How the other half lives, what and when you learned

[tomorrowalready]

Reflecting from another thread made me realise it was not until my 20s I found out some people expected to have a private bathroom. I went to university then and shared with another mature student who had been married, divorced and said she found having to share a bathroom with unrelated people unpleasant. I had always taken it for granted as had live in jobs and rented bedsits before. She was a lovely person and also the first person I knew who had a glass of wine every evening and she introduced me to many new things - cooking with garlic, sherry, owning and using a car for shopping for example.

So what did you take for granted that surprised other people you met?

[ragged]

There's a 'Freebies' page on our local facebook. I like giving stuff away. Delivering stuff to others has made me find a lot of social housing in my town that I wasn't aware of, previously. Some grotty blocks of flats or rough clusters of houses.

Wondering around one courtyard-centred group of flats, I came across a giant pile of human turd in one corridor. Just WTF is wrong with people? Imagine living in a place like that, where your neighbour or a visitor thought that was ok to dump their bowels like that.

So yeah, I took it for granted that wouldn't happen, there wasn't such financial hardship and anti-social behaviour, in my sleepy town.

[tomorrowalready]

@RainyDay2020

The moment I realised my Aunty and her family were a lot more well off than us is when we went for a visit and she gave us kids slices of fresh pineapple. Just as a snack.
I’d never seen a real pineapple let alone ate one, only ever had tinned.
I ate so much of it my tongue fizzed for an hour!

I am over 60 , RainyDay 2020 and I bought a pineapple for the first time ever last week. Not for me as I actually dislike pineapple from having it tinned as a child, for my neighbour to give to her grandchildren. It was only 67p from M&S. She told me it wasn't ripe the leaves are supposed to feel loose and be yellowish. Neighbour wasn't impressed as she could compare to memories of 'real', fresh, ripe ones she had as a child in Jamaica.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Until I went to secondary, I thought my friend’s 3 bed semi was tiny. It would probably be worth the best part of 1/2 a million now!

Sorry your spoon broke. Dh and I still have the washing up bowl we nicked from the little house we rented at my last year of university 30 years ago. By this stage, I had a tiny taste of how the other half lived. It was such a luxury not to house or bedroom share with other students. The carpets were threadbare, there were single glazed Windows, ancient curtains and no central heating… but it all was ours.

[HotChoc10]

I am occasionally mortified all over again remembering being about 11 at a friend's house and asking what a ready meal was, because it was what they said we were having for dinner, and I'd never heard of them before.

[CallMeRisley]

When I was at Uni I brought a boyfriend home to my Northern home town for a visit; he was Southern and very posh. We stayed at my parents’ house- semi detached. In the morning as we walked away down the street, he looked back at the house confused. “So if that’s the living room,” he said pointing to the front window, “Which room is that?” pointing to the next door (attached) neighbour’s front window. I had to explain that was someone else’s house attached on to the side!

Same boyfriend, we met some of my home town friends, some were also at uni, some at college etc. I asked one friend what he was planning to do when his college course ended that summer. “Oh I’ll probably have to sign on for a bit” he said. “Sign on to what?” Asked my (then) boyfriend

I was also shocked to discover that boyfriend was a Tory voter We had probably been seeing each other about a month before I found out, I had just taken it for granted that everyone voted labour and I’d never (knowingly) met a Tory before- I was 19 or 20. It makes sense now though!

[camelfinger]

I used to think that rich people lived in mansions and had tennis courts and swimming pools. I used to think poor people lived in flats and didn’t buy new clothes. Everyone else I assumed was the same. Where I grew up, most people owned a modest house and would have one big car for the dad’s work and a small runaround for the mum. The dad would have an office job and the mum would either not work or have a local part time job. Everyone had nice TVs and three piece suites. So most people seemed comfortably off but I wouldn’t think of them as rich because they lived in small houses. I therefore found it hard to relate to anyone who was rich or poor when I met them in later life.

[Chouetted]

I was astounded as a teenager when someone offered me cake AND icecream for pudding.

All my life up till then it had been one or the other. The decadence!

[SpeakingFranglais]

@SurferWoman

Until I was about 20, I assumed that everyone reused 'lucky' unfranked stamps from envelopes by soaking the corner of envelope in a little saucer for ten minutes.

My parents rarely paid for stamps. We all just glued old ones onto new envelopes.

It didn't occur to me that it might be immoral to do this.

OMG, my first job was in the cash office of a large well known company, I still work there. One of our jobs was opening the envelopes and inputting the counter foil details and balancing the cheques but we literally opened 100s a day. This was 1985 and there were loads of lucky unfranked stamps, I was completely adept at peeling them off and reusing them with a Pritt Stick.

I didn’t pay for a stamp for about two years. I never felt guilty, until now.

🙈

[Iwastheparanoidex]

Central heating.

I had no idea what it was. Everyone I knew had fires in the house (we didn’t get heating til I was at secondary school).

I had the smallest bedroom and it didn’t have a fireplace so I had a convector heater but it was rationed I was hardly allowed to put it on.


I was always always cold in the winter.

[SpeakingFranglais]

My own personal one, starting secondary school in 1977. We were a mixed bag, local grammar school but all classes, I was very much in the middle, parents owned a semi, mum a part time dinner lady, dad a tradesman.

By best friends parents were divorced, I knew no one divorced.
Her dad had his own business and drove a Mercedes.
Her mum was a divorcee but lived in a four bed detached.
Her sister went to university.
They got kitkats in their lunchbox, every day.
They ordered takeaway on a Friday and she had holidays in Barbados with dad and Florida with mum, in the same year.
She had a pony.

Never, ever have I been in such awe of someone. I always felt like the poor kid until we left school and changed direction, and she went on the private beauty course (beauty courses were practically unheard of then) that I wanted desperately to go on first and my parents couldn’t afford.

She’s still rich, her dad sadly died when she was about 19 and her brother and sister took over the business, she wasn’t bright or mature or interested enough and got a massive payout for her share.

[tomorrowalready]

That's really funny, CallMeRisley, about the extra windows maybe being a secret room or underused wing of your house. Sounds like the council house I grew up in. Actually it had what the property programmes call 2 reception and 4 good sized bedrooms, freezing cold kitchen and bathroom though. We were a big family. Out of interest did you feel you knew more about his culture from TV and other media as the predominant one as he seemed to know nothing of yours? Did that bamboozle you?

I remember when I did go to University having grown up very politically conscious being surprised by the ignorance of the 'clever ' 18 year olds. It was the Thatcher era. A fellow mature student pointed out most would just parrot what their parents said which was strange to me. Whatever my family failings we did at least discuss politics and events. I read several newpapers a day and several weeklies and had Radio 4 on as background in those days. Also had an older father who had lived through the '30s and the war, often expressed disgust with leaders, none of this idolising Churchill etc.

[Insert1x20p]

I've just remembered a really mortifying experience from when I was a kid. I went to my friend's house and they'd just got a new dog (a crossbreed from the shelter- this is relevant). I asked what its name was, and they said "Heidi" and then I asked "And what's her kennel name?"

What a twat!

I've been on both sides though - things from my first few weeks at Uni

• Realising that when people ask what school you went to they expect to have heard of it and know people there, so they're trying to figure out who you both know.
  

• My now bff asking me to come for supper at 9, and I ate dinner at 7 as I was expecting a cup of tea and a snack (basically, not a full meal). She saw me in the canteen and said "oh, did you forget about coming to supper later" and I was super mortified and had to pretend I had and abandon my dinner. We laugh about this now.

[Pearl97]

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon

Possibly outing, but I didn't realise until my mid-20s that most people have Yorkshire pudding as a side with their Sunday Roasts rather than served on its own as a starter as it was in my house!

We used to have this too. We had about 8 each, not sure how we managed any actual dinner!!!

[fraddu]

I used to think that rich people lived in mansions and had tennis courts and swimming pools. I used to think poor people lived in flats and didn’t buy new clothes.

As a Londoner I learnt house size didn't have any bearing on income. I remember going to a friends tiny mews house in Chelsea & realising they lead a completely different life style. She had a cousin who lived in a flat near Hyde Park which we sometimes would go to. My friend was bought a property by her parents to live in her 20s, I zoopla'd it, 4m!!!!

[StupidNC]

At uni, horrified that a (rich) housemate was automatically throwing away food that I couldn't afford at all because it was out of date but not mouldy. She was equally horrified that I was prepared to have it. I ate well that year

Conversely going round a friend's after school and being told by her before teatime to call my mum to pick me up. In my limited experience mums picked you up after tea. I told her this and she explained that her parents only had enough food to feed her little brother a proper dinner - the rest of them were having a bag of crisps each her parents are two of the hardest working people I know - it really shook the way I'd been brought up to that point (parents telling me that if you worked hard enough you'd "get on" in life).

[StupidNC]

Realising that when people ask what school you went to they expect to have heard of it and know people there, so they're trying to figure out who you both know.

Oh god. This. Happened to me at the Cambridge Uni open day during the applicants coffee session (parents were sent elsewhere). Then I was frozen out of the conversation when the few around me realised I was from a state school (they were all private school kids who did know mutual people). Never experienced anything like it before. Put me off applying to that college and, to some extent, private education (why pay all that money for kids who turn out into awful snobs? Or maybe that's the point! ).

[imaginethemdragons]

En suite.
It stills blows my mind and makes me think of extreme privilege when people have en suites in their actual homes and not just if they get to go to a hotel for a holiday.

I’m a 50 year old woman by the way!

[DragonflyFairy]

Mine are the other way around as I was very lucky to have quite a privileged upbringing.

I remember going to uni and being befuddled hearing a noise in my room a lot. My house mate explained it was someone next door plugging something in on the adjoining wall. Also, tinned potatoes- I was genuinely shocked for some reason! We ate everything fresh inc our own home grown Jersey Royals and this blew my 19 year old mind.

Also recently as I've just had my first child and been thinking a lot about bringing them up etc. We have a small garden and it hit me that my experience of having our own bonfires throughout autumn and our own fireworks on Nov 5th is not 'normal' and that we'll have to either go to a public display or take him to my parents and do it there.

[Livelovebehappy]

Going to a new (well off) friends house for ‘dinner’, an evening meal that I had always described as ‘tea’. I was 17 and just started training to be a nurse cadet. Her dm asked me how I wanted my steak, and I said ‘with chips’.

[Grumpyoldpersonwithcats]

I always assumed that streaky bacon was the best kind because that's what we had at home (once a week treat, Sunday breakfast, cooked by dad).

I remember a friend being baffled because our loo was outside (late 60s / early 70s).

I particularly remember being amazed by one friend's house because it was SO modern (and also his parents clothes were SO stylish.) Looking back it was all a bit Abigail's Party . The idea that their house interior was actually styled/themed, rather than being a collection of whatever had been acquired (mainly second hand) over the last 30 odd years was completely new to me.

[OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow]

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

Possibly outing, but I didn't realise until my mid-20s that most people have Yorkshire pudding as a side with their Sunday Roasts rather than served on its own as a starter as it was in my house!

I went to a wedding and the starter was Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy, omg it was incredible!!

We went to my nephew's in a posh venue in Sheffield and had it. My grown up kids were most impressed.
For me, growing up in the 60s and 70s in Australia, was when I went to my first friend who lived in a non housing commission house. They had an upstairs! And it was wall to wall carpeted. She had a bedroom with fitted wardrobes and her curtains and bedspread matched. We had Chinese noodles for lunch and her mum cooked an egg in them. I felt like I was in an American sit com!

[GnomeDePlume]

My parents or more specifically DF didnt like holidays. DF didnt like being away from home. We didnt go on many holidays, if we did they were always in Britain, always self catering, always a bit dreary. Parents never 'splashed out' on holiday. I cant remember ever being bought an ice cream.

DH's family were the opposite, they would cheerfully throw a rug over a hole in the carpet and go off on holiday, driving off to Spain, having adventures.

My first proper foreign holiday was with DH the year after we got married. We flew to Spain, ate out most nights, sat in bars and watched the world go by. Went to the neighbouring town by bus to have breakfast and watch the market setting up.

It was a total revelation that holidays could be fun!

[tomorrowalready]

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats likewise with the cats and also my dad cooked us breakfast everyday, often with fried bread. It was great.

We also had an outside toilet until I was 7. But you know people keep them now for the gardener don't you know. We also had a pigsty, no pig so we didn't breed our own breakfast like true country folk.

[Grellbunt]

I do occasionally comment to my kids (now that they are slightly older) that they should be aware that there are people who don't have xyz or who wouldn't consider multiple holidays in a year normal etc. It's a tricky one as I don't want to induce guilt but equally I don't want them growing up too spoilt!