Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
29 Rich People Share What Things Were Normal To Them Until They Realized They Were So Privileged
Kids from well-off families have a huge head start against their peers. As serial entrepreneur, investor, and consultant Bernie Klinder put it, they are born on 3rd base, and making a home run is fairly easy.
Brand new BMWs for their sweet 16, fully-paid college degrees, and houses for wedding presents. Even if they fail at life, the bank of dad can bail them out, providing enough to get by.
On Friday, Reddit user u/TacticalTuna2 decided to find out more about the way wealthy parents raise their boys and girls, so they asked: "People who grew up rich, what's something you thought was normal?" And their call was answered.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
If I broke something, it was just a funny joke about how clumsy I am, and it got replaced immediately. I've had so many phones, computers, and cameras that I can't even count, so I only realized as an adult that people don't just throw away their broken or used stuff, but actually fix it.
RELATED:
#2
Eating out every single day. My parents are super well off, but work a ton, and neither had time to cook. So at least one, if not both meals were delivered to the house every day, sometimes from really fancy restaurants. I always thought that home-cooked food and family dinners on TV were fake. I only realized it was abnormal when my friend came over. She said she liked the pasta at this local Italian restaurant, so I went on my phone and ordered her some on DoorDash (we were about 15 at the time), and she was in complete shock that I was allowed to do that.
Aleksandra 3 years ago
My whole family was always working super hard but we almost never went out to a restaurant. They'd always find time to cook at home. I think it's because they don't trust the food outside of home 😅
#3
By the time I was 23 I’d had 5 cars. When I got my second brand new car in about 18 months I learned that some people can never afford a brand new car in their life. I honestly had no idea. When a friend was saying she needed to get a credit card so she could buy a car I genuinely didn’t understand why. Credit scores weren’t a thing I was aware of. I’d been on my parents AmEx account since I was about 12 which gave me perfect credit right out of the gate. I realize that now, but even then I don’t think I really knew what a credit score was until I was in my 30’s.
When I was a teenager in the 90’s my mom would hand me $50’s & $100’s because I asked for money.
Having a passport & going to countries other than Canada or Mexico.
Having a Nordstrom card with my name on it when I was 11 because my mom hated school clothes shopping.
Nearly 40 and had never paid my own rent. Never bought my own car. Never paid my own insurance. Never even paid for my own gas.
I worked. Hard. Made good money. My parents paid for everything. I racked up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and my parents had to bail me out. Multiple times.
This is embarrassing…I have way to many of these. Even with all of that they did instill a good work ethic in me. So there’s that.
#4
I thought participating in multiple extracurricular activities was a normal thing. Now when I think about how much my parents spent on my swimming, piano, skating, ballet, soccer...wow
Kika González 3 years ago
My parents were not wealthy but I was in at least two activities at any given time
#5
Having a pool. Everyone always wanted to come over to use it. Doesn't everyone else have a pool? Oh...
Foxxy (The Original) 3 years ago
We had an above ground pool and we were very FAR from being well off.
#6
I always thought my family wasn't very well off because it seemed everyone else at my school had two houses (their primary residence plus a beach house or ski house) and we only had one.
#7
We had a maid. I didn't realize everyone else didn't.
Jon Steensen 3 years ago (edited)
Well someone has to be that maid, and maids don't have maids as they would spend more time working to pay them than doing the cleaning work in their own homes themself. A bit of logic could quickly disprove that.
#8
1. Being able to go to college/school without thinking about cost.
2. Being able to choose " Whatever " major I wanted, without thinking about if that major would lead to a paying career that would help support my parents and myself after I graduated.
#9
Vacations, big time. Getting a new car every three to six years. Being unable to understand why people wanted to raise taxes. Country clubs and $50,000-plus weddings. Being able to afford maids, accountants, and being in contact with a lawyer constantly. Blindly accepting capitalism with fervent spirit
#10
I had a friend growing up that if there was something he wanted or felt that he needed to have he would call the store place the purchase and bill it to the family account or go online and buy it using his parents credit card he had and didn't need to ask permission or even tell them he did it and hey were okay with it. I thought he was kidding when he told me this or was lying until he proved it by buying us new $1500 matching dirt bikes.
#11
Clothes, never wore them more than twice. Gave them to charity and just bought more. Shoes too, I had more shoes than I could ever need.
#12
having multiple types of cheese in the fridge at all times.
I was shocked at how expensive cheese was when I moved out lol.
Serial pacifist 3 years ago
I think this is cultural. Where I am at, people regularly eat various cheeses that are considered a luxury and are quite expensive in some other parts of the world. It is the same all around. Some foods that are extravagant to us are part of a common diet in those 'far away' places they originate from.
#13
We had steak for dinner four or five days a week — so much that my brother and I got so sick of it. I didn’t understand the draw of steakhouses and only having steak on a special occasion.
#14
I thought everyone owned a washing machine and was able to vacation every year.
S. Tor Storm 3 years ago
I guess I'm living in a rich country, cuz basically everyone here owns a washing machine. But yeah, norway is rich so.
#15
Vacations every year. Having more than one house. Buying whatever.
#17
I didn't know that it wasn't normal to always take a stretch limo to the airport like my family did.
#18
Fully expecting a car for 16th birthday (and getting one).
#19
I didn’t know there was anything smaller than those “big chairs” in a plane
#20
I assumed that it was a middle-class thing to have multiple summer homes on different islands and huge homes in NYC, fancy vacations, and private schools, and and and. Us kids were alwayse reminded that having so many homes was very hard work, which I guess it was, and 'rich' people didn't have to work hard and therefore we looked down on 'rich' people for being kinda lazy and of questionable character.
#21
You don't have to pay your own student loan.
Ella Romania 3 years ago
I've never known anyone with money who had a student loan. You paid for school outright or got a scholarship.
#23
I thought a weekly allowance was something everyone got growing up. We were given $20 a week.
#24
I thought all houses cost at least a million dollars. Where I come from, that's not a mansion — it's just the cost of a regular house. Or it was when I was a kid in the '90s; now everything's at least two million.
littlesaresare 3 years ago
Or you're just from Australia. Good luck finding a box on the street below a million dollars here.
#25
I thought almost all adults had graduate degrees
beastmachine. 3 years ago
Yupp me too but then I got educated at school and found out it wasn't so...😅
#26
Ski Trips.
brukernavn340 3 years ago
In Norway, ski trips are not only for rich people (except if you go abroad to ski).
#27
Often having additions put on the house. My dad's ideology was that if he was going to stay in the house for the rest of his life, might as well make it bigger
Ryan Deschanel 3 years ago
An actual rich person would just have bought a bigger home rather than suffer the works in progess in this franken-house.
#28
Having 2 fridges! I thought that was a thing everyone had
What do you think ?
Chich 3 years ago
And people are opposed to taxing the rich?! No-one needs That much disposable income or to be just handed money like it comes by the barrelful.
Monday 3 years ago
But if they decide to tax the rich then they'll have to pay high taxes when they finally get rich one day.....is the logic a lot of them seem to work under.
Load More Replies...
ʏᴏᴜʀᴅᴀɪʟʏᴅᴏsᴇᴏғᴄʀᴀᴢʏ 3 years ago
some of these aren’t just “rich parents”, they’re bad parenting and spoiled kids.
Troux 3 years ago
That's a very broad brush to call them all bad parents. Are all lower-middle class kids in developed countries raised fully aware that they are lucky to have clean clothes, medical care, air conditioning, TV, video games and a car, while many people in the world don't? Privilege is relative, and the discussion is still relatively new as we are becoming more connected.
Load More Replies...
Lauren Caswell 3 years ago (edited)
Although a lot of this shocks me, some of it still gives me a reality check. I had my own room. I had food, medical, and a roof. And I don't have to worry about looking after my parents financially (they aren't well off per se, but part of that vanishing middle class I guess. They certainly couldn't afford to support me as an adult). In fact they are way better off than i am but i prefer knowing i provide everything for me and mine, even tho i can't buy a house and rent instead etc. (House prices have gone crazy and the standard 'measure of success' used to be home ownership which is near impossible even for dual income no kid professionals) I feel like I squandered a lot of the privileges I have been given in life though. My sister had those same privileges but used them and has done incredible things
Chich 3 years ago
And people are opposed to taxing the rich?! No-one needs That much disposable income or to be just handed money like it comes by the barrelful.
Monday 3 years ago
But if they decide to tax the rich then they'll have to pay high taxes when they finally get rich one day.....is the logic a lot of them seem to work under.
Load More Replies... ʏᴏᴜʀᴅᴀɪʟʏᴅᴏsᴇᴏғᴄʀᴀᴢʏ 3 years ago
some of these aren’t just “rich parents”, they’re bad parenting and spoiled kids.
Troux 3 years ago
That's a very broad brush to call them all bad parents. Are all lower-middle class kids in developed countries raised fully aware that they are lucky to have clean clothes, medical care, air conditioning, TV, video games and a car, while many people in the world don't? Privilege is relative, and the discussion is still relatively new as we are becoming more connected.
Load More Replies... Lauren Caswell 3 years ago (edited)
Although a lot of this shocks me, some of it still gives me a reality check. I had my own room. I had food, medical, and a roof. And I don't have to worry about looking after my parents financially (they aren't well off per se, but part of that vanishing middle class I guess. They certainly couldn't afford to support me as an adult). In fact they are way better off than i am but i prefer knowing i provide everything for me and mine, even tho i can't buy a house and rent instead etc. (House prices have gone crazy and the standard 'measure of success' used to be home ownership which is near impossible even for dual income no kid professionals) I feel like I squandered a lot of the privileges I have been given in life though. My sister had those same privileges but used them and has done incredible things
Related on Bored Panda
