I got this meme from Barbara over at Home in France. It was developed for a research project (and copyrighted) by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University (see their project’s website here). They ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright if you use this meme.
Bold the true statements.
1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college.
3. Mother went to college.
4. Mother finished college – Is an Associates degree finishing college?
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor – a husband is a relative right, so I guess I do…
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 – it was just for emergencies, I swear, of course, I sometimes considered my lack of the latest CD to be an emergency…
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private special high school – No private school, but I went to a magnet school that was just named the number one high school in the US, so I’m guessing that I should count this one as another privilege.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. – Not ALL the time, but the occasional vacation did.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 – I guess buying flannel shirts at the Salvation Army to get that Grunge-look *just right* doesn’t count.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them – ummm, where does giving you the down payment on the car you bought after finishing your Master’s land? Hmmm, not sure how to count this one. I guess it’s a privilege still.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child -I don’t think the Franklin Mint and Hümmel figurines count as art.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school - Oliver will never have a TV in his room. I used to stay up all night watching HBO. Our family rule is no TVs in bedrooms.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family - not till I was 24, but I guess that still counts.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up – we lived in metro-Washington DC, the Smithsonians are free, so, yeah.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family – apparently they were quite high.
Good God, I’ve got 27 out of 34.
Well, I guess I’m one privileged gal who should be very grateful for the country and family I was born into (and I am very grateful about this). It’s just genetic luck that I was born where I was and not in Darfur or Nairobi or Kabul or a million other places on this Earth. I am planning to make sure that Oliver does not grow up with quite as many privileges as I did though. I think my parents were a little too giving to us kids.
I’ve given up tagging people, since it’s pretty hit or miss that I actually have time and can think up answers pretty quickly to memes that people tag me with anymore, but this one did catch my eye. Post a comment if you do this so I can check out your results.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting meme! I would only be able to answer yes to just over half of them. I forgot to ask you: Where in North Carolina did you live?
I only got 13 – you are twice as privileged as me!
this meme is very US-centric. if i attempted to fill in my yesses and noes, then you could pretty much call me rock bottom. then again, some of those listed items were not considered privileges at all in my childhood, but they were simply taken for granted. add the fact, that i spend the greatest part of my childhood growing up in the GDR.
Hi Christina,
Thank you for trying this meme !
You had a lot of privIleges growing up;what a wonderful life you had as a youngster.
I don’t honestly feel like I lacked anything.There was one thing that I felt early on, but I made up later… traveling.I felt the curiosity at an early age to see what was beyond the islands. I only remember going on one family trip ! My parents were all work and more work.
Remember that with Oliver if you can; it’s one thing to pay the bills and make money.But take some time to be together and enjoy life.
Your hubby will have lots of stories to tell you when we returns from Rennes !
Take care and see you soon.
Dang, I got 23 out of 34. I did notice that some of those things are based on sheer preference. For example, cruising never appealed to my folks, even though they had the means to do it.
I feel kind of spoiled now.
http://philsblogging.com/2008/how-spoiled-or-lets-say-privileged/
21 out of 34.
NOT SO PRIVILEGED after all.
I got 11 and put it up at my blog. Thanks for sharing it! They are things that come up in my mind a lot, having grown up in the sticks and then going to college with a bunch of private school sons and daughters of professors and doctors right after, and having glommed into that social circle since then. I would definitely call myself privileged, though. I cannot complain, although the tendency to want to comes into my mind all the time.
This reminds of the book Freakenomics, the chapter about what determines if a child will do well in school. If I remember right, the book said that it was more genetics (1 smart mom + 1 smart dad = smart kid). I do remember that it downplayed some of the “priviledge stuff.” I don’t care what the stats say though, I am going to read to my kid and take him to museums.
@diane: I spent 3 years in good ole Durham, NC, and would love to get my hands on some Carolina BBQ right now.
@tammy: Man, I was a spoiled brat!
@rita: Interesting. What kinds of things were privileges in the GDR?
@barbara: Time is definitely more important than money and things when it comes to kids. There are several privileges that I had that Oliver will not (no credit card, no phone or TV in room, etc). And Rainer brought some goodies back from an Algerian bakery. Yum!
@sarah: Yeah, this is a good meme for making you feel you were spoiled.
@phil: But that’s pretty spoiled for a German… oder?
@c n heidelberg: There are so many times I want to complain, but then I think about what I’ve had and I shut up.
@claire: Oh, that reminds me, Freakomonics has been sitting on my shelf for a while now. I think I’ll read that next. Have you read “What’s Going on in There?” It’s written by a neuroscientist mom about brain development in the first 5 years. Very interesting (even for non-parents, I think). She says genetics and environment each contribute about 50% to intelligence – but it varies depending on what kind of intelligence you’re looking at.
As stated above, the meme seems to be culturally-specific to the US. For example, teachers and physicians are not considered a privileged class in Russia – it takes 5 or 6 years to complete their degrees. And many university students study for free – it’s called a “budget student”. So the concept of partial or full scholarship doesn’t really work in the Russian context.
having a telephone at home. buying oranges out of season. traveling to hungaria for the summer and skying in the tatra mountains in winter. relatives in germany, west, who’d send the occassional parcel. jeans. a family car (trabant waiting list: 10 years average). colour tv. ketchup. receiving your mail unopened.
http://snookspot.blogspot.com/2008/02/just-how-privileged-are-you.html
Thanks for posting Christina!
I didn’t count mine, but I bet I also get around the same number as you. We had original artwork in the house, but not by anyone we didn’t know personally. One of my parents’ friends from college was a professional painter, and my sister is a painter too.
I don’t understand why you want your son to grow up less privileged than you. Being privileged (at least in the sense of this list) does not mean being spoiled, and intentionally depriving your child of the things on this list if you can afford them and they fit in with your lifestyle and your taste just seems perverse. If your son realizes that the nice things he has must never be taken for granted, he’ll turn out okay.
@tonio: I’d have to disagree. I personally don’t see how not giving my child a credit card when I have the means to qualifies as perverse!
Now having art and books in the house, going to museums, reading to your child, private lessons, summer camp, etc., these are all things I’d be happy to provide for Oliver.
And honestly, Oliver will surely be just as, or more, privileged than I was, despite lacking a credit card and his own tv.
Gee, I only got 9, but I definitely considered my childhood privileged – dysfunctional but extremely privileged! I think there are certain countries where one cannot avoid growing up privileged. I think Germany (ab 1955) would be a country where this is unavoidable – at every social level. I think in the U.S. the majority grow up privileged, but there are regions or social divisions where this is not the case.
I grew up on an island in the U.S. that was divided like a little South Africa. The whites lived in the exclusive gated communities and the blacks were bused in mornings and bused out evenings – to do all the cooking, cleaning, landscaping. I lived on the “white” side but thank goodness my parents were cheap enough to send me to the public school. Rarely my friends brought me to their homes (literally shacks) – and I rarely invited them to mine…some unwritten/unspoken rule… I remember even once being shoved under the dashboard of a car so as not to be seen while driving through “their” neighborhood… sad to say this was still the state of things back in the 1980s…
oh man did I go off on a tangent!
I hope to raise my son simply with common sense – I think the privileged part comes automatically from living where we live…
@Migraine Meister: Back in the 80′s, the neighborhood I grew up in was almost all white. I had a Vietnamese friend who was adopted into a white family, but that was it for minorities. I remember some of the dumbasses in elementary school calling me a “chink” though, so I can totally believe the state of your neighborhood in the 80′s. Now the neighborhood is quite different, luckily, with Asians running rampant