Poor, Comfortable Or Well Off Childhood?

[mrs_overall]

What was your childhood like?
When I was very young we were pretty poor - hand me down clothes from cousins, very bad home haircuts and Christmas presents consisted of an annual, a selection box, one toy and three shiny brand new pennies.

[ummmm]

Comfortable. I had wealthy grand parents . Mum and dad paid for day to day life and grand parents paid for the treats. We also had childless uncles and aunties who spoilt us.

[Doosh]

We had it rough,no money,food or heating in fact during winter we all used to crowd around my dad with outstretched hands when he was sucking an extra strong mint for heat.

[maggiebee]

Same here Mrs O. No special Christmas dinner, no crackers and maybe a selection box or a dolly but little else. What I did have was love - worth more than anything else.

[sandyRoe]

Poorer than church mice. The family returned from England and our father promptly left us. So four of us lived for some time in a smallish room in the uni area.

[Zacs-Master]

There's a massive difference between poor and comfortable. I was reminiscing with my mother yesterday and she was telling me how her and a neighbour needed to decorate the neighbours bathroom. They bought three rolls of paper in a sale and made their own paste.
We never had a car until I was in my 20s but my m&d had their own home and we had a uk holiday each year.
I'm sure some people would consider my upbringing poor, whilst others would consider a holiday a great luxury.

[Baldric]

Not wealthy, but comfortable, Family owned a Riding Stables and bred Poultry so Land Rich, Cash Poor I think they call it, whatever, it was a Lorra Lorra Fun.

[Ann]

My childhood was much the same as yours Mrs O, but my Mum and Dad always saved hard all year to give us a good Christmas, we had simple presents but I remember the joy of coming down on Christmas morning to more toys than I had seen all year.

Now both parents have gone and I hear of many split families it makes me count my blessings and like Maggiebee said I am thankful that it was a childhood full of love, but we had a very strict upbringing which was a good thing on reflection.

[Psybbo]

Just the same as you mrs_o, though I did get a Lone Star Rifle once, a treasured possession

[tonyav]

Ohhhhh I had one of those, Psybbo. Soon got through the caps though.

[Gavmacp]

Very comfortable. Large house and many dinner parties.
But no love, support or encouragement in fact quite the opposite often ridiculed if I had a dream.

[Doosh]

The main thing here is that we all came from poor backgrounds and are now rich enough to have the internet in our homes which was unthought of back at the turn of the century

[Baldric]

I'll bet that at the turn of the century the Landed Gentry were just sitting at their Computers waiting for someone to invent the Internet!

[sandyRoe]

Weren't they afraid of the millennium virus? :-)

[Islay]

Well off several holidays a year, massive Christmas's riding and dance lessons, colour tv's in our rooms and the first computers and cars when we turned 17. I would give it all up just to be loved by my mother once.

[Svejk]

I suppose it would be considered poor today. But it was much the same as everyone else around then. And very happy. ;o)

[Elina]

We weren't poor .. neither were we well off.

[marval]

We were not well off, but I wouldn't say we were poor either.

[jomifl]

Although we weren't really poor (there were poorer people than us on on our council prefab estate) we were always cold in the winter (chapped legs were the norm) and most of my mum's time seemed to be spent lugging shopping home. We could afford a trip to the cinema and fish and chips about once a fortnight. One of the kids at school had a dad who was an airline pilot and he went skiing (none of us knew what skiing was). It is strange that because just surviving was the main issue, we didn't have time for all the social problems and peer group pressure that modern kids have.

[Zacs-Master]

You were lucky.......


(Well, someone had to say it and I am from Yorkshire).

[TWR]

Can anyone remember Army Coat's on the bed? there was 4 of us using a double bed head to tail.