I was also raised by a single Mum when I was primary age, and then by no one as she also left due to being an alcoholic, and I stayed with a family friend with occasional visits to an aunt and uncle. The family friend was heavily into a dodgy alternative scene and did a lot of drugs, I witnessed a lot of violence and abuse before he went to jail. His flat was sold, I tried to go to college but was a sofa surfer with no permanent address and had to drop out.
I worked from 11 as I had to buy my own food, I’d go to the supermarket every day after school to buy my own dinner. It was ridiculously hard enough to find out very basic things when I was that age, when you’ve literally never had anyone to ask since being a little kid you don’t know what you don’t know. I had a vague idea that 17 was driving age, but as I wasn’t in the education system, I had been moved around so often to different places, I was a bad influence and had to live in the cheapest area, I didn’t really have any friends my age to compare to or come up with. I was throwing all my energies into getting and keeping jobs, school had done a bit about that, but I had to find out everything else for myself, like how to rent a place to live. I’m sure that comes naturally to some people and they just know about letting agents and bonds and rent and inspections and viewings and where and how to buy a table, a lightbulb or a fridge but I really had no idea. Never mind the actual running of the house and the paying of all the bills and how to open a bank account and all the other things I had to learn quickly. At 17 I had three jobs to pay for a place to live (income tax was a real shock, council tax too, I had no idea) feed myself and keep the lights on.
Even getting a copy of my own birth certificate to apply for a license would have been a big problem. When I finally got a passport many years later I had to go for an interview to check I was who I said I was as I was so unheard of on most official systems, and I was an orphan by my early 20s so had no parental passports. I didn’t even know a post office was a place where you could do things like passports and get forms.
I know all of these things now, I’ve buried both parents, and the aunt and uncle. I’ve put myself through university, I have kids of my own, I have a driving license. My first car had no windows in the back and the back seats were mouldy because the rain came in, the drivers side door would rattle so badly at over 40mph I had to hold it closed with one hand. It was in a way because nobody wanted to steal it.
But you did ask me to tell you how you were privileged.