How did you grow up?

Eat shit and die, OP.

I grew up poor in Texas. Most of my family is serious white trash. My mother did try to have her kids rise above the norm. I am fine with it all.

You were not upper class, you were upper-middle class.

And people who are brought up correctly do not use the word "classy."

OP sounds insufferable.

OP, are you the protagonist of The Lost Language of Cranes?

I grew up in the 90s and 00s in the Chicago burbs. Parents are South Asian. My parents really sheltered me. We were upper middle class. I think it took me until 27 or 28 to really mature.

[quote]My friends all grew up similar

I grew up with less smug affluence than OP, but more self-awareness.

Oh, and I understand the use of adverbs.... like "similarly."

BTW, who won? In those "Bach vs Handel, Thoreau vs Dickens, Olivier vs Gielgud" competitions?

I bet OP’s Dad used to “touch” him.

I grew up in the 80s and early 90s in a suburb of Hartford, CT. Upper middle-class. Pretty normal upbringing, no drama, I always got along with my parents, siblings and extended family. I feel very lucky to have had that kind of upbringing. I'm always amazed at the number of posters on here who hated their families and had miserable childhoods. Also, the number of posters who came from very modest circumstances.

OP, was this you as a child?

OP where in NYC did you grow up?

My parents were grifters and compulsive liars. When my father died, my half brother took whatever money was left and my mother became an insufferable harpie. I’ve been running from my past ever since!

I grew up in a typical middle class home.. 1960’s/1970’s. My father was a professional (chemical engineer) with a good job. My mother was a housewife, and played golf with her buds 3 days a week at the club - weather permitting. We had a nice large house. My parent sent me off to an “out of state” state university and kept me in new cars and fraternity dues... I was lucky. When I came out, they were awesome (I waited until I knew I’d met the man I’d spend the rest of my life with before I came out to them, and they loved him as a son-in-law for the rest of their days...(18+Years).

Solidly middle class latchkey kid. Fiercely independent from a young age, not really disciplined and/or my parents had willful ignorance of what I was doing in my free time. Never any real drama. Generic, suburban, boring? Education was huge and they encouraged me to do anything I wanted as long as I had a college degree, which they paid for, and I had an upper hand in my career thanks to my mom's network giving me a good internship, which spearheaded a pretty fast-tracked career for me. I'm doing better than they were at my age and I understand now that they lived by the creed of, "Giving my child everything so they can have a better life than me."

Staten Island shanty Irish.

OP, your supposedly elite education didn't stretch to teaching you the correct use of the apostrophe.

'the early to mid 1980's'

I grew up in Michigan and Ohio in the 70’s and 80’s and moved to California during middle school after my parents divorce. My mother was a waitress and my father was a trash man and later worked in a box factory where his hand was smashed between some rollers. My mother was friends with a policeman and his family of whine she owed money. She agreed to let his sons molest my brother and I under the pretense of babysitting. My father was a swinger/cross dresser and might have dealt in kiddy porn as I have a memory of him taking my brother and I to a house and making us sleep naked in a dark room on a mattress with no blankets. There were occasional flashes of light. That only happened once from what I can recall. Most times he had my brother and I sit in the car for hours while he visited friends. Most of the men on my mothers side of the family are drug addicts and con artists, including my brother. When I came out at 16 , I was kicked out of the house. I stayed with a friends family until I graduated high school. I got into both Stanford and a Performing Arts Academy but my parents wouldn’t pay, of course, and I slacked on filling out financial aid forms. So I didn’t attend either.

So good for you, OP, good for you.

r16 - jealous hag.

Broke in Los Angeles. My grandparents were wealthy, all of their offspring (my mother incl.) married NOCD. On the one side, it was nice being exposed to the finer things, educated people, etc., on the other my immediate surroundings were garbage comparatively. For the disparity, I didn’t really fit in either world.

*whom NOT of whine

R7 My mother though Bach was superior, whereas my father felt Handel had better compositions for the organ and opera, which was more substantial for its time. Thoreau's "Walden" is the best piece of work of the 1800's, according to my mother. Gielgud was on par with Olivier. However, Gielgud gained a lot of momentum at the end of his life, whereas Olivier had a hard time finding roles after Marathon Man (which really should have been his last role).

R8 that is just tacky.

R16 I went to Syracuse, we partied and had sex. (Syracuse was way better back then, too).

R17 that is horrible. I am very sorry for your troubles. Were you able to pull yourself out of that lifestyle?

[quote]I guess I grew up "white privilege..."

White privlegeD? I don't doubt it, but you sound "poorly educateD."

R10 beat me to it 👍👍

Hey R15 -- Staten Island Italian / PS 32 & IS 24

With all that advantage and privilege, OP, here you are with the hoi-polloi on DL. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

OP, r21, in my mind, yes. I am in retail management and have my own place in near the beach (like a couple miles). I have never done any drugs. I support myself and that’s enough for me, though I’m sure some would label me as a “loser”, I don’t care. I’m happy. The key was completely removing myself from any and all contact from my family good or bad.

I do have issues and I’m definitely not relationship material but I have a very close circle of friends and that’s enough.

So op can earn a good living...what else? All my educated sisters and nieces and nephews are not prepared to earn a living, mostly right wing, religious assholes. What a waste of money and ability.

I grew up “with a Dom Perignon in my hand and a spoon up my nose.”

Grew up not poor, but scraping by in '90s Fairfield County, CT. We were about the only non-Italian family on the block. Went to Catholic school(which my parents couldn't afford) up until high school. No air in the house in the summer and oil heat that constantly went out in the winter. Broken windows all over the house which made it very drafty. When it got cold enough, we would break out the old Kenmore kerosene space heater. I think I was 5 years old when I learned how to bleed a radiator. I never had a hot shower until I visited my grandma in Florida when I was 13. My dad was a car salesman and my mom a secretary. My house was a few blocks away from the hospital, so I got to hear sirens all day and night. I'm glad I grew up when I did and where I did.

Can anyone figure out where I grew up?

Bridgeport, r29?

I grew up in a poor part of south London suffering physical and mental abuse from two crazy, alcoholic parents.

I'm amazed I emerged into adulthood comparatively unscathed and reasonably successful.

I started my life in an old, cold, rundown tenement slum.

OP is exhausting

R30, nope. We were like Bridgeport's little brother.

[QUOTE] "...Thoreau vs Dickens"

Not the largest transgressive display or the most insulting fuckery in your thread OP but can you tell me what the literary/philosophical/canonical difference between the two is? Did you mean Thoreau and Emerson? Dickens and Melville possibly?

lived on the East Side

I grew up in a very Jewish and very Hispanic immigrant neighborhood. Everyone had jobs, mostly factory jobs, it was great. There were alto of Jews from Poland and Germany. Diverse but unfortunately no blacks...that was segregation and it was very unfair.

OP are you an only child?

DL is the great equalizer. All have a place set for them, regardless of background. That's what I love about being gay and being part of the gay community.

I am surprised no one has mentioned his "white privileged" life is all bullshit! First, a stockbroker is nothing but a greedy SOB that extorts others. Lawyers are liars that twist the truth and are the most boring people in the work. OP's parents are scum and white collar thieves.

Stuck up New Yorkers go to Syracuse because they could not get into Cornell, Brown, or Dartmouth. What job did you get OP?

My mom came from a trashy background and my dad was adopted by a couple that lived in a house in the bush that was built by his adopted father. My mom ended up taking some courses at a community college and got a decent job. My dad worked for GM. My mom spent most of her time dealing with her family i.e. giving them money and my dad spent most of his time at a pool hall. My grandma was the daughter of a Polish chef but absorbed absolutely nothing from him and my mom was an ok cook, but because of the lack of food culture I ended up researching a lot of international cuisines and developing my own repertoire--I liked cooking. My dad's foster mom hated us because we weren't her real kids. Never met my dad's "father" and my dad on my mom's side used to be some kind of biker.

I'm jealous of other people because I feel like my family is too "Canadian" and lacks whatever "real background" we're supposed to have. Sorry, being "American" or "Canadian" isn't good enough. I want to know at least something about my background other than "grandpa might have been a polish chef from my grandma who doesn't even fucking speak polish". What a rip off.

I grew up in the backseat of a Pontiac Firebird, if you must know.

Maybe I just want my hole worked. Anyone available? hehe

I grew up in Suburban Southern California. Working Class alcoholic rage-a-holic father. Quiet gentle mother. From the outside just an average family, average home. But I was first molested when I was 5 and all throughout my childhood. There was something about me that abusers could sniff out. I made myself available because I liked it. It felt good. I experienced debilitating shame after each time, which caused me to retreat into myself. I had no friends at school growing up because of my stress and trauma. I was occasionally beaten by my father as a way to toughen me up and get me to stop being so shy. He was an uneducated idiot. The physical assaults came out of nowhere. I got myself raped when I was 12, which caused even more psychological damage because I had to keep it to myself for fear of being beaten by my father. He died when I was 14 and while I loved him, because he was my dad (which sounds weird, I know) I was somewhat relieved that I didn't have to live in fear of being beaten/terrorized any longer.

R44 - that's horrific. And I thought my childhood was bad.

Privileged, way more than OP i might add, but made it on my own.

R44 I hope you are mentally okay.

R40 Possibly, but Syracuse has gone downhill in the past few decades. I actually went to work as an art dealer for a while. Now I run a non profit foundation.

I have to confess: I have a huge (usually unspoken) bias against other gay men who grew up well-adjusted, securely loved, accepted, and cared for by their parents, and in solidly middle-class circumstances. My childhood was none of those things.

Most gay men I"ve been intimate with and close to (lovers and/or friends) didn't grow up with all those things, either. And while it's made our lives far more difficult, it's also made for a powerful bond between us.

[quote]Both very classy and upper class.

Upper class people do not actually say "classy".

R30, when I was changing trains in Bridgeport as a 15 year old in 1970, I was told that you'd find suitcases full of body parts there.

I grew up in a posh NYC suburb in the 1960s even though my father couldn't hold a job. Our house was a fixer-upper. My mother was mad-capped fun, but not the nurturing type. We belonged to a pool in the summer, never went on vacations. I slid through school without doing much. We were near the commuter rail, 40 minutes to Grand Central. Looking back, it was pretty great. I loved that we had numerous pets - a dog, and cats we found - I can't have pets where I live now.

R48, NO ONE grew up well-adjusted, securely loved, accepted, and cared for by their parents, and in solidly middle-class circumstances. If they say they did, they're lying.

Grew up between the north shore of Long Island and the upper east side of Manhattan. On the outside, my mom was dynamic, accomplished and glamorous - she was a teacher, a 70s feminist activist - and then in true Reagan years fashion she became a corporate lawyer and finally finished her career as a diplomat for the UN. She was also a narcissistic monster who loathed anyone she thought took attention away from her, including me.

My dad was an absolutely brilliant artist and art director who withdrew from our family and fled back to NYC after divorcing my mom, where he became an alcoholic and squandered his career.

Both were just TERRIBLE parents.

We lived with my mom in a funky victorian house in a cool town with a lot of artist, writers and academics. My mom traveled the world for business and started leaving us home alone for weeks at a time starting from when I was 12 (my 16-year old brother was left to look after us). It was terrifying in retrospect. My brothers had parties, I was exposed to drugs and booze, etc. I would then flee to my dad's. He'd just give me money to go the movies or the arcade.

I WAS NOT nurtured or supported. Just the opposite. I was on my own from an early age and have spent years in therapy processing all of it

I can only give my parents props for certain aspects of their DNA that were passed on to us (we're all good-looking, intelligent, have careers)...

OP sounds extremely punchable and obnoxious.

My family life is a Dick & Jane picture book compared to yours, R52. There are moments growing up where I was super envious of kids with more eccentric parents. My parents were just...boring. Calm, never drank, never pushed the needle. Just boring.

R54 count your blessings, lad!

I grew up in a comfortable upper-middle-class family in San Diego, not too far from the beach, in the 1970s and 1980s; both parents had good jobs and my brother and I had a stable (and loving) homelife.

My school life was an utter hell though.

I grew up working class in Ohio. Quite devout Roman Catholics. I attended parochial schools. My parents insisted on real leather shoes, good dental care, and good grades in school. My parents were very old-fashioned (I still am) and they struggled when I came out as gay (when I was 18). Oddly enough, it was my religious upbringing that tormented me for lying, and the reason I came out. Anyway, this was in the 60s and 70s. I've been in love with the same man now for over 30 years, although we're amicably separated. My parents are dead now, and I miss them all the time. I consider myself very lucky.

My father, Theobald, was a clergyman in the countryside many miles from London, my mother Christina was a housewife. They were very religious and quite brutal in how they raised me -- they believed in constant religious education and, unfortunately, constant corporal punishment anytime I strayed from their rigid belief system. I went to Cambridge, where I barely got by, and started out on a career similar to my fathers'. However, I made a mess of it and eventually gave up religion, much to my parents' horror. I became a writer, both of fiction and nonfiction. I did have two children in an ill-begotten attempt to be straight, but they were adopted by a working class family who loves them dearly. I have spent the rest of my life with what my family refers to as my "male companion."

r58 Your life sounds like a Merchant Ivory film! We just need an immensely wealthy elder relative who has no children and leaves you their entire estate!!!

R58 - does your 'male companion' look like Hugh Grant?

[R29] I have two guesses, without looking at a map. 1) Hartford & 2)Torrington. Not very familiar with CT though have family history there. Not sure where Torrington is relative to Bridgeport.

Anyhoo, "only non-Italian" I'm sure that would be a clue ... there's another city close to Bridgeport that begins with an F that I though was called Fairfield...again, not looking at a map.

wait, it's not New London is it?

R59 is well read.

r17, your story reminds me of why I wince everytime I hear someone go on piously about the American family. My story as well, though my family-of-origin ordeals were strictly psychological. My mother was a borderline personality disordered harpy, my father was a hapless nerd with mild Aspergers who, after mom divorced him, went right out and found an even worse abusive bitch. Not really good role models in terms of social skills. It took me many decades of trial and error to learn how to relate to other people in a halfway normal manner.

Mama was born in a trunk.

Guys like OP always have permanently relaxed holes.

I grew up middle class, though my parents were snobs and my mother had some bohemian aspirations. They got divorced when I was twelve and so we were down graded to lower middle class and I spent my high school years in a dumpy house with roach infestations. My mother had the stereotypical sketchy boyfriends of the late 1970’s, early 80’s. It was no Norman Rockwell scene, I will leave it at that.

R48 , like you , every partner I ever had held that against me as well. It pissed me off that my stable upbringing was seen as a negative. I grew up in Cleveland Heights, but you couldn't tell who had money or not back in the 60's. .

[quote]I grew up in a very Jewish and very Hispanic immigrant neighborhood. Everyone had jobs, mostly factory jobs, it was great. There were alto of Jews from Poland and Germany. Diverse but unfortunately no blacks...that was segregation and it was very unfair.

That sounds like hell on Earth, except for the no blacks part.

[quote]NO ONE grew up well-adjusted, securely loved, accepted, and cared for by their parents, and in solidly middle-class circumstances. If they say they did, they're lying.

I did. I had a decent enough childhood.

I grew up in the 60s/70s middle class suburban catholic. All the mothers were members of the Rosary Society and did everything they could to destroy their children They did a damn fine job of it too. All the fathers were members of the Knights of Columbus and let them.

What is this knights of Columbus that keeps tearing its head on this thread? Sounds like that thing Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone belonged to.

Rearing

I was born in the wagon of a traveling show. Mama used to dance for the money they'd throw; Papa would do whatever he could, preach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of doctor good.

OP

It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi.

I'm almost a teenager.

R49, and others. I keep hearing that upper class people don’t use the word “classy”.

Of course they do. They use it all the time. A lot of the time it can be somewhat tongue in cheek. But nonetheless, it is used often by the most upper of upper class people.

But then again this is real life, not a movie.

This assinine thread is worth it for R5 and R10 replies alone!

Old money married to blue collar. Protestant married to a Catholic. Raised in quiet middle-class surroundings, except when we visited our mother's side of the family. Then it was housekeepers, gardeners, and getting dressed up (the boys in a tie and jacket or a tie and sweater, and my sister in a dress) for dinner each evening . Moderate church attendees for Episcopalian services and occasionally Catholic services when required. I'm surprised we didn't grow up with multiple personality disorders.

R29 are you from Black Rock or Stratford.?

480, nope. Closer to the NY border.

Pure LA '90s -- came of age with the riots, OJ trial really introducing the real world. Went to school with some kids who had cool and/or sleazy parents who worked in lower-level industry jobs, a few even in porn. It was always easy for them to steal their booze or stash and have us our own party. Fun times!

r29, is it the poor section of Greenwich?

OP, I am a descendent of Rosalie, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, Boniface Louis Andre, Marquis de Castellane, and the Aga Khan (I). I grew up classy too.

I was born in the late 80s in a middle class family. My mother is a public school teacher and my father is in real estate business. My father was very lazy and never made much money and my mother used to be the bread winner most of the time. My mother's brother, who's extremely close to my mother, was a well settled , high earning man and he used to help us financially, a lot. My father and my mother never got along and their relationship was always tense and abusive. Nevertheless, they stayed in that relationship. My mother always made sure that I and my sister got what we wanted even if she had to stay hungry for us. She always used to say that she grew up very poor and that if she didn't get education, we'd still be poor. She encouraged us to study hard and always told us that getting highly educated was the only way we could improve our lives. Thanks to her, me and my sister are well settled now. My sister became a pulmonologist and I am working in a very well paid tech job. Thanks, mom, you are my everything.

[quote]Thanks to her, me and my sister are well settled now.

Except grammatically.

How do we know OP is full of shit?

Among other tells (use of "classy" and "upper class" "Throreau vs Dickens" "so appreciative of them"

Two big tells:

The Runner Up

"all grew up similar"

The Winner

"I grew up in the early to mid 1980's in New York City. "

OP's entire childhood only lasted five years.

R29 the italian clue and the ambulances make me think of the west side of Stamford near Pellicci’s

Milford

Is there such a thing as upper lower class? Dad had good jobs,but we lived like we were poor. There was plenty of money for his drinking,and race car hobby,but nothing for my brothers and mother and me. She was a weak,submissive woman who didnt work (it was the 60s) and he was an alcoholic,verbally and physically abusive ex marine. Our lives were hell ,always subject to his whims and rages. In the 60s-70s in north florida it might as well have been the 40s in georgia. I remember once when I was about 9 or so,my dad was beating my mom and my brother and I jumped out the window and ran about 2 miles to my grandmas . She called the police,they came and took us back home and my mother answered the door,obviously in distress and told the cops she was fine. I wont go into detail on what happened after they left,suffice to say it wasnt pretty. This was the same man who when I was 6 and my brother 7 ,came home on Christmas eve,drunk of course,and took his pistol and shot it outside and told us he killed Santa Claus.

I was also,from day one,as femme and queeny as you could imagine,so I was particular target of his. He once forced me to join a baseball team,then stood me against the garage wall and threw baseballs at me for an hour teaching me to "catch" . I was covered in bruises at school the next day .Not one teacher asked me what happened. That was the way it was back then. Dont worry though,when I hit 12 or so I got mine back in spades. I ran away constantly,got arrested constantly and ended up in prison at 15 . When I was 14 he came home drunk one night,grabbed his shotgun and made me hold it ,and dared me to pull the trigger. This was after he held it against my throat and told me he'd blow my cocksucking head off. Imagine his surprise when I steadied it,took aim and pulled the trigger. Bastard didnt load it. Had he done so,he'd have been a dead motherfucker. When I got out of prison at 19,I never ever lived at home again. I hated my family for years,and it was only until I was much older did I have anything to do with them.

i grew up with trash, OP. how else?

Farmers. Feast or famine. First one with Lacoste shirts, then Kmart shirts, and then first one with Polos at school. Did have a car, used as a farm vehicle, but I worked the whole time, whenever. When the money was not there ,it just wasn't. Dad was horrible with it until he was older. TG mom had a good job. I'm sure he thought the same.

[R90] Good lord, that sounds like a Harry Crews novel.

GOD so many Catholics here...TOO many Catholics here.

R93 ,those arent even the worst stories. I hated my father with the heat of a 1000 suns. Both my brothers are alcoholics and I was for many years . My father destroyed all of us. May he rot in hell forever.

R88, sooo close. My parents actually worked in Stamford. I never got to eat at Pellicci's because my dad didn't want us near Vidal Court. That's when it got really bad there.

[R95] He is, he’s the type hell was designed for. I can’t figure out why some people have families and then torment them. It’s as if that’s the whole reason—to have a little universe to control and ruin. I’m glad you quit drinking and are ok.

I just googled Harry Crews R93 and guess what ? He grew up in the exact same city I did . That is freaky !!!

Isn’t it obvious OP is YourMillenialFriend?

[R98] Wow! Try “A Feast of snakes” or his autobiography. He used to teach at FSU but his hard living ways cut him off short.

I call bullshit on OP. Upper middle class individuals generally do not refer to themselves or their families as “classy.” Those who go to good schools do not say “similar” when the adverbial form “similarly” would be the correct choice. They would also generally use a comma in the middle of a compound sentence.

OP you either had a more modest family upbringing than you say or you had a shitty education. On second thought...I’d say both.

Underprivileged and ignored.

[quote]Isn’t it obvious OP is YourMillenialFriend?

YMF is Jewish and grew up on the UWS. OP is Lutheran and grew up on the UES.

R95 I wouldn't give your mother a pass. Sounds like she was a piece of shit as well. A mother who allows her husband to abuse her children is garbage. A mother should fight for her kids no matter what. If she pulls the oppressed house wife crap she never loved her kids to begin with. Or she just loved herself more.

Grew up in the 60s and 70s in a faculty ghetto neighborhood of Seattle. Father a professor/researcher from a middle class hypocritically religious background he turned his back on. Mother taught community college from a decayed British aristocratic background that she turned her back on (Anthony Armstrong-Jones is among my cousins). Grew up in a house full of books, never rich but not poor either. Parents believed strongly in education so went to a college prep school and a prestige university. Have always mingled with the wealthy (and even like some of them) but have never wanted that. Chose a career that took years to achieve (13 years of higher ed) and that pays a comfortable, but not extravagant salary. Live in a third tier city now, faculty at a major university, take care of myself and support all the arts groups in town.

[quote] But I was first molested when I was 5 and all throughout my childhood. There was something about me that abusers could sniff out. I made myself available because I liked it. It felt good.... I got myself raped when I was 12 ...

R44, Oprah Winfrey also admitted to getting some pleasure out of being molested. I forgot exactly what she said, but I think she said she enjoyed the attention. You speak almost as if you caused all of this. Even if you offered yourself up to an adult. At ages 5 and 12, an adult should say absolutely not. I hope you don't blame yourself for all of this. It was not your fault, even if you enjoyed the attention.

[quote] I was also,from day one,as femme and queeny as you could imagine,so I was particular target of his. He once forced me to join a baseball team, then stood me against the garage wall and threw baseballs at me for an hour teaching me to "catch". I was covered in bruises at school the next day. Not one teacher asked me what happened.... When I was 14 he came home drunk one night, grabbed his shotgun and made me hold it, and dared me to pull the trigger. This was after he held it against my throat and told me he'd blow my cocksucking head off. Imagine his surprise when I steadied it, took aim and pulled the trigger. Bastard didnt load it. Had he done so,he'd have been a dead motherfucker.

R90, did you end up in jail / prison past your teenage years? I hope not. Your story made me really sad. My family was cruel, too. They had us kids (my siblings & my cousins) put on boxing gloves and I remember getting punched in my face and not wanting to box at all.

Nobody was looking, and I always moved fast!

R101, of course OP is kidding, but I appreciate details like "Thoreau v. Dickens." Who doesn't remember those 850-page novels Thoreau used to knock out?

We had "The Economist" on the magazine rack next to the toilet.

I guess I’ll play to add some diversity to the overrepresentation of allegedly privileged backgrounds.

Born in the mid-60s in an area of Metro Detroit that epitomized racist white flight. My father built our house (rather poorly) before my birth in the tougher part of a working class city that jad decayed by the 1980s with the loss of auto plant industry taxes. My parents lived in that same house for over 50 years, until my father died and my mother moved into assisted living . The house sold around 2012 for a whopping $35,000–that shows you the quality of the neighborhood and the house itself.

My parents didn’t finish high school, and I believe only one of my grandparents did. One grandmother dropped out in the 3rd grade and worked in a cigar factory. My father worked as a truck drive, and my mother worked intermittently in tool and die factories, a vitamin packing plant, and a shirt stint as a cleaner in a motel.

I am the youngest of my Gerstein of first cousins on both sides, but of the 16 of us I am the only one who got a bachelors degree. I think one had an associates degree. I never felt i fit in with my family or my neighborhood in particular. This outsider feeling was the result of both my early recognition of my gay sexual orientation (which I hid until college) and my academic orientation and success. . I ended up in a very solid public university for undergrad, but also often felt like an insider there based on my class background and limited social capital. Ended up going to graduate school at an Ivy and moving to NYC, which has been home for most of my adult life.

^^ my autocorrect typos are many above, but I particularly mortified by how “generation” became “Gerstein.” Guess it pulled from my contacts list for reference

[quote]I guess I’ll play to add some diversity to the overrepresentation of allegedly privileged backgrounds.

Most of these backgrounds are fucking dismal, only a few are privileged.

OP is lying.

I grew up fast on the midnight streets of L.A.

Grew up real poor in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago. 80's. My dad would give my mom 20 bucks food once a week. That woman was a saint. I didn't know we were poor until much later in life.

R85, you made me blink for a minute and think I'd already written about my childhood. My ne'er do well father bounced from bad job to bad job, finally settling into hanging around the pool hall, visiting friends and relatives, and making a big show about what little odd jobs he could find. My mother built a career, raised three kids and has retired in comfort, in (barely) upper middle class. I and my siblings owe her everything because she is who made it all possible. She's not perfect by any stretch, but credit where credit is due.

Grew up believing we were lower middle class. Money was always a constant worry for my parents. However, on reflection in my adulthood, I think they were lying. We always had a nice house, multiple cars (we had 6 at our maximum), and a boat. Every person had their own car when it was time to drive. Two family vacations every year. Dad has a Master's Degree, mom had a BA but didn't work.

Among us three kids, we had soccer, football, basketball, swimming, skating, baseball, and tennis. We had piano, cello, violin, drum, and guitar lessons as well. We traveled for meets or events every other weekend as a family. Went to Europe every other year.

That's not the life of lower-middle class. Yes, we packed food for car trips. But to hear my parents tell it, we were one step away from the Poor House - a phrase my mother used over and over.

Most likely we were upper middle class (before the divorce). It has filled me with anxiety about money, even though I'm in a better financial position than most. I know things were a bit different back then and middle class could enjoy a better lifestyle than today - but still, it seems there was a lot of hand-wringing over nothing.

I can't imagine the insurance bills for 6 cars (one for each member of the family, plus a spare one that was older and not driven much) and a boat. My mom's STILL a miser.

R89, are your initials J.F.?

I grew up working class in the 70s on Long Island NY, in an all white working class town populated mostly by ‘white flight’ Brooklyn expatriates. My dad was an oil burner mechanics and my mom was a homemaker. He came home at 5:00 and we ate dinner at 5:30. There were six kids and one bathroom. We never ever had a family vacation yet somehow summers were magical, we went to the public pool daily all day or, when my older siblings got driver licenses, we went to Jones Beach. I still say “kawfee” and I don’t care, even now that I live in a nice neighborhood on the Upper East Side. I am what I am.

r117 Credit where credit's due, indeed. Given that we are reflecting on our not so perfect childhoods, it makes me incredibly sad when i think about what my mom went through and how unaffectionate my parents marriage was. They used to fight a lot, mostly because of money, and they used to stop speaking to each other for months after the fights. My mom never stopped caring for us though.

OP wrote this in another thread,

"I’m a good looking white guy who had a good M&A job on Wall Street until I was let go a few weeks ago (it was calculated)."

Didn't he say he had a career in the arts and now runs a non-profit?

New account, by the way; few posts.

Yeah, R122, this is obviously a troll post. The board is full of trolls and people who couldn't recognize a troll if it shit on their heads.

With such a privileged upbringing, why the poor writing skills?

[quote]"I grew up white privilege"

Are you even a native English speaker?

I grew up Amish. Seriously

Did you know you were gay R126?

I figured it out when I was about 14. But I had no idea how to express it or even exactly what it was.

Did you have a bowl haircut?

R129 Yep!

R69, "decent enough childhood" is not the same as well-adjusted, securely loved, accepted, and cared for by their parents, and in solidly middle-class.

Being raised by a religious fanatic can be tough.

R51: I think most of us know people who did. And I don't mean idealization.

I was taught how to shit in a nest of toilet paper as a child.

I grew up with pebbles in my wu-wu.

I grew up non-binary in a very binary environment.

[quote]I'm always amazed at the number of posters on here who hated their families and had miserable childhoods. Also, the number of posters who came from very modest circumstances.

Are you now? Yet you must realize the majority of Americans are from "modest circumstances" all likely pay more taxes than people like you and the rest if the "apple middle class" humble braggers in this thread.

It takes all sorts to make up a world and just because so many of you grew up privileged, many did not.

You also must realize. years ago, people got married because the woman got knocked up, For other families, a woman getting married by a certain age, was expected. Women were considered 'old maids' if they didn't marry by 25-30! From marriages in the 1950s-1960s, there are so many unwanted children out there, lots of couples who got married really didn't want to be married, let alone procreate, but their backgrounds demanded it.

Back them, many people got married simply because it was expected of them. It was more about family pressure or other circumstances, than love and wanting to be partnered up. Of course, years ago, lots of closeted people also got married to someone of the oppose sex and still do.

Considering the amount of so-called well educated people in this thread, the lack understanding about how so many others were brought up, and live, is quite astounding. I guess growing up in your privileged bubble is the main reason for that?

I grew up right smack @ the corner of MO, KS, OK & AR, after emigrating from 1 of largest cities in SE Asia when mother remarried a Caucasian. I was horrified to hear my step-paternal grandmother use the N word and to witness some family members treat a closeted cousin as a pariah during early days of AIDS. Being 1 of 3 minority students, I had to acclimate quickly in school via extracurriculars. Namecalling (all the variations we've seen used on DL) was common. As soon as I graduated, I hightailed it out of there to Stanford and now only make the requisite holiday/medical visits back "home".

[R29] this is [R61] --- did you miss my guess or was I too off the mark? TIA

[quote]I'm always amazed at the number of posters on here who hated their families and had miserable childhoods. Also, the number of posters who came from very modest circumstances.

Are you now? Yet you must realize the majority of Americans are from "modest circumstances" and they all likely pay more taxes than people like you and the rest of the "UPPER middle class" humble-braggers in this thread.

It takes all sorts to make up a world, just because so many of you grew up privileged, you are not aware that others did not? What's so shocking about poor people, the working poor and the lower middle class?

You also must realize. years ago, people got married because the woman got knocked up, For other families, a woman getting married by a certain age, was expected. Women were considered 'old maids' if they didn't marry by 25-30! From marriages in the 1950s-1960s, there are so many unwanted children out there, lots of couples who got married really didn't want to be married, let alone procreate, but their backgrounds demanded it.

Back them, many people got married simply because it was expected of them. It was more about family pressure or other circumstances, than love and wanting to be partnered up. Of course, years ago, lots of closeted people also got married to someone of the oppose sex and still do.

Considering the amount of so-called well educated people in this thread, the lack understanding about how so many others were brought up, and live, is quite astounding. I guess growing up in your privileged bubble is the main reason for that?

[quote]First one with Lacoste shirts, then Kmart shirts, and then first one with Polos at school.

R92, what does this mean? Were you poor or rich? How/why did you go from Lacoste to Kmart, then Polo? What did the brand of clothes you wore have to do with being farmers? What were other kids wearing, rags?

A lot of these would be helped if the era was actually mentioned. Some of you could've grown up in the Stone Age for all we know.

Give 'em hell, R140.

I'm always amazed by the DLers who think everyone grew up with wealthy parents in some rarefied suburb, where refinement and social graces rules, and a good education was prized above all else.

BITCH, PLEASE. A lot of these folks have never had their narrow word view challenged IRL. They're shocked to come to DL and find out DIFFERENT PEOPLE EXIST. Worse, they dare to interact with their social betters! Horrors!

You just have to laugh at these morons. Point, and laugh.

R142 I don't think half of the DLers who claim such backgrounds actually have one. I think they're surprised that not every single one of us pretends like they do.

Scion of Italian and Polish immigrants who came to America to work in Rust Belt factories here. My parents moved up a notch by having high school educations and working in the office of the bronze plant rather than the factory floor. In the late 70s, the plant closed and we only had whatever income my dad could bring in working miscellaneous jobs like bartending at a place his cousin owned. In the mid-80s things picked up as they both got jobs within our local school district.

We never starved, but it wasn't some Beth Jarrett fantasyland, that's for sure.

No R142, they do not believe that.

They like to PRETEND that they were brought up that way.

Hence the rampant social class anxiety on DL. worrying about whether the ingredients in their potato salad make them look "low class" or (and this was a real thread) if how and where they store their wine and whiskey gives them away as middle class.

It's an odd thing with many gay men, this desire to seem as if they came from less humble origins. I've seen it often enough--someone asks about my background and immediately feels the need to start dissembling about how they grew up in a "really good part of Encino" or "was going to go to Yale" or some other nonsense. To which my reaction is always (a) I don't care where you grew up, you're clearly not that person now, and (b) why are you making up lies about your background, do you think I won't know you're lying and if so, do you hope I'll like you better because you thought about going to Yale?

Some of your families sound like the inspiration for “Shameless”, the British and American versions. Very fascinating.

[quote]Some of your families sound like the inspiration for “Shameless”, the British and American versions. Very fascinating.

Is that a problem?

[quote]"decent enough childhood" is not the same as well-adjusted, securely loved, accepted, and cared for by their parents, and in solidly middle-class.

Well smell you! I can assure you my childhood was unexceptional, but I was loved and cared for. And we were on the high end of upper-middle class, thanks.

Reading these stories makes me understand the vitriol and bitterness of so many posters. God, lots of you really went through it.

I was born by the river in a little tent Oh, just like a river, I've been running ever since

I was born by the river in a little tent Oh, just like a river, I've been running ever since

OP had the dream life.

I grew up on an dilapidated impoverished Welsh smallholding on a hilltop, with not only my parents and little siblings but also two uncles and an aunt and my paternal grandmother, all of whom broke their backs maintaining a property that eventually got sold and bulldozed anyways. We kept a flock of sheep, chicken coops, a pig, a pond of geese, and many fruit & nut trees as well as a large vegetable crop - I was very lucky lucky to be well-fed by good natural poison-free food, if nothing else. I also saw many breathtaking sunsets over the field & fen as I grew up.

It wasn’t always bucolic, though. I still remember how when it rained or the wind picked up in the winter, the old brittle yellow glass would rattle in the panes like bones and the creatures in the wilderness would howl and scatter. The cold was unbelievable, sometimes, almost freezing the fingertips. We had a lot of cardboard furniture, and very white trash acquisitions like a third-hand couch with moth-eaten holes and freaky stains. The only people living in the same vicinity were a few struggling families of similarly inbred eccentrics with similar houses, and the one time I had little school friends over the place they said it was “way too creepy” and never came back.

There was no literate culture to speak of, beyond whatever came out of a mud-spattered radio or a tiny cereal-box TV set with three working channels. My parents didn’t teach me anything except to keep quiet at home, keep my head down in school, and try to be helpful at all times (particularly, readiness to make a decent cup of tea). My mother was a stay-at-home who was always ironing neighbours’aubdry while on the phone and watching her soaps at the same time; my dad was often away hunting, and when he was home he did a lot of heavy-duty maintenance. When I wasn’t handing my dad clippers or drills or sandbags, I used to spend entire summers just riding my bike alone around a big reservoir in circles, or walking my terrier in the backwoods alone, or sat in a chestnut tree trying to read X-Men comics to escape the emptiness and insanity. I wouldn’t be given anything to sink my teeth into or any freedom until high school, and even then my folks were wary of my going away to school or getting interested in arts or gay rights - not leery or totally phobic, but disinterested and suspicious. Once I moved away during highschool and College, I never saw my paternal wider relatives again.

In some ways it was an idyllic sheltered childhood, and I’m grateful I was safe and fed and housed by my real family. On the other hand, it was very lonely and I wasn’t given much in the way of emotional or creative support, beyond the occasional cheap toy or book. Thank goodness for my siblings’ imagination and need to be entertained, which kept me sharp and optimistic in spite of the surroundings; and for the magnanimous generosity of benevolent foreign relatives who did take me on a few foreign trips to expand my worldliness and show me not to be afraid of the world all the time like the people in my little town.

R146 not at all! I guess my “very fascinating “ was misinterpreted as judgement, when in fact it was not!

R137 - absolutely correct. Many people also got married just to have sex. Kids were just a byproduct of that - most women did not have access to birth control (married women could not buy it) and abortion wasn't legal.

People act like the 50's and 60's were this magical family time when in reality, there were millions of broken homes with unloved spouses, unloved and unwanted children, etc.

And women HAD to stay - there were no shelters for abused women, women couldn't get credit without a man, and 'divorcees' were considered sluts. Domestic violence was considered a 'family issue' that was private and was not prosecuted. (Joe Biden helped to change that, by the way).

Many, many people lived in abusive, unsupportive, physically and mentally damaging households. But nobody talks about that.

And don't get me started on the sexual abuse that nobody took very seriously and you had to just 'walk it off' like a football injury and that you brought it on yourself.

Unless you were the father, family life sucked for most people. Women and kids just had to accept it. We're only now in the past 3-4 decades awakening and recognizing the bullshit and pain these things caused.

I’m from South Central Pennsylvania and my parents have been together since they were in seventh grade. My mother’s family is full of teachers as was my father’s mother, so education was always important and seen as a way to better yourself and a way up and out. My father was outdoorsy, hunting and fishing and ran a small environmental non profit. But at a point he didn’t have a job for awhile we would have starved had he not been a hunter and fisherman putting food on the table. My line has always been if you had gun racks in the back of your cars growing up, you were solidly lower middleclass.

Came of age in the late 60s and 70s as the classic latch key kid. After school I would hang out at my best male friend’s, otherwise most of them were girls, and at age eleven started fooling around and having full on sex until I was 16. It was completely consensual, but of course highly secretive without the others in our friend circle knowing. It was sadly not romantic at all. Also, because we were both obviously gay, we barely acknowledge each other during school hours as doing so would have put and even larger target on our backs then we already had.

I had an older brother who was the rowdy “bad one,” car accidents, drinking, partying and gambling amongst other vices and I fell into the role of the “good one” despite having my secret lascivious teen sex life. Ironically I lost my virginity before him even though he was five years older. At the time it wasn’t apparent that he was doing that because he was gay also, but unlike me who took to it like a fish to water, it took him a long time to accept it.

Then, as the early 80s was my perfectionist “good son” personality spiraled into becoming an anorexic and the bulimic. Depression from dealing with constant bullying at school had left me overweight, but on my 16th birthday I vowed to not be fat and lost 65 pounds in about four months, obsessively dieting, exercising, not sleeping and with the miracle that was over the counter Dexatrim. It also changed my personality from introvert to extrovert and by senior year I actually enjoyed school and had some social clout.

To our benefit, our parents raised my brother and myself to be ruggedly independent. I read the book Edie and wanted nothing more to go to New York and be a part of the Warhol and arts scene, I carried that book around like a bible. NYU was at the top of my list for college, but parents were passive in the decision and I defaulted to going to the largest state university instead. But I was ambitious and though it took two tries I won a coveted internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hobnobbing with all the other interns who were Ivy League despite my Pennsylvania state school pedigree.

[quote]People act like the 50's and 60's were this magical family time when in reality, there were millions of broken homes with unloved spouses, unloved and unwanted children, etc.

Don't sugar coat it. Abuse was rampant; parent on child and spouse on spouse. Domestic violence was commonplace. Marital rape was LEGAL and not even considered rape; if you were a married woman your husband had a right to your body with or without your consent.

Nevermind how black and gay people were treated...

OP you sound like the kind of DL poster I generally despise and you prove why.

[R153] Some of my relatives came from south and central Pa. and western Maryland. The Cumberland area and tiny Alexandria near Huntington. They’re mostly dead now, but I remember picking buckshot out of pheasant at dinner time. They called it “God’s country”—everyone refers to their area that way because they never leave it and don’t realize it looks the same as everywhere else in that enormous Appalachian region. Nothing but gun and porn stores up there now.

Looks like the demographics of DL skew to late Boomers and early Gen X. Lots of people who grew up in the 60s and 70s and were young adults in the 80s. I'm early 40s and basically a junior member here, which is so odd.

R154 I didn't think I was sugar-coating it. But all you need is to watch 1950s and 60's TV - the wives had to ask their husbands to do ANYTHING. Lucy was kept holed up in that apartment on such a short leash, no wonder she went crazy with all her escapades.

And Ralph Cramden constantly threatening to slap his wife "one of these days" - when in reality, many men didn't hesitate.

I can't tell you how many women of my mom's generation (who are now 70-90) who were married to selfish, inconsiderate husbands and look back on their lives of passed opportunities and limited potential. It's depressing as hell.

And for women who did work - sexual harassment was just life and something you had to deal with. Sexist derogatory comments were the norm and you couldn't go past a certain level. The film 9to5, even in 1980 (!!!), was true to life - not just some comedy.

Yet Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk thought it was all great and something to cherish.

[R157] I think you’re right. I’m 55, and feel right at home with the cultural references. One of the many DL eccentricities is that many people are still debating culture from their grandparents generation, such as whether Claudette Colbert was hot. Who knows, it could be a thirty year old driving that, since many on here were weaned on TCM.

Agreed R157 and R159 and for a variety of reasons many of them seem to still be living in that midcentury era, obsessed with TV programs, actors, social mores and customs that date back 40 or 50 years.

Because that was what we were watching as children and teens on TV. There weren't all the options that became available in the last few decades. We didn't need TCM. That was daily fare on many channels.

It's the fact that you all remember it as if the shows aired yesterday R161.

My parents are your age and I know plenty of other Xers and Boomers, none of whom are as obsessed as so many DLers are

Slightly off-topic here...I recall reading something that said something like the ultimate gay wet dream was to be at an elegant dinner party with aristocratic well-dressed guests in an incredible setting, whereas the ultimate lesbian fantasy was to be sharing a beer and having great camaraderie at a truckstop, with truckdrivers. In short, gay men dream of being upper class and lesbians yearn to be lower middle class.

Can anyone refresh my memory here?

I grew up on my family's sugar and tobacco planation in Cuba. I was raised mostly by servants and my family's workers' children were my friends. My mother was a lady in Havana, half Spanish, half Portuguese, descended from Dom Pedro II of Brazil. She only spoke French to us, and her servants, though I rarely saw her, as she had many lovers and lived mostly in Rio and Paris. My father, a minor Earl, was immersed in running the family business, and an expert amateur Egyptologist. His and my grandfather's private museum became the core Egyptian collection in the Cuban Museo Nacional des Belles Artes. I studied in Switzerland then Heidelberg and Valencia, and eventually settled here on Lake Geneva near Montreux.

R3 nailed it!

R162 - I think there are only a handful of old film enthusiasts who keep replying to each other. I'm 50 and I've never known anyone (outside of Film majors) who watched old films and were obsessed with these long dead actors and actresses.

Not saying old films should be ignored or thrown on to a trash pile of history, but it is bizarre how many threads seem to be written by fangurls from the 1930s. They don't rapture about music or dance or even TV from the 50's and 60's.

It's just films.

Auuuuld Hollywood has always been a big part of DL.

Not true R166 we spend a lot of time on the 50s and 60s as well. And honestly after that there's very little of any value despite that we were young after that period of time unless you're interested in obsessing about Olivia Newton John and John Travolta in Grease which nobody appears to want to do except to laugh about how everyone in it was too old for their roles. And it seems nobody wants to obsess on more recent tentpole movies or Comic Con.

I go back even further and am floored at how powerful silents were from the teens and 20s of the last century. Yes they excite me in a way I didn't think possible.

[quote]and for a variety of reasons many of them seem to still be living in that midcentury era, obsessed with TV programs, actors, social mores and customs that date back 40 or 50 years.

I know, it's odd. It's like the world stopped turning. My parents, aunts and uncles are all in their 60s/70s and they're very much modern people. They're not stuck in the past, they don't sit around watching episodes of 40 year old tv shows and their attitudes are very modern. What's so odd is that you would think gay men of all people would have kept up with the times and would be in touch with the culture and done away with outdated social mores. My straight relatives in suburbia are more in tune with things than many DLers.

Ugh, why do people use modern when they mean contemporary? The modern period is a historical era that has long since ended, you’re contradicting yourself when your saying they don’t harken back to 30 plus years ago, because actually that was the modern era.

R163 hahaha what an idea. I am a lesbian raised lower middleclass, and I’ve always yearned for a life of taste and glamour. I put on bravado about my upbringing and to a certain extent I do enjoy being a down home type, but it also sometimes makes me a little insecure and uncomfortable. I’d love to try out the life of a UMC lesbian for a week, just to see what I could learn and do and talk about in those expensive shoes.

R171 - most UMC lesbians I've met are very thin and sporty. They dress in stylish but practical golf-like apparel. They look like wealthy golf wives who spend their day at the club. And nicely coiffed short hair - no spikes and strategic highlights. Limited makeup and sparse, but nice jewelry.

If you go to an LPGA tournament, it's a 'is she or isn't she' for half the crowd.

r170 is a perfect example of the prissiness we're talking about.

True, r172. Think Jane Lynch and Suze Orman.

R174 - and Meredith Baxter and her partner. Simple, elegant, comfortable. Thin, tan, sporty, easy on the feminine touches.

R175 She always looked like a smoker, too.

Yes R157/R169 -- I have noticed the same thing (as per my post at R162) and don't get it either.

At some level I suspect it is self-selection--the sort of gay men who want to remember life as it was in midcentury America found others like themselves on DL and created their own little bubble on here.

R107 thankfully I learned my lesson and stayed out of jail from that point on. I think deep down I ended up in jail because I was determined to get away from my family,no matter the cost. I used to fantasize about foster care,if that tells you anything. Of course not knowing the ramifications my early life would have on my later life made for a lot of regrets,but there you have it. I turned out pretty okay,was lucky in love and life for the most part,but like everyone I had ups and downs.

I have written about my family in multiple threads, but here are the details. Both high school teachers in my childhood, but dad got his PHD and started teaching college. Dad was a 5-5” mutt with absolutely no filter on his mouth. Mom was 5-9” and a hippie with flowery skirts and cheese cloth blouses and chunky jewelry. I don’t think either of them ever owned any footwear apart from joggers. We were always the weird family on the block no matter where we lived, and almost never had friends in the neighborhood since my parents were openly atheist and hippie - and probably commie and possibly satanist.

Four siblings, all of whom grew up totally embarrassed by our parents, but we never doubted that we were the center of their world and they would have died for us. I assumed we were dirt poor because we always seemed to live on the outskirts of town, grew our own veggies and kept chickens and lived a life so frugal that I never ate in a proper restaurant till I was an adult. But we still managed family vacations and even an occasional trip to Europe.

Being frugal meant perpetual hand-me downs - lucky I was the oldest, but I wore a lot of my dad’s old clothes till I suddenly went from 5-5 to 6-2”, after which it was thrift store clothing for me. We had one station wagon with the faux wood paneling throughout my childhood and fought to sit in the “back-back” so we could look out through the rear window. It meant board games and library books and the radio for entertainment and shared Christmas gifts. And bunk beds and no privacy, ever. And chores - gardening, cooking, cleaning, laundry - each kid became an expert at all these by the age of 6 but since these chores meant being around our mom, we never thought of them as work.

I couldn’t wait to get away, but I never imagined that I (and my siblings) would miss that life as much as we do. It’s all we talk about when we get together, Miss our parents too - they died within two months of each other.

R179 is Augusten Burroughs

LOL. Not even close, R180! Polar opposite to Burroughs’ childhood.

Everything Augusten Burroughs writes is bullshit.

"My mom was an attorney and my dad was a stockbroker.... Both very classy and upper class..... I guess I grew up "white privilege.""

OP that's not exactly "white privilege" that's just plane old "privilege." Sure, the status of your parents was helped along by white privilege in general but poor whites have white privilege, too. White privilege is mainly that the color of your skin, as viewed by the general American "system," didn't [italic]cause[/italic] any extra hardships.

At least that's how I understand it.

OP is lying R183.

See numerous posts in this thread for all the tells.

I am still on " Thoreau vs Dickens."

That definitely marks OP as a no-education wannabe.

Little Lord Fauntleroy OP cracked me up

I grew up in 70s/80s South Philly before my family moved to Bucks County. Working class parents. My dad owns an Italian restaurant and mom is a retired secretary. Growing up, I remember large family meals and respect for elders being drilled into me and to this day, I am very polite. Some people mistake it for weakness (until the other side comes out). Vacations were at the Jersey Shore. Holidays, Friday movie night, Saturday game night and dinner were very big in our house! We had to dress up for Sunday dinner, even if it was at the family restaurant. Everyone from the neighborhood came out for Sunday dinner at my dad’s restaurant. Those same people are keeping my dad’s restaurant open now. The neighborhood people were like an extended family and watched out for each other. They were also very suspicious of any outsiders...I helped out in the restaurant and played sports (track, swim team and baseball). My parents are very old school with traditional values. My mom had to convince my dad to let her get a job outside the home. He didn’t give in until we were in grade school and she still made dinner/cleaned house after working all day. I don’t know how she did it! My dad is very vocal, expressive with a short temper, but can never stay mad. He has mellowed out a lot. My mother is quiet, kind, but can stay angry forever! I came out to my parents in college. My parents were very worried about AIDS and grandkids. They are over that now. Their personalities are very different, but they balance each other out and still married for 52 years.

Thoreau vs. Dickens makes sense if the debate is most tedious 19th century American writer.

If only Dickens had been American R188

And yes R185, I had noted that too at R87 (as had others)

It is odd that most are dumping on the fathers here. The mothers were enablers allowing the fathers to abuse the children and they were huge racists and homophobes as well. And they could be physically abusive. Mothers are not saints. They could be often equally wretched. They do not get a pass simply because they are women.

[quote] How did you grow up?

One Day at a Time in Indianapolis

Fuck you Trixie.

So many of you had less than ldyllic or even downright horrible upbringings. You should all be proud of yourselves for getting out of your circumstances and improving your lives.

Srsly R193

I was going to post about my relatively placid childhood, but it just seemed inappropriate given what so many DLers have been through.

Grew up in VA more like you, OP, than many others here. Just a generation older. Have never thought of my past as "white privilege." In every town, every ethnic group, there are people at the top and those at the bottom. I have no embarrassment at being from the top half. I am an only child of educated parents. They spoke, I listened. It is what my generation did. I was used to having my parents photographed in the local papers. When young, mother was a well-known local pretty twin, 'the girls," and she married well and became some sort of Catholic Daughters of America big-wig. Dad was the town golf pro, out of Clemson. I got the gene, have a good swing and tight placement off the tees. Oh God, I was once "Teen of the Week." I was educated in local public schools and went on to a state university, then into publishing and theater. All my home and school friends were of the same cut and none I know are running away from their family. I read of that here, many who post do not like their background, their family, even their lives. Seems to me if you keep running away from home all these years you are always taking the past with you. Make a clean break, get on with your life, forget the past and for God's sake stop whining on DL. I did not "come out, "girls of my group did that. From age thirteen, possibly before, I knew I was homosexual. It was not something you ran around school and told people about, but I knew, and dealt with it. Probably on campus people whispered, but it didn't get in the way of anything I was elected president of the student union. When you've been an usher and never a Groom, when you've dated women because you wanted to but didn't want to use them for sex, when you've made a nice life for yourself, be homosexual and enjoy it. When out for sex I constantly made out better for more new sex than any married friend I have. I "found" datalounge via a newspaper story on the Web. Thought many of the guys were funny, hung around for the laughs. Again here, there's quite a curve in posters …. when some go off the rails here I'm reminded we have a phrase used in the theater; "Reading the opinions of the uneducated will keep me in touch with the ignorance of the community." Knowing what all types of people think can never hurt. D.L. people aren't all ignorant, look at some of the posts above, and that follow,

r193 I've been an alcoholic for 25 years and haven been in a relationship in that time because of the trauma shame that I have struggled with. Therapy, drugs, trying not to think about it--- nothing works.

Basically... I've never been happy and I don't even know what it's like to be happy. It's as if, I'm incapable of feeling happiness. I fool everyone-- I'm the jokey funny guy... but in reality I'm feeling nothing inside when I'm entertaining people with my sense of humor.

People who have been through traumatic childhoods usually develop a "dissociative disorder" which I have too, unfortunately.

[QUOTE] My father, a minor Earl,

Bullshit. There were no Earls in Cuba, or ANY of the Hispanic. countries. Earl is an ancient Scandinavian title, an Anglicized version of the title Jharl. England had Earls because of the invasions from overseas. Other countries had Counts, or Viscounts, or Barons.

Ya got me R197. The rest is 100% God's Truth! Not at all a satire of an imaginary grand backstory.

I was born in Portland, OR and grew up in several towns in the immediate vicinity in the 1990s. We were pretty much middle-class—neither of my parents came from money. Mom is half-Russian/half-Irish Catholic, and a first-generation American; dad is a staunch agnostic who fought with her about the prospect of raising us in any religion (my mom is really more a "cafeteria Catholic," if anything, and slightly on the hippie side). In any case, he won, and we were not raised in any sort of religion. I weirdly became obsessed with Catholicism in my later childhood years, and voluntarily went through catechism and was baptized in the church. My dad had a successful business that he ran himself, which afforded my mom the luxury of not having to work. They divorced when I was ten, and I was shuffled between two households after that. There were money issues following the divorce (things got pretty bad when I was a teenager, but we were never homeless or anything). In my early childhood, though, my dad was especially good about exposing us to "culture"—we always had season tickets to local theater companies in the city, went to Blazers games at the Rose Garden, saw movies, live music, etc. My fondest memories of my childhood are definitely pre-my parents' divorce.

In terms of how I was "raised," I sort of raised myself in a lot of ways after the split. My brother and I kind of became latchkey kids because both my parents were working and living separate lives. Getting an education was always stressed, especially when it came to me, as I had natural academic abilities. I am the only person in my family who has a college education. I eventually ended up in New York, where I went back to school and got a Master's degree. My parents are very proud of my education, probably more than I am.

It's amusing reading some of the posts above about parents being worried about AIDS after they found out their child was gay—my mother was the same way, even in the late 2000s. I think it's just her generation and when she came of age—being gay was strongly associated with HIV. It really scared her. My dad was much more readily accepting, but he came from a more worldly background than her (he's from Los Angeles, was a musician before he "settled down"; my mom grew up in podunk Montana under the rule of a strict Irish Catholic father).

So many Catholics. Ugh.

R200 American Catholics are probably the least insufferable of any other Christian denominations. If you're complaining about them, you're probably not well-acquainted with Evangelicals (or Mormons).

All of that cultured, Upper East Side-upbringing, and OP still doesn't know that you don't place an apostrophe in "1980s."

Bullshit r201. Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Congregationalists are pretty decent folks. They are not Evangelicals.

Catholics always have issues, even the ones who left the Church.

OP sounds vaguely reminiscent of YMF. If I recall correctly, same professions, same middling social status confused with the "Upper Class".... No sense enough to even lubricate such a hard to swallow statement with the humble distinction or deprecating "Lower-Upper Class". Being affluent and cosmopolitan sadly doesn't give Americans automatic or easy entry into the Upper Classes.

OP, are you "Your Millenial Friend"?

He's a troll, R204. In another post, he said he had a job doing M and A on Wall St.

Probably 16 years old and living at home in East Bumfuck, Iowa.

Still a good thread topic.

YourMillennialFriend is Jewish and from the UWS. OP is Lutheran and from the UES.

[quote] Being affluent and cosmopolitan sadly doesn't give Americans automatic or easy entry into the Upper Classes.

Class mobility is much easier in America.

R206 Really, that's strange as I distinctly remember him saying he wasn't Jewish, yet his family and relatives all seemed to live in predominately Jewish buildings. Perhaps he did have a few Jewish relatives on his Dad's side. I would have remembered it, as I'm Jewish. I distincly remember him saying he wasn't Jewish.

YMF did seem to understand much about Jewish culture, yet came off as a WASP, or a WASP-y non-Jew to my sensibilities.

YMF's mother is Jewish.

R209 Did his Dad have him baptised, or raised with another faith?

OP also doesn't exhibit YMF's obsession with "DLEGs," one of the only topics with which he is conversant. And I clearly remember that his mother is Jewish.

[quote] YourMillennialFriend is Jewish and from the UWS.

Correct. Bonus points to those who remembered his father was born Christian/WASP but converted.

He is also younger than OP and more than a little freaked out that so many of you seem to remember things he said in passing over a year ago and are bored enough to post about them.

At R87 he listed his reason why he is skeptical of OP and at R194 about why he's counting his blessings.

Cheers!

R29: Stratfield or Byram?

R187. You come from good people. Marry me!

All those tedious novels about young gay men from modestly well-off coming of age that had "cross-over" appeal (straight mainstream critics reviewed them) had to have an audience so I suspect a few of our "betters" here are telling the truth. I would agree, though, that no one says "classy" who comes from a truly well-off background. Anyway, the characters /authors always went to "good schools", somehow supported themselves in NY back in the 70s and 80s (when it was already relatively expensive) and even their existential struggles seemed a bit trivial compared to most people, gay or straight.

As for me, middle income, post-WWII suburbs of Cleveland, half blue collar, half white collar. Large, economically diverse extended family---Catholic on one side, protestant on the other. I love making fun of Protestants because they have no self-referential humor and Protestantism seems pointless (either believing in next to nothing or way too much in nonsense). Ex-Catholics are stuck with guilt and dread, but ex-Protestants can't help but hold on to privilege. Mediocre schools--considered "good" because they were nearly all white, but at least I learned how to write. Some people I know from "good" schools were mostly prepped for standardized tests and couldn't write their way out of a paperbag. My dad was cheap, my mother "thrifty" with better taste. My dad was great in a clutch but impossible day to day. My mother died when I was a child. Having a big extended family meant I had role models for lots of different things and encouragement to do something with my life. Not a happy way to grow-up, but grow-up I did , worked my way through school, have degrees and a secure profession/job.

[quote Protestantism seems pointless (either believing in next to nothing or way too much in nonsense)

Because there is certainly no nonsense in Catholicism!

R195 Sounds like you are always carrying your past with you as well. Your life of privilege and luck. Maybe you should then understand those of us who were traumatized in our youth and were ceaselessly told we were horrible people from childhood on which you never get over no matter how much therapy you have or pills you take. Yes we are always running away from home and carrying our past with us. Everyone without exception has no choice but to carry their past with them. It can't be any other way. It is what we our made of.

'are'

I was born in 1960 in NYC, so that makes me a child of the 60s no doubt, although the 70s were also very influential. When I was one, the "White Flight" exodus out of NYC was big back then, and we moved to Culver CIty, CA (also my brother two years older). Although mom and dad were 35 and 36 when I was born, they could not have had a more youthful sensibility, and they both aged very very well. Both liberal democrats, both embraced the hippie/youth culture movement that was so big in the 60s. Anti-war "peace marches" were the norm, and the first nationwide tour of 'the tribal love rock musical' Hair—with nude scene, of course—was for us a typical family outing. Did we have the Broadway soundtrack and did I know every song by heart? Of course, even though I didn't know what 'sodomy' or 'felatio' was when I was eight lol. The Boy Scouts? Never. They'd both been married before, and they chose to not marry, although they were common law married eventually, and divorced in 1975. Mom hailed from San Francisco, so yearly trips there from 1966 - 1970 (or so) were not complete without a day spent in the Haight/Asbury, where we stocked up on scented candles, love beads and incense. We moved a lot (two times in Culver CIty, two times in Phoenix, then back to CA to Anaheim), and no matter where we went, the neighborhood kids LOVED my mom and dad; my bro and I had the "cool" parents, or rather the "neat" parents, as that was the operative word back then. They were not strict at all; i was free to do whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't hurt other people. My dad was an avowed pacifist, he never spanked me even once, but i was also a very low maintenance kid.

The flip side to all of that? There were not that many boundaries. My brother ended up doing extremely well for himself in the more straight and narrow/traditional sense, and my life went in a more creative direction with definite highlights, and I was never a failure or screw-up. We often remark that it's amazing how well we both ended up doing for ourselves.

Born in 1963: I grew up upper-middle class. My parents were both professionals. Miss them terribly now that they're gone. I am very close with my three siblings and extended family. I grew up privileged.

Education was important. We went to parochial school and then private schools and colleges. Parents paid tuition and board.

We went away each summer to a place in the mountains and later on the ocean. By the time I was 13, it was expected that I'd get a summer job. At 13, it was as a volunteer in a nursing home near where we we went away for the summer. A resident of the nursing home was Kate Smith, and the nurses would wake her each morning by singing "God Bless America." She had dementia and was rail thin. Later summers I worked as a busboy, waiter, then a bellhop, but I still spent the summers swimming, sailing, water-skiing, playing tennis, golfing.

Growing up in the city, we were taken to Broadway shows, nice restaurants, private clubs. There were plenty of boundaries. I remember the first concert I went to ("The Police"), my parents sent a car service at the end. I couldn't take the subway home late at night. When my parents were away, we were never left to our own devices, until we were in college.

My parents made the decision to stay in the city, when others of similar socio-economic backgrounds had decamped to the affluent suburbs (Rye, Purchase et al). I went to a high school where most of the guys were from more middle class and working class backgrounds. Those guys are still amongst my closest friends. When I went off to college in the early 1980s, I fell in with an upper middle class crowd, but I realized by sophomore year what phonies a lot of them were. I think it was because I was gay (though still closeted) that gave me some insight into the shallowness of their existence worrying about what schools they had attended, where they were from, where they summered. Or why their Daddies were upset with them (Well, you're getting lousy grades and wasting too much time getting drunk or high, that's why!) I also matured a lot.

I may have had a privileged upbringing, but my parents made sure we were well grounded. Responsibility and respect for others...that sort of stuff.

I had a happy childhood.

[quote]They do not get a pass simply because they are women.

Do you see someone here defending abusive mothers? Your whole post at R190 is speculation because you don’t like seeing fathers criticized. Biased much?

Lots of educated parents. Wonder if that is part of the self-selection process for DL - or for being gay in the 20th century (as most here are 35+)

My parents had 5th grade and 11th grade educations. Father was borderline literate - needed help spelling and read slowly word by word. Dad was a factory meat cutter and mom didn’t work - because that was the mans job. Constantly on edge of financial disaster - no money for extras and always fighting about money. But Dad bought a house in better school district so we could get a good education - and all 4 of us kids have master degrees now and decent white collar jobs. Amazing leap from almost poverty to middle and upper middle class in one generation. Not sure that is possible today. Also, immigrant parents which drives ambition, expectations - and neurosis.

R222 to be honest, I find people who have had your upbringing far more interesting than the “pedigreed” upbringings that some have mentioned here.

I love when you queens battle it out about your social standing. These threads are so sad and pathetic, all you queens striving to get in or out of your social class. It's all too funny! Even funnier, are the queens who grew up wealthy and are now trying to act as if they didn't grow up spoiled and privileged, while trying to act humble and relate to some dude who grew up in a trailer park!

Then, there are the queens who are shocked that so many grew up working class or lower middle class, especially when most Americans actually grew up that way and continue to. The only difference now, thanks to the ReThugs and Dump, the once middle class are slowly becoming poor.

Look down on those of us who were privileged enough to get a good education all you want, R224, but at least we know grammar and punctuation.

[quote]Then, there are the queens who are shocked that so many grew up working class or lower middle class, especially when most Americans actually grew up that way and continue to

Not where I'm from.

R212 YMF Mazel Tov! Sorry, was sure I read you said you weren't. I knew there was a good reason I liked you despite your getting on my nerves at times. (just the slightly smug bits every now and again) Perhaps you've been aiming for some humility as of late.

I didn't want to appear a braggart as regards my childhood either, so I'm simply reading others' posts. Wise choice.

There have been other threads where posters have talked about abusive mothers, mothers who enabled abusive fathers, etc. I don't see that in this thread. I don't give a pass to enablers. As a mom, your first loyalty in life is to your child. Dads should have that loyalty as well, but I really do think there's something about pregnancy that makes you more defensive about that child.

R221 I see everyone on this thread piling on abusive fathers. Not bias you simply did not bother to read the thread. And the abusive fathers deserve every drop of it. But there is also the sense that the mothers who allow this are somehow absolved because the men are so horrible and they are so week and frail. Bullshit. They become partners in the abuse by their enabling and silence.

What about it was a DIFFERENT WORLD do you not get R229 ??? In most of the stories related on here it was the 60s-70s . They didnt have programs or shelters for battered women.As my story showed even the cops wouldnt do anything when they were called. So what did you expect a woman with children,no job,no family help,no money and nowhere to turn to do ? You obviously hate your mother very much. I did too until I grew older and realized she was as trapped as we were. In my case my mother tried to shield us,but what did you expect a 5'2 100 lb woman to do against a 6'1 250 lb marine ??? Yes.some mothers were complicit and even participated in the abuse,and some stayed for all the wrong reasons,but again,it was a different time. My mother was weak,but not complicit or malicious. Im sorry yours apparently was.

What's striking to me as someone who is a good 20-30 years younger than the average DLer (I'm 36) is that for kids of my generation (at least in my particular bubble) the worst kind of parents were those who were too involved in their kids lives, who tried to micromanage everything they did and force them into situations--social, academic, sports--they did not feel comfortable with because the parents wanted the kids to be a reflection of who they were. (I was fortunately spared this but knew enough kids who were not.)

For Boomers and Xers, it seems the problem was the reverse, that the worst parents were those who pretty much ignored and neglected their kids and did their own thing, treated the kids as a hassle to be gotten rid of.

Just an observation after scanning through this thread.

Same, r231. Also how much religion there was in the 60s/70s. Nobody in my circle growing up in the 80s/90s was particularly religious except for a handful of Catholic families and they were considered really old-fashioned for still following their religion and going to church every week. Of course this could've been a regional thing, too.

The emphasis on religion while growing up has a lot to do with why so many older gay people have issues.

Triggered!

Who cares?

R231 good catch.

My Gen Jones parents couldn’t stand that their parents essentially abandoned them (literally, in my Dad’s case), and so naturally they spent their lives chasing what they perceived as ‘stability’ and the nuclear family dream. It is essential to their being that they have a nice suburban house with a dog and pictures on the wall and respectable modest jobs that pays for it all.

This meant that I, as the youngest child (several years younger than you, basically Zennial), was sheltered in the extreme and maxed out on extra-curriculars. It was expected that I get a job and help with domestic problems from 14, yet I couldn’t drive a car or go on dates/to non-school parties & events in high-school. There was immense pressure from my teachers as well as my mother to get into an elite university (spoiler: I didn’t), and so my memories of school are all of studying, band practise, after-school reading groups and drama club and Girl Guides & Scouts. I lost the few friends I had by age 17, and regret that I never acted out once I.e. played pranks or snuck out to go to a concert. I wasn’t even allowed to travel outside the County on my own without a family member or teacher until I was 17-18, by which time I had become too much of a neurotic antisocial anxiety-ridden wreck to manage that.

Now I’m going through what can only described as a quarter-life late adolescence.

Your mother WAS malicious. She was complicit. Sorry that you have this fantasy that she was a saint. There were mothers at that time who divorced their husbands and would fight like a tiger for the welfare of their children. Imagine if there were a man in the neighborhood and he treated her children this way?! Ah but she was dependent upon her husband! In other words her needs came first. Enablers are abusers. What don't YOU get?

[R236] What is the matter with you? That mother had a miserable life. She wasn’t enjoying herself or getting any needs met. You are trying to deflect the father’s monstrous behavior onto her for whatever reason. It wasn’t your life, it was someone else’s. .You can’t bully someone into a different reality to suit your agenda of hating mothers.

Did somebody say "Complicit?"

I hate fathers and mothers who subject their children to abuse. Your mother was one of those parents. Clearly. If you have a need to dump everything on your father it shows your agenda of hating fathers. I'm saying they have equal responsibility which is something you can't deal with.

Oh, FFS, R239 et. al. You don't know what you're writing about, and is would be best if you kept your musings to yourself.

OP, were your parents discussing the careers of Olivier vs Gielgud?

Or their contrasting styles of sensuality vs poetry.

I wish I was alive in 1935 to see the gorgeous Larry and the euphuistic John alternate as Romeo opposite Peggy Ashcroft at the Old Vic.

I was a kid in the 70's, a teen in the 80's and a young adult in the 90's. Upper middle class, best Dad in the world (God, I miss him) and a cozy home with the sweetest dog, 2 cats, and tropical fish tanks. I'm in my 40's now, but sometimes I desperately want to go back and feel safe and taken care of again.

R242 Have you considered moving to Palm Springs or Wilton Manors? There’s a good chance you could still find just that.

Middle class suburban life in white, conservative Orange County, California. Not far from Disneyland. Both my parents had served in the USMC. Sort of idyllic suburban life back then - until my parents divorced.

How old were you when they divorced? We're you surprised by it? Then what happened?

Were^

🙄

I was 12. No, not really surprised. My Dad was an alcoholic, though I didn't realize it until that time. There were some fights. So I knew something was wrong with the situation and watched it all unfold. My Mom loved him but ultimately felt like she had to divorce him to get him to quit drinking. She did, and, and he married someone else 2 years later. He did quit drinking then, and never touched a drop after that, so I guess it worked. He lived for 20 more years. My Mom never remarried, but she lived for 40 more years and I lived with her for most of that time. I took care of her 24/7 for the last 12 years of her life. The divorce was traumatic for everyone, including me, but I didn't realize the effect on me until years later.

I grew up in a van down by the side of the river.

R243 1. I'm a northeast native. I need a blatant change of seasons, and 2. Palm Springs ain't gonna bring my Dad back.