaks from work and school. I now go on about 1 vacation every 3 months (thank you, unlimited PTO!) and my wife and I do a weekend trip every month.
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