I guess some people out there truly don’t realize that their parents are wealthy…
I mean, how would they know any different, right?
Maybe they thought it was normal to live in a huge house with nice cars and a team of servants…or something like that.
When did you realize your parents were rich?
Here’s what AskReddit users had to say about this.
1. Oh, yeah…
“My dad always told my brothers and me how fortunate we were as we grew up.
However, it didn’t hit me until I learned that the 2008 recession was a thing until six years after it happened.”
2. That’s where I live…
“A kid in my class bragged the day after Halloween that he and his friends had gone trick-or-treating on our street ‘where all the rich people live.’
I had always known we were well-off, but would not have described us as rich because my family didn’t have live-in staff, our property was not fenced off, and my parents didn’t have drivers.”
3. What recession?
“I realized we were rich when the 2008 recession had absolutely no effect on us.
We still had tons of music lessons, other expensive hobbies, and vacations.”
4. Lucky.
“I realized it when I remembered that my father used to give me twice as much money as I earn now.
He called it ‘early inheritance.’ I am a well-paid software developer.”
5. Character building.
“My parents were wealthy, but since they were good ol’ Midwestern folks, they also wanted my siblings and me to work early and work hard.
I got a job at 14 at a local sandwich shop and had a coworker who was around the same age. I just assumed that she didn’t need to work and was only doing it for the ‘character building’ aspect like I was.
I asked her what she was going to do with her first paycheck, assuming it would be something fun, and she told me she was going to give it to her parents because they were really struggling and needed help with the bills. I was shocked. I had never met someone who needed to help their parents with bills at only 14 or 15.”
6. Vacation.
“I realized it when I started talking in school about the pros and cons of Disney World vs. Disney Land, and people were like, ‘YOU’VE BEEN ON VACATION?! LUCKY.'”
7. Took a while.
“Going to other people’s houses and seeing they weren’t as big as mine made me realize we had money.
It took me a long time to find this out because I was not very popular growing up.”
8. Oh, boy…
“When I was 14, it clicked. My brother, who’s two years older than me, crashed his $45K Silverado he’d had for three months, and our dad bought him another one the next weekend.”
9. You had a plane?
“I had to get a recommendation for my private high school admissions from my public school teacher, and she asked in front of the class, ‘Do you know how much the tuition is?’ I told her.
I had no concept of what that figure meant. She asked, ‘Your parents can afford that?’ And my classmate said, ‘His family is rich. They have fancy cars and a plane!'”
10. Frugal.
“My parents were always super frugal.
We camped instead of staying in hotels on road trips, my siblings and I had to share ice cream cones, and we rarely ate out at restaurants, but then my parents bought a Jet Ski, new car, and a boat all within a couple months, and I went, ‘Wait.’
It turned out my dad was a VP at a Fortune 500 company, but his emphasis was always on paying for education and experiences and passing down fiscal responsibility rather than being flashy.”
11. Perspective.
“I realized we were rich when I realized just how outrageously lucky I was. I grew up in a town with people 10 times wealthier than we were.
I went to a well-known boarding school with sons and daughters of billionaires. It majorly skewed my idea of what ‘rich’ was; despite that, we had multiple houses, boats, cars, and family trips all over the world.
I never had the proper perspective until I was homeless.”
12. A cool million.
“My dad owned a financial advisory company.
I never knew I was rich because since he was so financially literate he just invested a lot and didn’t splurge.
When we moved into a new house, I accidentally found the paper for the house listing and saw that the house we were moving into was a million dollars.”
What do you think about this?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Thanks in advance!
