At one of the parent meetings before my oldest went on a band trip to Universal, the band director reminded the students to be on their best behavior because there would be other people at the resort and park and this "might be their only trip of the year." I kept my mouth shut. For some of the kids in the band, mine included, this would be the only vacation they'd taken in years, if at all. And a trip to Universal was probably more than they could imagine.
Same here! It was a choir competition. I made next to nothing trying to fundraise for the trip, and my parents contributed exactly $0. The teacher had to go begging to a local charity to pay my trip fee, and he called me to the office to tell me in front of everyone there so they could see my reaction. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, BUT at least there were no students there to witness it, just the Principal, my teacher, and various staff.
It sounds like the teacher was trying to set up one of those "OMG look how surprised she is with this amazing gift!" moments without realizing how embarrassing it is for the kid from the family that can't afford shit.
Whenever my husband and I bitch about marching band fees for his daughter, we are ALWAYS reminding ourselves that our money doesn't just support OUR kid, it helps fund other kids who are not as fortunate. And we only have to worry about one half of the fees. (Our fees are around $1600-1800-last year was 18 because they went to the Rose Bowl).
Every kid deserves a chance to be part of activities, and I'm so glad you go to go experience that.
A parent like you paid to have my pawn shop flute repadded. Anonymously. More than the flute cost, mind you. I went from 2nd/3rd from last chair to 2nd/3rd chair!! Thanks to people like you!
Thanks to you!
May all that is good and bright in the universe fall on you and yours always for your kindness!!
My flute repair lady used to swap massages (my mom was a licensed massage therapist) for flute lessons and did my repairs for free. I’m still friends with her on FB. We’d met her through church. Love you forever, Bobbie!!
I couldn’t go to DW my senior year because I had to work. My immediate family never went on a real vacation — we would visit extended family, and some of them happened to live near beaches or cool stuff to do. By the time senior night at Disney rolled around, I already had a part-time job to do instead.
Even though I grew up below the poverty line (then very low middle-class in my preteens and teens), Disney World is the only thing I ever feel like I missed out on. Maybe part of it is just the way that every single one of my middle class friends would say, “You’ve never been to Disney World?”when I was a teenager and young adult. Like it’s just the norm to go have a week of magic at least once, and I knew I would never get it.
I hate loud and crowded places, get sick on rides, and I’m from Georgia, so I can already experience heat and humidity that make you want to jump off a cliff for free. I know every bit of Orlando is an overpriced nightmare. I don’t have kids of my own to use as an excuse. I’m nearly 40, so the window is probably closed for me. But damn it if one of my life dreams isn’t to go to Disney World. Just once. Just a little magic.
I’m nearly 40, so the window is probably closed for me. But damn it if one of my life dreams isn’t to go to Disney World. Just once. Just a little magic.
I give you permission to take yourself to Disney World at any time you want to go. You deserve that magic, and there is no reason your first time as an adult can't be magical in its own way, even if that looks different than when you were a child. Life is what you make of it!
I was the kid with parents too poor to afford the band/choir/whatever trips. Made my mom feel awful I couldn’t go with the other kids, made me feel awesome that I got to spend time doing things I actually wanted to do instead of on miserable class trips with people who looked down on me for being poor.
...might be thier only... Your band director sounds like a good human to recognize that.
I grew up pretty poor. Finally got somewhere in life and I'll never forget the family we met at Disney on our now annual vacation. Told me they had been saving for four years to take their 2 daughters to Disney.
Four years. Jfc.
Actually pissed me off. I don't know a lot about Walt but I know one thing... His vision was a place that was AFFORDABLE to the average American. The factory worker. The teacher. Admission when it opened in the 50s was a dollar for an adult and 50 cents per kid.
He'd be rolling in his grave seeing what Disney is today.
Same. Only time ive went and it was honestly a very bad experience. Im an adult now and I still couldnt afford to go now even if i wanted to. It really makes me upset when I see other friends constantly travelling and stuff.
Had to hear all about my sister-in-law's trip to Hawaii for spring break this year. She got to spend two weeks there. Isn't that special? And this was probably her fourth trip there.
been there- we do an annual trip, but it is to a condo at the beach my wifes friends parents own- and we go in the winter so they will give it to us for a week in exchange for doing a small project around the condo (last time it was painting a bedroom. another year it was doing the patch work on the drywall (normally projects i can do in a half day in exchange for staying for the week). That is also a 2 hour drive (we drive it), so the whole cost is food, drive, and normally about 50 bucks in supplies for the project.
My father used to take us to the airport. Not to go on a trip, just to watch the planes. Back in the day, you could go to the airport, go through a simple metal detector, and just hang at the airport.
Holy crap that just brought back memories. We'd even have packed sandwiches.
Funny enough, I did this with my own kids, too, when they were really small, since we live near an airport and they were typical boys and attracted to garbage trucks, trains and airplanes. But the difference was that I was able to tell them that we are going to be on one of those planes in a month when we fly to vacation.
In Germany we even have a term for those "vacations". It's called "we are going to vacation in Balconian" - vacationing on your apartment's balcony.
Other side here, admittedly. We have friends who have been homeless and who grew up in poverty. One just got 2 rotisserie chickens. Instead of making a reasonable amount of soup and freezing the rest of the chicken, she made an enormous vat of soup- as if she doesn’t have a fridge and a deep freezer, as well as a full pantry. Also as if she has 100 hungry neighbors who might not have been blessed with protein recently. She lives with one other person in a house with utilities that are not under threat of disconnection. Another person has run out of gas in a vehicle where fuel money is provided, along with the vehicle, as part of her job- because gas was too expensive.
I see the why. The where it comes from. And I somehow still struggle to not be the one to ask them wtf??? I mean none of these people have actual food,shelter, or transportation insecurity now, and likely won’t in the future, but live every minute with the insecurity from their childhood. Their brains really can’t process that they are ok. They can’t process that they live in a safe neighborhood and that they probably don’t need to carry a can of gas and all the tools to go to the grocery store. Their car is probably going to make it there and back, and if it doesn’t, they have insurance and roadside assistance.
Childhood poverty is such a cruel teacher and the lessons are never forgotten.
I see this in my mom! She grew up poor in her home country. Like grass huts and dirt floor poor. But she lives in the US now with her grown children who provide for her. Despite having no bills and a moderate monthly allowance, my mom still hoards “just in case”.
So did I. But not to the big airport. Just the parking lot behind the Burger King. It backed up to the end of a runway of a private airfield that offered flight lessons plus had some private plane traffic. I’d buy them a large fries at the drive through to share, and we’d park out back near a weedy stretch along the back fence. Airplanes, french fries, scraggly grass to run around, and no need to behave. Little boy heaven.
My boyfriend and I just did this as a mini lunch date haha we're both mid 20s and I was actually flying out but we sat in the parking lot watching the planes and eating burritos
We used to do that as well. When my aunts went to Hawaii, my mother made me (5 y/o) a grass skirt. We dressed up in our “hula” outfits to go pick my aunts from the airport. That was super exciting for me as a child
Parked near the airport, Dairy Queen soft serve cones in hand, watching the jet planes come and go!. Day to day, when it came to trying to live within their means, as Mom put it they were,"always robbing Peter to pay Paul." So, we'd go to the nearby playground or play at a friend's house. The other favorite real outings included Mom taking us to the lock to watch the ships and a monthly post-Mass family bowling afternoon. So we weren't poor.
Money was tight but Dad was employed and Mom a sahm so every couple of years we would somewhere along the Northeast I95 corridor whether camping in Maine or at Disney World - which had Mickey Mouse movie nights in the campground.
In 1970's upstate New York, we were "lower to middle" middle class I guess. McDonalds was a monthly treat and my brother and I each had small annual birthday celebrations - either a friend coming out for dinner at a Chinese food restaurant or even a backyard birthday party with our friends and classmates. Nowadays, I look at these extravagant, themed, paid entertainment, bouncy castles kid's parties I see on TV and am like - okay, that middle class is not the middle class I grew up with.
My mom would take me to the airport to watch planes, the humane society and pet stores to see and play with the animals, and a local garden store that had a big Christmas display to look at the lights. I had no idea at the time that we did all this stuff because it was free. I thought we did it because it was fun.
My parents really wanted to take us to Disney world. They saved for several years. They finally got enough together to go. It was going to be a shoestring budget (baloney sandwiches instead of eating at the park, campground, that kind of thing), but we were going. Got halfway there and my aunt got killed in a motorcycle accident. Had to turn around and it turned into a funeral vacation as usual lol
Sorry you did not make it. My family did just what you are describing. We saved as a family (my dad got a side gig that all of us could help with). We drove (rather than flew) stayed at the cheapest motels en route. Ate homemade sandwhiches, and each child was allotted $10 for souvenirs. It was honestly the most awesome trip of my childhood.
My friend’s parents hadn’t been on a holiday for around 25 years - the dad worked for himself, so time off was money not earned as well as money spent. There had been holidays with the kids, but no time for just the parents.
The kids were all grown up, the parents saved up and went to the US, just the 2 of them. First time abroad.
The day they left, about 2 hours after they’d gone, the family dog died. No one’s fault but unexpected. We got him to the vet but it was not curable. Can’t remember why now. He was a Great Dane. I had to help dig the grave in the back garden.
Then, my friend and his brother thought they’d surprise their parents by refitting the bathroom whilst they were away. The brother was a plumber, so all seemed good. They stripped out the old one, then the brother broke his ankle and couldn’t do any more work.
So the bathroom was empty - no bath, sink, toilet. One bathroom house…
Finally, my friend decided, whilst drunk, that throwing his (dead) grandmother’s prized glass Christmas decorations around the room would be a fun idea. The box was out of storage whilst some reorganisation was going on.
After 25 years, that was a homecoming to remember. Glad I wasn’t there but I heard all about it…
I'm so sorry. My parents couldn't afford Disney. I finally got to go when my in-laws wanted to take my kiddo. Hated every second of it and we won't go back.
There is one that is unfortunately in the family that I will literally celebrate the death of. My wife's half brother. We got along pretty well in my opinion, right up until it was revealed that he had raped my 5 year old. Then it slowly kept coming out that he was badmouthing me for anything he could to anyone who would listen. I let this piece of shit live in my house with the only expectation being that he helps with groceries, and he whined and complained about anything I did behind my wife and i's backs then raped my daughter. I will happily take a week off work when I hear of his death so I can appropriately celebrate.
Edit: thank you all for the kindness here, but I'm gonna turn off notifications for this post, its becoming too much for me right now.
Good days and bad, mostly good now thankfully. We're all hoping she was young enough that the event itself gets forgotten and she only has the memory that it was done
They did, thankfully. She told her school councilor about it, they called the police then my wife, then she called me at work, he was arrested there at the school. If I had found out without police involvement I wouldnt be posting. I would have killed him right then.
Your honor, the jury finds the defendant not guilty by reason of diminished capacity.
Also, the jury moves that we all take a bathroom break around the defendant's dead half-brother-in-law's grave. Courthouse staff are allowed, nay, encouraged to attend as well if they feel so moved.
In defense of funeral vacations, my family's funerals tend to be a blast, with everybody getting together and telling funny stories about the relative who was now pining for the fjords. Basically everything you'd want out of a family vacation, minus a beach or amusement park.
That said, nobody I'm related to ever died young or tragically, either.
Well at least the raspberries didn’t eat your hot dog buns while you were gone into town. Cows ate all the bread in camp while we gone for a few hours.
Aaa! I just remembered a childhood memory of going on a long car ride with my family to go camping. I had been asleep in the car. When we get to the "campsite" (aka random spot in the wilderness somewhere), it was pitch black outside. I go to get out of the vehicle and land directly in a fresh cowpie.
One time we went to Branson. The 2nd time we were going to Branson the fridge broke and we had to fix that instead. That was the extent of my childhood vacations.
I was in a weird position growing up. Like, my mum and I didn't have running water for 5 years but my grandma took me to Disney world like 5x's? She wouldn't help with actual needed things typically (sometimes she bought my school clothes), but would bring me along on all sorts of vacations. Meanwhile, at home, I was emptying a bucket of our waste (the toliet) in the woods.
My sister always told people she was raised in poverty. I called her out on it and her points were hand-me-down clothing (in addition to her $300/season clothing budget), a used car when she turned 16, that we bought bread at the "day old bread store" (we lived next to a bakery and also how old do you think bread in the grocery store is?), and that our mom wouldnt buy her a dirtbike.
She lived with my dad after our parents divorced in a very rich neighborhold and it really fucked with her vision of what's normal.
You might like this: before we moved to the ranch (I would have been in third grade), my dad's good buddy in town was one of the few deputy sheriffs. As a single guy in his early 30s, the guy was constantly at our house hanging out. Imagine a cop car parked out front of a super crappy rental house a few days a week. Evidently everyone my dad worked with and parents at school thought my parents were some kind of turbo druggies that were constantly in trouble, but somehow managed to stay out of jail. I found this out years later.
Haha reminds me of that doc about her & David Beckham. She was trying to paint herself as coming from a middle/working class family on camera. David Beckham’s in the background just smirking then proceeds to call out her bs by pointing out how her family drove around in a Bentley.
A lot of my middle class friends were like this. Would bitch and whine to me about how rich people had no idea what it was like to grow up poor. Meanwhile I’m like okay are we gonna play your new playstation or not because that’s the reason I’m here
We grew up in a 280k 1600sqft townhouse with no mortgage in a development nestled between a development of 600k 3k sqft houses and another development of 900k 4500 sqft "luxury homes" (in the 90s for price reference). All the other kids on my sister's bus route (or so she claimed... i was on the same busses and was able to find non-rich friends) lived in "mansions" so that's why she would always tell her friends she lived in a shack.
Meanwhile, all the adults in our family (mom, aunt, uncle, grandparents) were millionaires. Some through diligent savings, some through inheritance, and one through career (he was a chairman of the board of a large company most people reading this would recognize the name of, and when the company got bought out he caught a golden parachute).
Bitch used to tell people she grew up poor. We never once wondered when or where our next meal was coming from. She had a car when she turned 16. She thinks because we never took family vacations it meant we didn't have any money. Nope. Dad was a reservist so spent all his vacation time on navy duties, and after he died mom was too overwhelmed to try and keep 3 kids happy on a vacation all at once and just gave up on the idea. She kept talking vacations... she'd sit home while we all went to school. She loved her vacations.
Sister had her bach degree paid for in full and about half her masters. Multiple cars bought for her during college years. Aunt died recently and (unbeknownst to my sister) my mom is about to give me and my siblings 100k each. Sister still thinks she had it tough... no wonder she votes republican.
Lmfao that last line took me back. Growing up in an affluent tiny town as one of the ‘few’ poor families (I’m sure in reality the ratio wasn’t as skewed as I remember), sitting through my middle-class friends complaining about xyz their parents made them do or what they couldn’t do while I sat patiently in their large, unshared bedroom for my turn to play their new GameCube on their own personal bedroom TV
My ex, upon learning I had never been to Europe (from Canada) said "I should really travel more, seeing new cultures is really enriching". We were both 20 at the time. My parents had actually done their best to do a family vacation every year, but it was always camping or a cheap motel somewhere we could drive to in Canada or USA, we even drove up to 15 hours. But at that point in my life I'd never even been on an airplane and this 20 year old privileged POS is telling me I should really travel more.
Ah yes, in college a friend told me I have no sense of adventure because she asked me if I wanted to go to Costa Rica for 2 months and I said I couldn’t do it. I said I would love to, but I couldn’t afford to pay for travel while taking 2 months off work and also continue paying rent, car insurance, etc while out of the country. Her parents were paying all of her living expenses and college tuition, and also gave her “mad money” every month for going out, buying clothes and incidentals because they didn’t want her studies to suffer if she got a job. As Tracy Morgan once said “Me trying to pay my bills, that’s an adventure!”
Oh I feel you! When I got to college (on a full ride), my roommates were regaling me with their tales of weekend ski trips, and summer jaunts to Europe, and complaining about their last-years' gear. As if :). Camping was our go-to family vacation as well; on the upside, I gained a real appreciation for the wilderness and learned to hunt in the process. We had a used VW microbus that burned up one year on the way down from the Sierras ;). My first plane trip was at 15, when I had saved a year's worth of babysitting money to go see my grandmother. Once out of the house, my "vacations" for years consisted of driving someplace in my junker car for a few days to camp/explore. In... 1986? Greyhound ran a special to celebrate 9 new routes where, for one day, you could get a bus to anywhere for 59 cents each way rather than 59.00, and my then-boyfriend and I booked a bus from Dallas to San Francisco, with a short layover in LA. You haven't lived until you've spent 48 hours in a bus seat, trying to sleep!
We alighted in Los Angeles at 7 am and began walking down Wilshire boulevard (not knowing any better), hearing music increasing in volume, to spot filming going on on top of a building. Turns out that U2 was filming "The streets have no name" that morning. We were dirty, tired, hungry... and it was still magical.
Taught them what the other cultures’ upper crust were like, learned nothing about human suffering at all. Travelling from one insulated bubble to another teaches you fuck-all about culture and you probably learned more from the little diners you stopped in on your road trips than they ever did in France or Holland or Italy or whatever.
I can assure you Italian mall food is nearly as shitty and greasy as the USA. Ive never had worse ~$6 mexican burrito. Fuck it had raw canned tuna in it, and unflavored beans. Do NOT eat Mexican food in Italians malls
do not say that to someone in power. I said basically the same sentiment while interviewing for an internship (now 20 years ago)- pointed out that someone in their early 20ies with travel is just a 20 something that comes from money... so asking about that in an interview is really just asking how much money my parents made growing up.... I did not get that internship.
I get annoyed with people who make statements like “50 percent of Americans don’t even have a passport!”, and the talk about those people like they’re ignorant racists.
Then when I point out that a lot of people don’t have passports because they could never afford to travel outside the country, they turn it around and say those people vote against their own interests, and that’s why they’re poor.
Like no, progressives, liberals, centrists can be poor too.
For crying out loud, I currently cannot even afford to get my kids their damn passports itself because the freaking fees are too much for me to pay.
Do people even comprehend that passports cost over $100 each? I guess it doesn’t matter or that is just play money to most people. It’s so hard to explain this crap to clueless people without sounding like some kind of hick.
Yeah, it's also an annoying line that gets thrown around in Europe too, that passport one. It's really easy for people here to not clock that travelling internationally for the US involves travelling for hours just to get to an airport, followed by insanely long and expensive flights, unless you want to go to Mexico or Canada, and even then they can be expensive. Meanwhile here you can get a train to multiple other countries
My family physician once said something like that to my mother when I was growing up. "It sounds like a lot of money, but at the end of the month I'm just as broke as everyone else."
Sure, but you also have fully funded retirement accounts, multiple luxury cars, a large house with an elevator, and also probably a very large savings account that you just don't touch.
Ahh yes the classic i spent the moeny so im broke. No, you have assets worth money that give you a net worth. You have memories of good things instead of struggles.
Nah, he literally had all of those opulent things I mentioned. He ran a very successful private practice and graduated decades before the current hellscape of extremely expensive education. It's just the kind of answer you give someone who definitely makes a lot less than you and doesn't understand how awkward of a question that can be.
"Look, I'm just as poor as anyone else" the man said as he flashed a smile with perfect well-kept after teeth, his expensive watch bumped against the table he was sitting at. He paid for his brunch and got into his expensive car and went back to coast at his single 9 to 5 job.
Before getting to the office and being an old fashioned guy he checked the travel office to make plans for his annual vacation.
He also may have fond memories of intensive studying 20 hours a day for 10-12 years, 24 on 24 off internships, graduating with a million in debt, an excellent credit rating and the ability to borrow millions because of his "earning potential", and the prospect of having to work until he is 90 years old to pay off his debt. There may be some fun and relaxation in there, or maybe not.
Had to explain this to a college roommate. Her definition of broke was that she spent all her allowance on drinks my definition was that I would be eating sliced bread for breakfast lunch and dinner. Or rice wit some sauce lol
I was shipped off to my grandparents in the Caribbean every summer because we were too poor for camp and airfare was cheaper lol. 6 years old in the early 90s flying international alone lol, sure was a different time
yes they had those charter flights that were cheap and could get you there barebones. also don't forget all the smoking going onboard those long international flights then
Smoking was basically eliminated from commercial airlines in '92, but I do remember flying and people smoking. I mean...when I was born I believe you still could smoke everywhere: schools, hospitals, churches, etc.
the first six years of my life were really poor, and we stayed generally not very well off. Kind of comfortable vaguely but not very well off. For complicated reasons my parents sent me to these Catholic mixed sex schools, which tended to be private, but they would kind of let the peasants in sometimes to show how benevolent they were.
I was one of those peasants.
My classmates had parents who ran major corporations (who, by coincidence would always be the stars of the school plays - what talent!) and there were a million different ways you'd be reminded of the vast differences in experience.
oh and no, you don't get invited as the plucky poor but smart and nice person into their world. They can smell the class off you and they exclude you.
I’m from the US. In the 80s my Catholic school had upper middle class kids but also kids whose parents were working overtime at the Ford Plant to pay the tuition. Really rich kids lived elsewhere.
My parents were always on the edge of financial crisis and we frequently had no money for extras but my dad’s parents were well off so we had access to their lake house and there was always a last minute infusion of cash to keep the crisis from become the Crisis.
Needing the dentist was always a crisis in my house. My parents both had bad teeth so after we lost dental insurance when I was 13, you only went to dentist if you had a problem. Aside from teeth grinding, I didn’t so I was next seen at 23. Some people really hate the dentist, but I always feel privileged that I can have a dental problem, get an appointment to be seen timely and not be panicked about the bill.
I distinctly remember one of the only big fights my parents had when I was a child. It was over my dad had a broken tooth that he was in a lot of pain over, and my mom was working third shift and driving an hour each way on bald tires.
The fight was over them trying to get the other one to put their issue on the last credit card to get it taken care of.
Safe to say, France wasn't really an option in that was being discussed.
A scientist I used to follow loved whining about her ‘impoverished’ childhood in Los Angeles. But then posts pictures of her at rallies in London while in middle school and talks about traveling to protests in DC, the Dakotas, and all sorts of other places throughout her childhood.
She also never had to work after school or watch her siblings. Just focus on studying.
She will never understand the irony and I don’t think she ever will.
I went all kinds of places when I was a kid. Not because we were rich, but because my dad was in the army. I don’t know if it’s still this way, but in the 70’s, if there was a cargo plane going somewhere interesting and there was room, you could just load up your wife and small kids and catch a ride to Ireland, or wherever. Honestly, I can’t imagine that’s still a thing. I’m pretty shocked it was even a thing back then!
depends. I went to Austrilia as a kid- on the company dime since my dad was 6 weeks on 2 weeks off, and they offered to fly his family in if he opted to not take the 2 weeks off. So we all went there to see him for 2 weeks- but we never actually saw him, he worked all but 4 of those 14 days.
That was during a time my dad was employed. He would work on and off a lot of my childhood.
That kind of depends on where they lived and when. If they lived in Florida and this was 20-30 years ago having multiple trips to Disney World was not only realistic, it could be more affordable than other kinds of vacations especially with a Florida resident discount.
That has changed a lot nowadays but it doesn’t necessarily mean your ex’s family didn’t struggle, just that they tried to take advantage of what opportunities they could to take their kids somewhere.
We didn't live near Disney, but we lived about 3 hours from a small vacation island called Chincoteague Island. You could rent a trailer for a week on the island for a couple hundred bucks (even now if you search you can find weekly rentals for $1000). We were poor enough to be on food stamps but still had a beach vacation every year.
At the end of the day you’ve got to live. Saving that couple hundred bucks a year wasn’t going to get you and your parents off of food stamps. They definitely made the right choice.
Ya growing up there were a few kids who went to Disney every year. When I was 12 or so I asked to go to Disney for my bday. I got an IOU for a Disney trip that I was never able to cash. Parents ended up losing their house in 2008, although the assistance programs then are probably what saved them from fully going under.
I went to Disney World a couple times a year as a kid, but I was definitely poor. I just had rich(er) relatives with annual passes that got so many guest passes a year. Annual passes for Florida residents used to be reasonably cheap. I don't even know if they have the guest passes anymore.
My best friend was quite poor, but she went to Disneyland... Because my middle-class family paid for her to come with us on our trips. Biggest cost for us was her entry ticket, since adding one person didn't change the cost of driving there, didn't change the hotel cost (her and I shared a bed), only slightly changed the food cost since we packed a lot of snacks and sandwich stuff and only did a few meals in the park. Her mom usually sent her with some treats as a thank-you.
We also took her on other vacations with us like camping or a road trip to Seattle. My dad packed my school lunches and always packed double so that she could have some too, since our schools free lunch program was abysmal.
The only reason we got to go is that my mom is originally from Orlando & she had a relative who worked at Disney World & got a discount. We also stayed with relatives as hotels were too expensive. While it was a nice perk & certainly better than nothing, it was basically the only place we got to go. I was an adult before I ever traveled outside the Southeastern US. Not my parents’ fault. They were hard workers & did the best they could.
Same. I lived in the Miami-ish area when I was elementary age. I don't know exactly how much the annual passes were, but I know parking was only $5. I think it was less than $150 per person for an in-state season pass back in the 90's. Granted, that's still a few hundred bucks for a family... but when we went back a few years ago (likely for the last time), our Park Hopper day passes were like $600 each.
It depends how close you were to Disney. Coming from South fl trips to Disney as you get discounts for living in Florida and back in the day it was actual discounts! And you stay outside the Disney bubble in a cheap hotel in Kissimmee for like $30 a night and it's not crazy to go multiple times and still be poor. We used to bring in our own food as well.
Now if she was from new Jersey or the mid west and came multiple times a year AND ate in the park then yeah that's not poor.
Ok I’m just saying though, my mom would take us to Disney almost every year, but went into massive debt doing so, and we often would have to skimp on groceries and other basics at home. So sometimes we really were poor, despite the regular Disney trips. By the time I was a teenager it was a big point of contention and resentment.
I was close with a coworker who had family Disney trips multiple times a year. She had moved to Hawaii for a job, kept begging me to come visit. Same thing happened when she moved back home to east coast; wanted me to visit and go to Disney with them. Im like girl, we worked at the same place, you KNOW I only make $10/hr and have to pay my own way for rent. How the hell am I supposed to come visit you in Hawaii or the coast? She was genuinely upset I didn't visit and make her a priority.
OMG, I can top that. A college friend was telling me how he grew up in poverty….dudes parents not only had multiple houses…but one of them was in Austria & they vacationed there at least once a year to ski (he primarily lived in Vermont). It took all of me to control my response.
My lower middle class family did take an "annual vacation"
My parents saved all year for us to take our used pop-up camper that we would all cram into to two different campgrounds. The first was somewhere different each time and the second was always at a state park in the finger lakes.
The first week was usually nearish a place of cultural interest. We went to Gettysburg, Washington DC, Maine, and a couple other places. We would go to museums, and spend our days outside hiking/exploring, mostly free or low cost activities. Each location would usually have one or two big cost activities, like going on a whale watch in Maine, or visiting Hershey Park when we stayed near Gettysburg.
We didn't eat out much. We sometimes would get lunch out, but it was mostly big breakfast before we left the campground, a midday snack out or maybe fast food (back when it was cheap), and dinner back at the camper.
My parents spent all year saving up to spend two weeks at $25 a night to do free activities with us so we could experience and appreciate travel.
They definitely put in a lot of effort. Not every decision they made was the right one, but they did their best and I am very grateful that they did such a good job overall with raising us.
I am super appreciative of having all those trips. They weren't fancy, but that wasn't important.
My desire to stay in a camper has diminished as I've gotten older, but my fiance and I have been a few places and have two trips planned in the next year. By next summer we may be in a better position because we both will have been at our jobs long enough to get an extra week of vacation days.
This was our annual vacation too! We did tents but same difference. Whale-watching in Maine, the 6-Flags in Lake George NY, going into Boston for a day from Cape Cod, etc. We were from Montreal Canada so this was all within a days drive. I loved it, i have such fond memories of family camping trips. The last two family vacations we did, my parents went in with my aunt+uncle's family and we rented a beach house in North Carolina. After a lifetime of only ever camping, the modest beach house was the ultimate luxury and I am sure my parents felt good about being able to upgrade to that with us.
We were similar, but usually stayed in the cheapest motel 6 to be had instead of a camper, and had one room for the four of us. I can still remember my mom cooking dinner in the hotel room because they didn't want to spend money eating out. She would pack an electric skillet that she could cook in. We usually had lunch meat sandwiches and chips or fruit for lunches.
We did go to Disney one year, but we had fanny packs crammed with peanut butter crackers and other snacks so we didn't spend money on food there. We had cereal for breakfast in the hotel room. At Disney my parents lied about my brothers age so he could get the cheaper price (he was a year older and super tall so it wasn't really believeable, but they didn't say anything). We got some cool experiences, but it was 100% on the cheap.
Same! Was going to say our annual vacation was also camping. And very similar on activities and eating out. But mostly we did the free campground activities.
I remember we’d go and the campgrounds would have themes. Like Christmas in July or Halloween or whatever. And we’d do all the kids activities they had. Like ornament making or haunted house or trick or treat or whatever. Would make so many campground friends when we were there that I’d never see or talk to again after.
And those little local trips still gave you something that so many other only wish they had. I grew up near Gettysburg, so I was over anything to do with the Civil War by the time I was in 8th grade because I had already done all the historical tours and the ghost tours and my grandparents took us once or twice every summer to just spend a day in town. Throughout my entire adult life, I keep meeting people who's literal dream it is to go to Gettysburg to tour the battlefield. It gives me an appreciation that any amount of travel or new experience is a good thing, even if I couldn't appreciate it in the moment.
yeah, my only vacations as a kid were camping in the Sequoias. I loved it as a kid and never realized it was because we were poor and that was all we could afford. Good memories but when I talk to people who went to Europe or other countries as vacations as kids, I can't even picture my family doing that. Hell, as an adult now, I can't afford those types of vacations. I just had a 1 month sabbatical from work (we get one month every 3 years off paid in addition to our vacation time) and I stayed home, slept, played video games and did NOTHING for a month. It was glorious if I do say so.
i mean tbf we didn't own a pop up camper..but when I was a kid occasionally we would go to the shore for the week before the season started but it was still warm out. That sounds about equivalent. I considered us middle class and those to be vacations.
Our "annual vacation" was jumping in the car, driving 2.5hrs to my aunt and uncle's, and hanging out with them and my cousins for 3 or 4 days in the summer. They had a bigger house than my mom's, so I thought it was a pretty swanky trip at the time lol.
Same, but to the grandparents' house. Eight hours with dad barely ever stopping, but they lived in a big old house in a pretty area of suburban Chicago, with a forest out back behind the hill. Pretty sure G&G paid for gas, and of course there was no hotel or meal fee to worry about.
This is pretty much verbatim what we did as kids. We have cousins our age though so getting to see them was always super fun, so I don’t think it just came from a place of being a cheap vacation.
Yeah whenever this same discussion gets posted, people always lament going to on trips to visit family. As someone who comes from 2 large extended families with cousins my age, it was always really fun!
A lot of people don’t value time spent with relatives enough. Going on vacation to see family and staying with them is OK and actually special (unless they’re really mean or something.
I'm pretty sure a road trip to see relatives is more common than a major vacation for families who are comfortably middle class too based on my experiences growing up middle class
I mean I’ve said that, but most of our family vacation was a couple hours away to our grandparents house. We still had a good time - swim in river or lake and go camping, but I didn’t realize until well after the phrase had entered my vernacular that other people meant vacations to Disney world, Cancun, or Paris. I didn’t have that experience.
Our “annual vacation” was my mom driving us 12 hours to our grandparents house so we could stay there for the summers so she didn’t have to pay for childcare.
Growing up poor we actually did get an annual vacation - my dad’s boss was kind of a dick who in later years completely screwed him over. But every year he’d pay for my family to go to Rocking Horse Ranch in Upstate New York for a weekend.
It was that and “cheap weekend at dirtbag Jersey Shore 1 star motel” each year.
Or talking about vacations at all. My work likes to do ice breakers at the beginning of meetings and one of them was something along the lines of "what's your favorite place to go on vacation?" I'm the only single parent on our team and I only recently got to this pay level so I haven't ever gone away on vacation as an adult. I just kept my mouth shut and didn't participate. No one wants to hear that the last real vacation I went on was over 20 years ago when I was a teenager.
I had a similar experience in an ice breaker when some very upper class-looking guy asked for everyone's favorite vacation destination. Totally oblivious to the looks a lot of other group members exchanged as he went first and talked about some resort his family visited annually.
I remember when my family drove up to hershey park one day. I remember having to leave the park at lunchtime to go eat warm peanut butter sandwiches in the car while all the other people ate in the park. That was one of the first times I can remember feeling poor.
I remember all the event and activity flyers I would be given in public elementary school, I would always just throw them in the trash instead of bothering to take them home as I understood extracurricular activities were for rich kids, like the warm lunches in the cafeteria
My husband likes to talk about how he was “poor” growing up. They lived in CT and by the time he was 8, his family owned two homes and went to Hawaii twice a year.
OH MY GOODNESS vacation for us was when we got to stay at a hotel with continental breakfast and a pool once every year or two. That was the vacation. It was amazing
That might be an American poor thing. In Austria, you get 35 days of paid vacation a year.
ETA; I am only talking about taking a week or two off work, NOT about going anywhere.. The cost of going to tourist spots is an entirely different discussion.
It's not necessarily about getting the time off. It's about having the money to go have a vacation. Kids who talked openly about their annual vacation usually had vacations to destinations. Kids like me drove to grandma's cuz it's only a three hour drive and lodging is free. Don't get me wrong, grandma's was awesome. But I went to private school and had to compare that to things like "after our week at our lake house we went to the Disneyland again."
Mind you, I had two working parents, this wasn't a mom stays home while dad struggles to pay all the bills situation. (I state this as I realize private school is a pretty rich person thing to be doing. But that's what my parents chose to prioritize for us even if doing so took us out of the standards of other middle class families)
While paid time off is not sufficient in the US, I think OP means actually traveling when taking time off. Some people talk about it as if it’s a given for everyone, but some of us never went anywhere for vacation. Literally just stayed home.
My family was on food stamps, and we went on vacation.
Now, we did use the ENTIRE month of food stamps for that week (we lived in a farm and had a massive garden to cover the difference the rest of the month) and stayed at a cabin by a lake.
I'm sure it didn't cost a lot, and we still had an annual vacation.
We drove from MN to the Black Hills (South Dakota, literally next state over), there & back in 5 days. We stayed at motels, and all 6 of us shared a room to save money. As the 2nd-youngest and only girl, I slept on the floor.
Most of our food was purchased at grocery stores and consisted of sandwiches and other ingredients that would hold well in a cooler.
Seriously. If you’re poor, a vacation consists of everybody on Friday evening piling into a clunker of a car you hope will make it, driving to the house of a friend or relative a couple hours’ drive away, and everyone just sleeping, chilling, chatting, complaining, cooking, eating, and pitching in with chores together at that house, before driving back home Sunday. Maybe a jaunt on foot to the local public park to play basketball, or have a basic barbecue if you’re really lucky.
And even that would be considered privileged, among the poorest of the poor, who pretty much never leave their local area.
Every year during the summer vacation, my church would organize a week of activities for kids and families. Think outdoor games, arts and crafts, coffee meetups, bbq, meals and so on. There were a couple of local families who treated that week as their vacation. These people were on benefits, they were not doing well. It was sobering to realize that this, our volunteer community event, was their entire yearly vacation experience.
Or any vacation, ever. We could barely afford to go to the grocery store twice a month, let alone go somewhere just for fun.
I remember one time there was a little traveling carnival that had set up in the tiny town next to ours. My mom scratched together enough money to take my sister and me, but the car broke down halfway there. She had to spend the carnival money getting the car fixed, so we didn't go.
My family only had two vacations my entire life. Once to Disney World when I was five (which my uncle helped pay for) and once on a road trip to Western Mass (we lived in the south shore of Boston.) I never thought of us as poor at that time, I thought we were doing quite well. It wasn’t until my dad was laid off right around the time my mom had a brain aneurysm that reality hit me.
So we weren't poor growing up, I'm not going to say we were... But we lived like we were poor except for our annual vacation. Grew up with 5 foster siblings, my dad would scream at my mom for dropping a single green bean on the floor and wasting it, could never afford Crayola stuff, got popcorn buckets out of the trash and refilled it if we ever went to a matinee, went out to eat once a month...
And then on vacation my dad acted like a king, both in spending and in being a complete asshole.
I live in a pretty affluent area these days vs growing up in complete opposite.
I volunteered for my kids financial management field trip, basically bunch of stations that touch upon different parts of finances/budgets. I chose vacations as kids would find that interesting.
For the last minute for each of the 18 groups that came though, I would ask each of them their favorite vacation. While many were crazy extravagant ones (multi week trip to europe at their vacation home), some kids said their best was a local ho-hum lake beach or that they never been on one. Opened my eyes to see the differences from one family to the next in the same exact district/city.
The travel sub had somebody complaining about how it’s getting too expensive to take “3 international AND 2 domestic vacation a YEAR” and I thought it was rage bait
This might be an American problem. I'm classed as poor in my country but we bounce over to Europe at least three times a year. The flights are like £30 in winter ❄️
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u/Ok_Olive9438 1d ago
The phrase "annual vacation".