Do your kids have objectively more than you had? Same? Less?
Posted by ImpossibleStuff963@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 66 comments
The goal is always to have our kids be better off than we were. Just wanted a quick pulse check on how most of us are feeling we're doing with that.
_buffy_summers@reddit
My daughter has a lot of the same things I had, growing up: tv, computer with internet access, stuffed animals, books, and makeup. She does not have a job, but she didn't need to get one in her teen years, the way that I did.
albauer2@reddit
My kids are cats, so…
Disastrous-Screen337@reddit
More electronics, less real freedom. I can't afford to give my kids the childhood I had. I'd need to make $750k/year. Dad made at most 100k in the 90s with 4 kids and a stay at home wife.
cheeker_sutherland@reddit
100k in the 90s was fucking loaded.
Disastrous-Screen337@reddit
It's about $216k today. My wife and I make twice that and we could not afford my childhood home, let alone the beach house, the four kids, the stay at home parent, the two new Saabs, the 911 and retirement by 50. It's a different world.
cheeker_sutherland@reddit
It’s really more like $350,000 when it’s all said and done.
Disastrous-Screen337@reddit
I just adjusted for inflation.
cheeker_sutherland@reddit
Inflation doesn’t tell the whole story.
ColdFIREBaker@reddit
More and it's not even close.
Nottheadviceyaafter@reddit
Wont take much for my kids to have more than me, they already do at the ages of 12 and 14...... i grew up with a abusive alcoholic father and was homeless at 16. At 45, I have fought my way to solid middle class and thats the start my kids have.
bk553@reddit
More love, more attention, more experiences, more books, more social/emotional well-being, not more stuff.
rayofgoddamnsunshine@reddit
My kids also have more stuff just by virtue of the fact that I grew up poor as dirt. They've never gone to bed hungry, but I definitely did.
cheeker_sutherland@reddit
Same and it’s hard as hell not to bring that up to them when they are being shits.
Kiethblacklion@reddit
A mix of both for my kids.
Tree_Donkey_Love@reddit
Way more than I had. Grew up in poverty but now solidly middle (upper?) class.
Have provided a mix of experiences and 'stuff'.
On track to being able to help with down payment for their first homes, if they need it. One kid saves and I invest in stocks on his behalf, the other kid runs their account down every month to literal cents.
BrooklynRN@reddit
More things (toys, games, etc) but less family. No one is interested in being in each other's lives any more.
bitwarrior80@reddit
Yes, but mostly because I am a gamer with an extensive collection. I only had a NES and SNES growing up, they get everything from birth. My son has a Game Boy Color, a Game Gear, Genesis, Dreamcast, and a 13-inch CRT. I would have killed for that setup when I was 10.
caramelcoldbrew@reddit
Absolutely. I grew up in the hood and to an immigrant family so we got the absolute bare minimum. My kids have all the things they need and most of the things they want, within reason.
But more importantly, their interests are supported and nurtured, and are always told how proud I am of them and how loved they are. That’s the only thing I ever wanted as a kid and never got and my kids? They get that shit in spades.
lurk3141592653589793@reddit
Much, much more at the personal level. Probably less at the societal level.
snn1326j@reddit
Same, sadly. I grew up solidly middle class or maybe bottom of the upper middle class. Now I’m probably upper class based on our HHI. But I grew up with lots of neighborhood friends, my parents being part of a large immigrant community, and similar. My kids have one friend in the neighborhood and I have made zero friends since moving to my current city seven years ago. It’s kind of sad to think about.
BarrelFullOfWeasels@reddit
Ditto. My family was broke AF, so was my husband's, and now we're middle-class parents. But it's going to be a lot tougher for my kid to go out in the world someday with this cost of living (and we don't have "give your kid a downpayment" kind of money).
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
drtyhppi@reddit
That's a really solid way to put it. What a great response.
MutantSquirrel23@reddit
Kids?
effitalll@reddit
We don’t have a yard, which I feel like a major failure about. But my kid has never faced food scarcity, utilities shut off, or a lack of clothing. Objectively my kid is in a much better position than I was at this age. He has a college fund.
Yellow_Curry@reddit
My kids have way more than I did growing up but basically have the same as my wife did growing up.
lavasca@reddit
Warning: This isn’t satire but it is going to sound very privileged and biased.
I only know one person whose kids have more. He is the great exception partially because if I cited his last name it would sound familiar. You probably have stuff made by his family’s company in your home. He’s the only one.
We went to a prestigious prep school in southern California. Most people have had to put their kids in public school or leave coastal California.
There is a second person who approaches it and he’s a finance guy in San Francisco. He isn’t as well off. The wonderful thing about him is pulling his parents and sibblings along with him. Everyone is comfortable. If he hadn’t done that then he’s probably have more.
People have really felt bad about the public school thing because it isn’t a choice. It is just out of reach to pay $20-50k tuition annually for 12 years AND THEN pay even more for college.
With the exception of that one guy no one I know has the same standard of living we grew up nor do our kids. This set of grandparents can’t afford to cover tuition like the previous set either. That isn’t a dig. It is just the truth. It isn’t their obligation.
Inevitable_Pride1925@reddit
She has significantly more by an order of magnitude
Top-Wolverine-8684@reddit
My parents really struggled raising us (divorced/remarried, 5 kids in a blended family). We were quite poor by the standards we grew up in and didn't have many opportunities. My mom and biological dad had one of those insanely nasty divorces that ended up in restraining orders, visits from the police, my mom's suicide attempt, etc. I became the parent to my younger siblings at a very young age because my mom was not emotionally stable (still isn't). I moved out at 18 and have very little help.
By the age of 21, my daughter had already been to Japan, France, Mexico, and Hawaii, Disneyland 10+ times, and about 20 states. My sons are 19/20, and will be slightly less traveled by the same age, but essentially the same. They all have college funds and we will continue to pay for everything as long as they're in school full-time. Their dad and I are also divorced, but the most ridiculously amicable divorce in history where we have never fought and we're still good friends. We and our spouses have successfully coparented the kids, and they literally want for nothing.
TuckerCarlsonsOhface@reddit
I purposely didn’t have kids so that I can have more than I had as a kid. It’s awesome.
Ok-Criticism6874@reddit
Why did you post here?
TuckerCarlsonsOhface@reddit
Why did you read my post?
Ok-Criticism6874@reddit
Its on the screen, I can read comments. I'm not a troll that trolls the fact that they are deeply depressed about not having chidlren so they manifest it into a brag when deep down inside they are scared of growing old with no one to love or care about and only their possessions and reddit account will watch them grow old.
fannyalgerpack@reddit
Oh brooother
Possible-Tangelo9344@reddit
My kids have so much more.
But that's the way it should be. Their kids should have more or better stuff than they do if they play their cards right.
ModernDayMusetta@reddit
So much more. They may not have the best or everything they want, but the fact that they get to feel "want" without guilt makes me so so happy.
Lothium@reddit
More and less.
They will never understand what it meant to be a kid when we were regardless of what income bracket our parents were. Sometimes I'm happy that they won't have a period of time like that to compare this current shit show to.
jackfaire@reddit
Not counting tech that didn't exist when I was 25 I'd say she's about the same place I was at the same age.
AndrewInMN@reddit
Way more. But her mom and I, though we’re divorced, have done pretty well for ourselves. But I’ve enjoyed spoiling her and she’s always been grateful and never developed a sense of entitlement. I just co-signed her first car loan the other day and I was happy to do it.
My parents divorced when I was 10 or 11 and my dad wasn’t around much even before that. My mom worked her ass off to provide, working full time and often working part time in the evenings. Recently I thanked my mom for what I had growing up. Name brand clothes and shoes and whatnot while she drove shitty cars and didn’t get much for herself. She said it was very much intentional, she didn’t want to send us to school and have us be made fun of and/or feel left out.
CatsEqualLife@reddit
They definitely have less financially, due to me prioritizing myself over money picking a career, unlike my dad who picked his career solely to make money. Plus, I got divorced.
That being said, my childhood still sucked, and so they still have more from me, because I’m sober, present, and trying my best to be emotionally available.
EmergencyM@reddit
More at every level. That is not to say I grew up poorly, but society shifted from kids being secondary or tertiary in importance to being number one so a big part of it is that...and I suppose my spouse and I are probably a little ahead of where my parents were financially at the same point in life. Obviously tech is the biggest difference but really the options kids have for experiences are so much more than when I was a kid its nuts, my kids are doing multiple sports/hobbies on a regular basis, pool membership, specialty camps, craft courses, rock climbing clubs at school, music production clubs, etc. I went to scout camp once a year and other than that and sports I don't remember many other options. Also, I grew up in a middle class community and everyone took modest vacations, now people I know make half what I do are taking their whole family on international trips regularly which is nuts to me.
I_like_flowers_@reddit
about the same about of stuff - maybe less because we try to not have too much plastic crap and make a habit of donating vs. hoarding. but more other things - music lessons, sports groups, support and encouragement for hobbies that my husband and i personally have no interest in.
D34N2@reddit
Being an only child of a divorced couple, I was a spoiled brat. But still, I feel I spend more on my kid than my parents ever did at that age. However, my kid probably has less personal freedoms than I had, and likely has more insecurities as a result.
GenXMillenial@reddit
I live in a state offering free college to residents- I am still paying my student loans (I also did grad school), so that alone, is a gift.
Shabbadoo1015@reddit
Much more. And it’s not just material things. But much more access and the resources for different experiences. We aren’t wealthy or well off by any means. But we do okay and figure it out. Our kids are in dance and anyone with any experience in the dance world (parent, dancer, instructor) knows how expensive the endeavor is. Something like this would have never been a thought in my household growing up.
They do have more material wise and sometimes, we go back and forth on whether that has been a good thing.
Into-the-stream@reddit
I don’t know if it was the right choice, but I prioritized experiences over things. Kids know how to horseback ride, rock climb, canoe, speak a second language, play an instrument, start a campfire, muck a stable, operate a sailboat, navigate with a compass, and a million other things.
As a kid, I had an adventurous spirit, but my parents did not feed that at all. I wanted to experience the world, but my parents were homebodies who weren’t interested in extracurriculars. I did what I could to give it to my kids. As a family we don’t actually have a lot of things. But the kids have everything they need, and while they haven’t seen the whole world, I managed to find a way to give them a lot of cool life experiences along the way.
I think I did ok.
Ltimbo@reddit
We had the exact opposite experience. My parents wanted to go all these places and I just wanted to sit at home and they treated me like there was something wrong with me. I just care more about mental stimulation than experiences.
Into-the-stream@reddit
Oh that sucks. For what it’s worth, my kids enthusiastically consented to everything, even the second language and musical instruments.
We definitely had stuff along the way that we dropped because the kids just weren’t feeling it, too. I let them decide what they wanted to explore.
Busy_Raisin_6723@reddit
I think you did as well!
AdelleDeWitt@reddit
Way way more. I grew up rationing food and always eating less than we wanted to because we couldn't afford more. I would get really excited on Christmas because we'd get one gift gift and then stuff like socks and when you only get new socks once a year, that is still really really exciting. I don't think I go overboard getting stuff for my child, but it always sort of feels like it because she just has the things I never had and so it's hard for me to know what is necessary. I felt so wasteful when I first started buying her rain boots for instance because when I was a kid we would just wear old bread bags inside of our shoes on rainy days to keep our feet dry. Luckily I have friends who grew up similarly and can give me a reality check when I'm trying to figure out if something is wasteful or necessary or normal or not.
Sea-Day9742@reddit
Depends on what you mean. I go out of my way not to spoil my kids. They could lead a my materially richer life if I chose to give that to them. But I don’t because I want them to go into the world striving for what they want and not taking luxury for granted.
Do they have a more secure and loving family than I had. Most definitely.
ljf137@reddit
They are adults now but growing up I'm pretty sure they did.
They are both definitely doing better than I was at their age. Of course that's partly because we had them.
CDA_CPA@reddit
Way more of everything. (Especially affection.)
FUCancer_2008@reddit
Yes. Both my husband and I vgrew up lower middle of class. We are now at worst upper middle class.
drtyhppi@reddit
My kids have more at this very moment than I had my entire childhood. And it's been like that for them from the beginning. In fact, they're teens now and I have an entire playroom full of toys that I can't get rid of. It's a bit of a double-edged sword because, on one hand, I'm extremely grateful that they have people in their lives that have the means to spoil them. On the other hand, they have people in their lives that have the means to spoil them and have done so and continue to do so. If they would've put half of what they've spent on my kids for birthdays and holidays into the 529 I have setup for them, they'd have a fantastic college savings. Instead, I have a room full of junk no one wants.
Busy_Raisin_6723@reddit
A WHOLE LOT MORE!
0215rw@reddit
More. By quite a lot.
fromthedarqwaves@reddit
Way more. But stuff is much cheaper today. Transformers were like $80-90 adjusted for inflation when they came out. That’s why I only had 2-3 of them.
tgbarbie@reddit
I had fantastic present parents with whom I’m still close. My kids have (don’t mind me saying) fantastic present parents. We have more money than my parents did, so we’ve traveled more, live in a more high cost of living area. I worry sometimes how to balance that, but I think we do an ok job keeping them (relatively) grounded.
theicecreamassassin@reddit
On the no kids highway with my sister!
NotRadTrad05@reddit
I grew up between poverty and lower middle class, it fluctuated. When we first had kids we were poor but not poverty, now I'm solid middle class not living paycheck to paycheck. We try to walk the line between giving them what they want(within reason) and not spoiling them.
VinylHighway@reddit
No kids
usernames_suck_ok@reddit
Considering they don't have life because they haven't been born and never will be...I'd have to say "less."
Verbull710@reddit
More what?
Winter_Cry7165@reddit
way more stuff, but way more pressure. I don't know if they're better off in the long run.
Huge-Gear3704@reddit
My kids don’t have a crazy abusive parent because I never had them. So they have more than me already.