1980’s Status Symbols- Rich Kids vs. Poor kids

This is one of those stories that I have not forgotten from middle school.

One day my science teacher asked us a bunch of questions about what we owned. It was embarrassing and stupid. She asked if we owned video games, VCR (this was the 80's), cable tv, a pool, a computer, etc.

Looking back, I don’t know why she was asking these questions. She was a SCIENCE teacher. She asked for us to raise our hands if we owned the item(s).

My family did not have anything. My dad worked but was cheap. We were working-class and did not have all the bells and whistles that other kids had.

So I raised my hand a few times, so I wouldn’t appear poor. I didn’t want the other kids to know I was poor. It was so embarrassing and unnecessary.

Later that year in 7th grade, the bullying started. My parents were fighting all the time and I was quiet in school. I was taught to not fight back or stand up for myself. I’m not saying the bullying started because we were poor but it didn’t help.

Needless to say, when I became a parent, I taught my son to ALWAYS stand up for myself. If he got detention or in trouble, we would always side with him.

So back to the science teacher. She had been one of my favorite teachers until then. She showed me how different I was from my classmates and not in a good way.

We all lived in a regular neighborhood, mostly ranch homes, so they didn’t have that much more money than my family did. But some of them had computers, this was the late 1980s and it was a big deal back then.

I realized afterward that the rich kids were not rich at all, they just had parents who liked to spend money.

Here are some of the items that made a kid rich. Some of these items from this list seem dated but it gives a good look back on who the kids envied in school:

• pool and patio (We had a My Little Pony disposable pool and a yard.)
• vacations (hardly ever)
• nice clothes (no)