Growing up poor - Were we poor growing up?
By: Dexter Roona
Tags: UK, Personal Growth, Holidays, Poor Families, Psychology

Growing up poor - Were we poor growing up?

I find myself asking this question after long conversations with my brother on what we did as children and how we grew up. Dexter Roona Dec 22, 2020·4 min read

It never really occurred to me that we were not a very well off family. We had food on the table, we didn't really go without. We even had a holiday once a year but now as a family man myself, I question just how affluent we were as a family.

My kids want for nothing

They go on holiday. They have fun days out. There is trampolining squad, Jui Jitsu and so much more to keep them occupied and it all costs a fortune. There was none of this for me and my brother growing up.

We had the local park to play in but there were no days out, no after school clubs, no trampolining, no Jui Jitsu or anything like that. These activities, of course, all existed but to us, they didn’t. We were pretty much oblivious to anything outside of what we had.

So was that because we couldn’t afford them or was it something else?

We went to Great Yarmouth for 2 weeks every year staying in a static caravan on a holiday park that was called Vauxhall Caravan Park.

Modern Static Caravan at Vauxhall Caravan Park — Image Source

Occasionally if we couldn’t get a booking at Vauxhall we would go a few miles down the coast to Hemsby Beach.

We had a traditional Uk seaside holiday, deck chairs on the beach, Punch and Judy, Whippy Ice cream and chips.

Punch and Judy — Image Source Great Yarmouth Mercury

We always stayed in the UK there was never a new horizon in the form of an overseas holiday.

There was always plenty to do in our UK holidays. You could go to the beach, there were amusement arcades, funfair rides, evening entertainment, we were always entertained.

The Snails Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach — Image Source Pinterest

The decision behind going on this type of holiday wasn't a financial decision, because it wasn't a particularly cheap holiday and we always went in the peak summer season. The choice of the holiday was more to do with my dad not liking any kind of change whatsoever. He was very much a creature of habit. He knew what he liked that was good enough for him, there was no need to investigate or try anything else.

And that probably plays into why there were no clubs or days out for us, he liked to spend his weekends at home and where he went our mum went. They really didn't go anywhere or do anything without each other and so neither did we.

Eating Out

I had no experience of eating out until I was around the age of 20, it was just something we never, ever did growing up. Pizza was a mystery to me when I saw it on a menu for the first time. My kids are very lucky in that they do go to restaurants quite regularly.

I don’t feel that we really missed out on anything growing up, we just didn't experience as much as I think we should have. Would things have been different had some of the things we give to our children now had been afforded to us? I have to say yes to this because I can see and recognise just how different my children are to me.

Were me and my brother any different from anyone else in our street. Was this stay at home culture a generational thing that has now thankfully changed for our kids? There is no real way to know now. Our dad sadly passed away 10 years ago now and mum is a dementia sufferer.

My conclusion is that we were not wealthy and that my parents were simply careful. We had no debt to speak off, no mortgage, no loans, everything was paid for in cash but those were ideals from very different times to how we live now.

Thinking back there seems to have been more the fear surrounding the spending of money, the fear of getting into debt, the fear of change, the fear of experiencing new things. More fear in general.

Thankfully it’s not how my children live today!

image sources linked in the main images

Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any claps we receive!