Thread for the moments when you realised how fortunate and indeed spoilt you are

[NorthernLurker]

So growing up we also used to laugh at the effusive birthday cards covered in glitter and addressed to a darling granddaughter that my Nan would buy. Obviously we appreciated the cards but truth be told we thought her card taste more than a bit dodgy.

When grown up I bought her the cards she liked with glitter and effusive words even though I didn't like them because I knew she would. One year she rang to thank me and said how much she liked it. I said I knew she would and then she told me that growing up as a kid she envied the other kids in the village who got birthday cards. Her family couldn't afford them. It's not like they starved but a card was an unaffordable luxury. So when she grew up and could afford them for her own kids and then grandkids she got a lot of pleasure out of that.

I just felt so spoilt, I had appreciated the cards but never seen what they really meant. I would never have described my family as overly indulgent but I could see nevertheless how very spoilt I had been. Just ordered Nan's card for this year - large,vomit inducing teddy in Santa outfit, glitter, gushing words. She'll love it

Anybody else had the opportunity to see just how lucky they are? Please share

Growing up I always had hand me down clothes, I really wanted a pair of uggs like my older sister had I have just brought my third pair in 3 months my first pairs too as finally I realised how good for my arthritic feet they are
There's a song from years ago where he sings about holes in his shoes I flashed back to when i was a young kid and my dad said he had to go to the loos at work before work as his feet was dripping wet from holes I thought nothing about it as a kid who although didn't have a lot didn't want for anything i cant listen to the song it just made me feel so so sad for my dad and greatful, in the last 3 months I've spent £500 on 3 pairs of uggs as I have found them excellent for my arthritic feet I just felt so fortunate that I'm in a position to do it.

Any time I walk past homeless people with bags full of shopping really hits hard how fortunate I am, and rightly or wrongly always fills me with guilt.

I realised l had been spoilt when I lived abroad and got a tummy bug.

Vomiting into a pit latrine with a load of poo looking back at me made me appreciate the plumbing I had taken for granted!

Most days for me, too. We're mostly healthy, have a warm home and food and everything we really need, and also have each other.

One thing that keeps hitting me recently, though, is how great it is to have freedom. This has been brought on because someone I know was taken to prison. Now, he might well deserve to be there (I don't know full details, he's pleading not guilty), but still. One day he was living his life, going to work, long walks with the dog etc. Next moment all these options are taken away, and there's still no knowing how long that'll be the case. I'm not against prisons or the punishing of criminals, but ever since he's been locked away I get these sudden realisations that wow, I can just leave this house whenever, go where I want, not even tell anyone, spend my money on takes my fancy etc. There must be so many people in this world without this luxury, for whatever reason.

Just yesterday, when I was able to phone my new neighbour from hospital and ask her if she'd use her key, go into mine, get some money from my desk drawer, and buy me fresh stuff from the Co-op for when I came back from hospital. She did all that and came round with a glass of whisky and dry ginger!

Whisky's not my drink of choice but hey! it went down a treat
I so love my new neighbour

I used to love to read as a kid. We were poor, my mum was a single mum with no financial support from my dad. So many times I asked my mum for a new book and she would say no as she didn't have the spare money. I think I read every single book in our local library at least 5 times.

Whenever I buy myself a new book I feel spoilt now.

I broke my iPhone this week and could afford to go out and buy a replacement straight away. For that I felt very fortunate.

As part of my job I have to work in a supermarket for a few days in December. We live in a bubble a lot of the time but after seven hours of shelf stacking and seeing how minimum wage shop assistants are treated, along with families who have to be so incredibly careful about their budget, I realised exactly how lucky I am.

I try to be as nice as possible to shop assistants!

That’s a lovely story Northern - thanks. Found it really touching

I feel truly blessed almost all the time; sitting here, mumsnetting with ‘friends’, glass of wine by my side, nice dinner to look forward to, good health, a reasonably happy marriage of over 30 years, a wide circle of friends, a job I really love - and the fact that it doesn’t really pay very well doesn’t matter at my stage in life, mortgage paid off, both parents still alive in in good health in their late 80s, a teenage DS who is generally very well behaved (although drives me mad at times!!). Volunteering work that I absolutely love & hope makes a small difference in society.

I really mean it when I say I am genuinely very lucky. .

Sometimes when I come across someone particular odious on public transport, a group of young people talking very loudly saying vulgar things and stinking of weed and looking like extras for some kind of teen poverty porn drama I feel so lucky to have not turned out like that. I know that sounds very snobbish but it could have easily happened. My family didn’t have much money. They were immigrants, thier degrees were worth nothing in the country we lived in. They didn’t understand how the system worked (having gone from a communist country). To top it off their marriage was extremely dysfunctional and they struggled to keep it together. I am very lucky it to have ended up living that kind of life.

The fact I now have enough money to get my CH boiler serviced and repaired immediately is something that I thank my lucky stars for, because I can remember having to go without heating and hot water (luckily had an electric shower, so at least could keep clean) for a year due to no spare cash. Also not being able to have heating at all in my very first flat, means I revel in being able to have the heating on whenever I want.

When I was younger my Mum told me that when my Dad was a child he and his mother would often be sitting at home in the dark without heat, waiting for his father to come home from the pub with some spare coins for the meter so they could have light, heat and cooked food. It was always important to my Dad to be a good provider for his children and try and give them the things he couldn't have. Even though money was often tight me and my siblings had a lovely childhood. I often think of that little boy sitting in the dark with his Mum and it makes me sad and grateful for my own childhood. I got lucky with my parents.

Timely thread.

This afternoon I put a wash on and reflected yet again how grateful I am for a washing machine.

I've lived with handwashing double sheets in a bucket, and hot water being heated in a kettle if one was lucky. I will be grateful every single time I do a wash by machine as long as I – and the machine – are alive.

On Thursday I was at our local foodbank helping to pack Christmas hampers for families. I have a two year old and seeing these lists of families with children and toddlers just cut me up. Here I am telling everyone not to buy my DD2 too much as I don't know where I'll store it and these families can't afford to feed their children let alone buy them a present. I cried while packing them and again yesterday when a Christmas song came on and it made me think about how I'd have a lovely Christmas and these families most likely wouldn't.

My children tell me I’m spoiled rotten by my husband. I like to think I give him someone to meet his need to adore and cherish. It’s hard but I have to let him indulge me. That’s from getting up early to run the dog and then bring me a mug of tea to allow me to wake up gently to bringing me flowers ever Friday since we’ve been married. In truth, I’ve occasionally been ungrateful and told him they look like cheap garage ones. He works incredibly hard to enable us to enjoy a good life and I do sometimes expect more besides. I know others are not as fortunate.

I sometimes feel a bit spolit as a sahm.
My health is poor. I have fibromyalgia which makes things difficult. If I had to work then I'd have to work but I know my health would really suffer for it.
I can rest when I need to and can potter about at my own speed. We have a decent house, two great kids at a good school and a daft cat.
The cat spoils me too. Couldn't have pets as a child as my dad was allergic and my mum didn't want to be bothered. My sack of soft fur is sat on my lap purring now and is my excuse not to move!

I grew up very poor. For me, the thing that really makes me reflect on my good fortune is when I fill the car up. When I was growing up, it was always “I’ll put £10 in and then maybe I’ll have enough to drive to X as long as we walk to Grandma’s this week”- that kind of thing. These days I wait until the petrol gauge is about 25% full and then fill it all the way to the top. I never have to worry about petrol or bills and that makes me feel incredibly grateful.

Walking around our big city today trying to decide between hundreds of places to go for a nice, wet, child free lunch. The world really was our oyster and the only problem was where to go ... when we saw a man handing out sausage rolls to homeless people.

It’s hard but I have to let him indulge me.

It sounds suffocating. What happens if you say no?

GreenKangaroo I cannot imagine a time I wouldn’t want a mug of tea or flowers. Indulging me is nice. We don’t live in each other’s pockets though. He’s in the air on his way to Xiamen; it doesn’t appeal to me so I decided I wouldn’t travel with him but will fly out in the week to Hong Kong to meet him. Indulgence is him considering my needs and wishes and trying to do nice things for me. That doesn’t mean we don’t disagree or argue sometimes. It’s him thinking I might be tired when I get home from London and having a warm bath run and a mug of tea made. He made sure there was enough logs in for me this week to avoid me having to fetch them from the log store. There are always gifts if he’s been away, my favourite scent, Jewellery, a scarf. Not suffocating at all. I can’t imag being thoughtful could ever be suffocating.
Suffocation is the exact opposite of indulgence, I imagine. Assuming they know what you want or insisting on doing things their way. Controlling and Inconsiderate. Not allowing a breathing space and being ever present.

The washing machine one above chimes for me and i also find this thread timely. I haven’t lived without a washing machine since I was a student but I was cooking earlier, beating eggs with a cheap but reliable electric whisk, the oven was on preheating, the washing machine was doing a load, the dishwasher was handling the mess from earlier. I was struck by the luxury of machines doing most of the leg work and how that actually buys me time. If I’d had to hand wash the pants and towels, wash the dishes and pans, I probably couldn’t be arsed beating eggs for a special dish!

my granny and her siblings didnt have the best upbringing, her mother (my great granny, whom I knew as a child) apparently likely had mild learning difficulties, but back in those days it wasnt really diagnosed and there wasnt the same support available (1930s) and I understand they went without a lot (both materially and nuture) as a result. I'm not aware of many stories of my great grandad, not sure if he was around to be completely honest. My granny went to live with her own granny in her teens. The story that always strikes me is her younger sister, who didnt have a bed in the rented crumbling victorian flat they lived in, making herself a little bed out of boxes and lying under coats as a child around the age of 6-7. Probably not that unusual back in those days but always makes me feel grateful for my comfy mattress and electric blanket. My great aunt is still alive and living in sheltered accommodation, she was alcoholic for many years and had a stroke a few years back. I often wonder if it werent for her upbringing if things would have been different for her (and my own granny to that mind!)

I remember kicking off as a child because I didn't want a hand me down boys bike from my cousin. I wanted a bmx (also a boys bike so DM and DF saw right through me). It must have really pushed both of their buttons as neither of them had bikes growing up because their parents couldn't afford it yet here I was turning my nose up at a perfectly decent bike because it wasn't cool enough. I accepted the hand me down in the end and I'm actually grateful they didn't give into me. It really taught me to be grateful for what I had.

I feel so grateful that my parents, particularly my mother, never showed any prejudice or intolerance for anyone 'different' in front of me. I grew up in probably one of the least multicultural parts of the country yet people of different colour or religion were not marked out as 'wrong'... Urgh, I don't feel I'm explaining myself very well.

So when I was younger there was a furore over a gay character in EastEnders. I didn't understand what 'gay' was and why it might be a bad thing... and my mum just said simply 'its a man who loves another man instead of a lady'. Likewise, all I heard about Jewish people when I was growing up was that they don't eat certain things because of their religion and they don't have Christmas but they have hanukkah instead. I wasn't exposed to any nasty stereotypes, or unpleasant jokes.

I have taken this for granted most of my life , in fact I barely realised it for a very long time!, but recently with the anti-Semitism row I have realised that not everyone has the benefit of this.

I found out not that long ago that my grandma was in the workhouse as a child after her father died, her mother died when she was 5. I didn't know any of this as a child I'm not sure even my dad did.

My other nan was youngest of 9 in a tiny cottage, then she was widowed in her 30s with 3 children under 7, my mum being 2.

They both must have had such difficult times in different ways. I never thought much of it growing up when my nan used to say how lucky we were. Now I have children I can't fathom what it'd be like to be in the circumstances their parents were in