My favorite brother and I didn’t grow up privileged. We had what we needed, but certainly didn’t get everything we wanted. It’s likely your childhood was similar — some better and some not as good. But if you didn’t grow up getting every thing you wanted while living in a wonderful house brimming with every new gadget on the planet, you should be able to…
…name something you thought was a luxury when you were a kid.
I thought about this for a bit because when I was young, I thought a whole bunch of things were a luxury. Like my Aunt Kak’s baby blue feather sofa with detailed cherry wood accents. Good grief! We didn’t have anything like that OR her open fireplace (with seating on 2 sides) that had gas logs in her basement of all places. (We didn’t have a talking parrot either, much to my dismay.)
I still thought that couch was luxurious when my kid was an adult! But a luxury? Think harder…
I asked Perry the question and it took him a nanosecond to say, “Going out to eat.” If I could name only one item that quickly, I’d not have went down the rabbit hole thinking about it.
I ALMOST said ‘new store-bought clothes‘ because I didn’t have many. Nanny made what I wore and was a seamstress extraordinaire. Pre-school days and when I was in elementary, she made dresses for me with matching slings because I sported a broken arm about half the time.
She was still making my clothes when I was an older kid — like the light blue skirt that barely covered my ass and the complimentary white blouse (photo on the right below). There was a time when I owned 2 store-bought tops for school. One was a blue checkered smock top and the other was a white, v-neck sweater (left photo below). Nanny took me to JC Penney and bought me a pair of hug hugger bell bottoms and that was a luxury for sure!
That white sweater? I loved it so much I had a photo taken wearing it and gave one to my boyfriend, His Mom took something sharp and scratched my eyeballs out in it. I’m guessing she did it because my grandmother was dressing me in skirts that by today’s standards would be obscene.
If I had to name one thing I thought was a luxury when I was a kid *drum roll please*
it would be air conditioning.
Nothing like telling your age, but in my younger years, I would’ve considered A/C in a house — and certainly in a car — a big ole’ luxury. I don’t remember when we got A/C, but I remember NOT having it. Heck, I had a black Chevette without air when Ben was a baby, so he might name that as a luxury too. 😉
Other items were power windows on cars, a color TV, a private phone line (instead of a party line), and staying in a hotel.
What’s the one thing you thought was a luxury when you were a kid?
Now you know: Daniel Fahrenheit (who invented the mercury thermometer) set 0°F to the coldest stable temperature he could maintain in his lab by dissolving salt in water.