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7 Signs Your Parents Aren’t Rich

Sorry, no corvette for your 16th birthday

Gus
New Writers Welcome
5 min readDec 14, 2021

Photo by Emma Bauso from Pexels

Growing up, my siblings and I had everything we needed. But if there was something we wanted, most likely we’d have to save our own money to get it.

We weren’t exactly poor, but we were thoroughly middle class. My dad was a college professor at a small liberal arts college, which meant he got plenty of academic freedom and a rather meager salary to go with it.

I had a largely happy childhood. There were no fancy vacations and your chances of getting an Xbox for Christmas were next to none, but in its place was active encouragement to read books, play music, and embrace our creative spirit.

Because I had a pretty artistic temperament from a young age, this parenting strategy worked quite well for me; I was mostly oblivious to the fact that we didn’t have a lot of money.

But in retrospect, signs of my parents’ lack of wealth were scattered throughout my life like breadcrumbs. Here are seven clear indicators:

No New Cars

My parents always had a reserve of cash to buy a car — as long as it was used. When they bought a vehicle, they held onto it for literally as long as it would run. Also, the cars were never “nice.” The fanciest one we ever got was a 2002 Honda…

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New Writers Welcome
New Writers Welcome

Published in New Writers Welcome

Supporting new writers to the Medium platform

Gus
Gus

Written by Gus

A Writer Navigates Life in Search of Luminous Things. Interests: Storytelling, Lifestyle, Mental Health. Reach me: lowery198@gmail.com

Responses (2)

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When I think about my childhood, I don’t think about the deprivations. Instead, I think of all the wonderful things that came about because of the financial limitations my parents faced...

When I had enough age to realize that my parents could not afford several of the things you listed I was first a bit judgemental but later on you start thinking about old memories and in retrospect, I didn't face many limitations. I had a happy childhood. Loved you article! 💯

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Really encouraging read and it brought me back down memory lane as my parents were not rich either. We found joy in the small things, and these are the memories I still have today.

Thanks for writing 😁

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