" I maturate up rich and had no idea that it was not normal for mass to rent out the whole Disney Land park for a child ’s seventh birthday . "
We wanted to hear some wild stories from former “rich kids,” so we recently searchedRedditandaskedadults in theBuzzFeed Communitywho grew up rich to share the moment they realized their lives were far from normal.
Here are their most surprising responses (some of these made my jaw drop)!
1.“I thought every family had staff. We had a chef, gardener, chauffeur, two nannies, a handyman/errand guy, and two maids. These were full-time, and several of us lived with them. We had a host of part-time staff as well. When I went to college, I was shocked by how everyone took care of themselves so well when I barely knew how to tie my own shoelaces.”
— richdudethrow
2.“I remember my parents having a sit-down talk with me after a parent-teacher meeting and letting me know that there was one student in our class who was feeling insecure because his family was the only one that didn’t have a lake cottage or mountain home.”
— talkaboutitlater
3.“The moment I realized my parents were filthy rich was when I realized not every kid has their own house. Yes literally. My parents gave me my own personal house when I was 16. It was right next to their mansion. It wasn’t too big, but when I realized that wasn’t normal, that was the first time I figured out my parents were really wealthy.”
4.“So, I grew up rich and had no idea that it was not normal for people to rent out the whole Disney Land park for a child’s 7th birthday.”
— Anonymous
5.“When I learned that no other kids got allowances of $5,000 a week to spend, I realized that my life might not be normal.”
6.“Growing up, all of our dishes were made of fine china, Waterford glassware, etc. And I just thought that’s what plates and stuff were made of because we didn’t have anything else. Then, one time, I went to a friend’s house for dinner, and we ate on colored plastic plates and non-matching plastic cups; I just thought that was the weirdest thing ever and asked why we were eating with ‘camping dishes.'”
— halycon
7.“At 7 years old, I looked out the living room front windows over the blue Pacific Ocean, a clear view of Catalina Island off in the distance. On TV, Sally Struthers greeted me from Africa, surrounded by starving, desperate children. Until that moment, I thought all people lived along a coastline in beach houses.”
8.“My father was a successful chemical engineer/manufacturer and private pilot. I spent my childhood in a gated fly-in community with a fully functioning airport. Not only did we have a garage full of your ‘everyday’ vehicles, but we also had an airplane hangar full of classic cars that my dad enjoyed restoring, World War II era ‘warbirds,’ as well as the modern twin-engine planes he used to fly to business meetings. We owned property in Nantucket and St. Maarten and were constantly taking extemporaneous vacations. John Travolta would walk over from time to time and shoot the shit with my dad in our hangar up until he madePulp Fictionand was sling-shotted back into relevancy.”
" When I was about 4 twelvemonth old , I made a new friend at schoolhouse and was invite to spend the good afternoon over at his house . It was an center - opening experience , to say the very least , and when I returned home , still very confused , I remember saying something along the lines of,‘Mommy , they live in a really small house , and they do n’t have an aeroplane repair shed . ‘My mother was slimly horror-stricken at the recognition that this was my reality and had to excuse to me that ' not everyone has the same thing that we have . ‘"—benadrylcumberbatch
9.“Playing around as a 9-year-old in my friend’s dad’s Ferrari F40 like it was a playhouse.”
— Uppgreyyed
10.“As kids, we didn’t realize that everyone didn’t live how we did. I literally was in my 20s and living in a different part of the country when I learned that Coach bags and products were not products designed for children. I saw an adult client of mine carrying a Coach purse and thought, ‘Huh, what an odd choice for an adult.’ I thought adults carried bags from ‘real designers’ and that Coach was a training pants designer or something.”
11.“Everything is embroidered to a certain point. From zebras to toasters, everything appears to be embroidered when you don’t know any better. I can’t think of any reason why, but the patterns in the air just really mess with your perception. See, when you’re rich and have all this extra money, there isn’t any reason to not get personalized everything. So everything else seems like it was embroidered by someone or something.”
— amazing_mouse
12.“My siblings and I have practiced equestrian show jumping since we were very young, and our parents initially never told us how expensive the horses (or anything for that matter) were. As we got older, we would overhear my parents talking about how much they paid for the horses and didn’t really understand just how high these figures were until one day; I heard a family friend sharing that she had bought herself an apartment after saving for many years and that it cost her x much. I remember feeling paralyzed because I realized my horse was more expensive than her home.”
13.“I was 23 the first time I had to figure out how to use a washing machine. To this day, I can remember how helpless I felt, staring at it like a dead fish. Had to call the family maid.”
— bontem
14.“My roommate in college would order a catered meal for every dinner. He’d have a restaurant bring so much takeout that they’d bring it in those aluminum trays and heaters underneath, and a server would stick around to dish out the food and clean up afterward. It took us a couple of months to realize that he thought this was totally normal behavior and was confused as to why we made such a big deal about it.”
— joeb1kenobi
15.When I started working full time, I realized the yearly tuition at my private middle and high school was more than my whole salary. Then I did the math, and my entire education cost over $1 million with no loans. I am very grateful."
16.“In high school, I moved from private to public school (by choice). I realized that it’s not normal to have multiple vacation homes in and out of the country, to own more cars than people to drive them, or to have an elevator, golf simulator, and walk-in wine cellar in our main house.”
17.“Honestly, it was the little things. I knew we had nicer cars than average, a bigger house, went on more trips, etc. But I thought everyone’s refrigerators had wood-paneled cabinet doors, for example. The first time I saw a metal fridge, I thought it was weird, and I thought it was even weirder that the fridge and freezer were combined.”
" I also think everyone had a central vacuum organisation where you’re able to sweep dirt into a trivial hole under the cabinet by the floor , and it suck it up . We had these little holes all over , in every room . “—Thighmaster220
18.“There was a windstorm by our summer house that resulted in fallen trees between our house and our neighbors. It was nice because we could see more of the lake, but my parents weren’t pleased that we now had to see our neighbors’ house. It was a small chartreuse square from the ’60s, neatly kept and didn’t obstruct our view, but it was not the most picturesque.”
" Well , my parents end up bribe the house and tearing it down so that we would n’t have to attend at it . At the time , I did n’t suppose this was odd ( I was in reality kind of peeved because my sister and I want to play in the house ) , but looking back on it , it ’s a pretty gaga level of privilege to be able to purchase a house and tear it down just to improve your view . “—Anonymous
And finally…
19.“One day I was visiting family friends on the way to Lake Tahoe, and they asked what I’d been up to lately. I replied that I had just been doing the usual, waterskiing on my friend’s boat and riding their yacht, which they even let me drive, sailing, and hanging out at the yacht club, and told them we’d also recently arrived home from a trip to Japan and another to Fiji.”
" I then inform them that we were before long leaving for the French Riviera and Monaco , which I was excited about . The spirit they gave me altogether shock me , and all I could think was , ' It ’s not like I ’ve done anything crazy lately ! ' That ’s when it hit me that most of the land would n’t just talk about those activities as effortless casual one . “—Anonymous
