Older Adults Are Sharing How They Could Tell Someone Was Rich Back In The Day, And As A 30-Something, A Lot Of These Surprised Me
I've always been fascinated by stories from my elders about what life was like before I was born. It's incredible to see how much has changed (and the things that somehow remain the same). Recently, u/helpmegetthrough1 asked older adults on Reddit to share the signs that someone was well off back in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, and a lot of their responses surprised me. Here's what they had to say:
1."Two cars in the driveway."
"Born in 1961, lived in a suburban neighborhood in the Denver area all through the '70s.
When I was growing up, most families only had one car. Even though my mom worked when I was a kid and in school, we never had more than one car, and that was true of most of our neighbors as well.
We were solid middle class. Dad was a Federal government employee, Mom and Dad both had college degrees, and most of our neighbors were professional/white-collar families with both parents at home.
Two cars in the driveway were just starting to become more common by the mid-1970s, although even then, we never had two cars."
2."Meat with dinner every night."
3."A color TV. A 27" color TV. I remember seeing my first 30" … then a 36" … believe me — childhood me would think people of the future must live in movie theaters if they own and watch movies on an 85" television. Which is larger than the pull-down-screen the grade school movies of my youth were projected on. The magic of The Jetsons came to life, siiiiigh."
"My family bought our first color TV to watch the 1972 Olympics. It had a whopping 9" screen, and we piled on my parents' bed to watch it."
4."An extra living room for guests."
5."A dishwasher."
6."Children with braces to straighten their teeth."
"My parents were poor.
When they learned I needed braces they just stopped taking me to the dentist and pretended it didn’t happen.
My teeth are so fucked now and cause terrible headaches."
7."Having a perfect lawn and a lawn service to mow for you. Lawn services were not nearly as common as they are today."
8."In the '70s, if your house had a tennis court, you were money."
9."Air conditioning."
"My friends with air conditioners always only had one window unit, usually in the parents' bedroom, and that room always had the shade drawn and the door closed. We always felt so scandalous opening that door to duck into the room to cool off for a few minutes in the dark."
10."An in-ground pool and an intercom system in your house. My current 1995-built house has the original intercom system, and I cannot bring myself to tear it out."
11."Going on vacation to somewhere other than visiting relatives; traveling by airplane."
12."The poor folk all had unpaved, straight, short driveways. The rich folk had circular driveways. I'm sure this wasn't the majority of them, but to this day, when I see a circular driveway, I think, wow, those guys must be well off. Yes, I know this makes no sense, but it's funny how first impressions on a young person can last a lifetime like this."
13."In my neighborhood, two bathrooms. Pretty uncommon."
"My grandparents, born in 1912, were the first of their MANY siblings to have a bathroom INSIDE their house. Their siblings and spouses and nieces and nephews all came to admire and use it.
That cracks me up. They were considered the RICH ones."
14."At Christmas time, the rich people would have huge trees with the white flocking stuff sitting in the living room window. They always had their curtains open so everyone could see right in their house."
15."Each of the kids had their own bedroom."
16."Having extracurriculars, like ballet lessons. Most of us just had to hang out not at home."
17."Our rich neighbors had their basement finished in 1970s glory. Shag carpet, 8-track player, strobe light, an extra bedroom for the maid, water bed, air hockey game, and pinball machines. And one of the very first VCRs (cost around $2K)."
18."Massachusetts coastal town: Yacht Club parking sticker, country club parking sticker, and a private beach sticker. An awful lot of very affluent people drove fairly nondescript cars, particularly old money. Anyone with all three stickers for sure was upper middle class."
19."The rich family on our block of middle-class families would give out full-size candy bars at Halloween."
"The one on my block had a Mercedes and gave out full-size boxes of Cracker Jack at Halloween."
"There was a house on my block when I was a child in the ’70s that gave out 50-cent pieces. That was five candy bars!!!"
20."I grew up in a working-class neighborhood. Went to a classmate’s house after school one day (1970), and what a revelation. A housekeeper greeted us at the door with, 'Hi Miss Amy, who’s your friend? Will she stay for dinner?' and took my friend’s coat. The entry room was an atrium with light streaming in from above, lots of huge plants, and a big working circular fountain in the center. Her house was huge (they had 10 children, both parents were professionals). Her yard was vastly deep. But I was most impressed with the 5-gallon jug of milk in their enormous refrigerator with its own spigot. Amazing experience!"
21."My grandparents always said that having an American Express card was a sign that you had 'made it' back in the day."
22."Well, according to my preteen sister, it was the fact that you had a TV Guide instead of the pull-out from the Sunday newspaper and, apparently, could afford paper towels. She went to someone's house who had those things and came back in wide-eyed astonishment at the wealth of this particular family. In her defense, paper towels were not yet a thing. Most people used cloth kitchen towels that some people called tea towels. But we had a good laugh at that."
23."Having your own phone line. We had a party line where four families were on one phone line. You just picked up the phone and if someone was talking, you hung it up and waited your turn!"
"I, too, had a party line (six houses). Boy, there were no secrets there.
Finally, that rich family paid for the phone company to run them their own, and everyone else got one too. I was a teenager."
24."An entertainment console: a big horizontal cabinet that held a radio, TV, and a hi-fi record player or, if you had really made it, stereo!"
25."I was told only about three years ago by a friend that they thought my family must be rich because we built a brick house in the early 1960s. All the other houses around us were made of timber."
26.And finally, "I remember when my neighbors got MTV. I went over there and watched it for hours. We never had any sort of cable anything."
Did anything on this list surprise you? Or is there anything you would add? Tell me what you think in the comments!
