From the following list, bold all those that apply to you:

1. Father went to college.

2. Father finished college.

3. Mother went to college.

4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent. 

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. 
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. 
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Copyright: Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka , "From What Privileges Do You Have?" Illinois State University

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Wisdom from a Starbucks cup:

The Way I See It #288:
"My cousin in Tibet is an illiterate subsistence farmer. By accident of birth, I was raised in the West and have a Ph.D. The task of our generation is to cut through the illusion that was inhabit separate worlds. Only then will we find the heart to rise to the daunting but urgent challenges of global disparity. "

--Losang Rabgey, Ph.D.
National Geographic Emerging Explorer and co-founder of Machik, a nonprofit helping communities on the Tibetan plateau.

See, I can't count any of this as privilege if a kid gets shafted emotionally, psychologically, or physically.

I am 52 so this list is not really relevant to my age group. I grew up middle class when that meant your dad might have a BS degree but most likely was a Union Member. Your mom was a homemaker and could make 30 bucks a week for groceries seem like 300 a week in today's money. My spare money came from work, mowing lawns, allowance, paper routes and boxing groceries. My other friends worked in gas stations or at the movies as an usher. We took out BEOG grants to get through college, it took 2-3k a year to go to Cal State schools back then. If anyone had extra cash we bought a new record or 8track, I shopped in thrift stores for my clothes. 2 bucks on the weekend could get you a quart of Schlitiz to take to the party, thats all we needed. My girlfriends sewed their own clothes, we all did our own mechanical work on our cars. I bought my parents 62 station wagon as my first car, they needed the 350 I had in savings from the paper route to make a down on a new Maverick, lime green one with black racing stripes. None of us thought we were poor, we all were in the same boat. The people I thought were rich drove Camaros, had a new B and O stereo, new wetsuits and a new surf board. Other than that, there was not much difference between all of us and you know what?

It was a hell of a lot better than the crap lifestyles we all lead now driven by crass commercialization, huge disparities in income and wealth and miserable working hours and wages relative to the standard of living.

1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college.
3. Mother went to college.
4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.(I'm a professor--does that count?)
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home. (Yeah, if you count Jesus books).
8, Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively. (Sure, southerners are always portrayed postiviely...right...)
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp. (Once spent a week at Jesus camp, but I'm guessing this isn't what you're talking about.)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. (It was an eight-year old Bonneville with 120,000 miles on it that they got for 250 bucks, but it wasn't a hand-me-down)
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

My mom bought it in the 60s. It was white...soft naugahyde, I think...it was reeeel perty inside - lotsa colours and scrolly caps...no one read it...but we made sure to keep it dusted just in case company was coming over.

We also had the library, I had a library card when I was 8 years old.

1. Father went to college.

2. Father finished college.

3. Mother went to college.

4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent. 

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. 

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. 

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

compared to another kid who is getting shafted emotionally, psychologically, or physically and lacks them.

The hallway was one long bookshelf. My mom picked up books from the Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the different base Thrift stores...and like you, we were always at the library.

My mom believed if it was important enough for someone to write it down, it was important enough to read. So she read everything.

I'm struck at the differences in time...the things that were once considered luxuries are now critical to a household. This is just the sort of shit that excites me...the generational differences...I see it as part of the cohort effect...it's not just the big history that the separate generations share...it's the little day to day stuff...boardgames, cards, reading versus TV, hours on the phone, pong...hehehe

The biggest difference was that there was very little income difference noticeable at all. Everyone was in the same boat more or less and no one noticed anything different. The other thing is that all of our parents had lived through the depression and they were frugal as hell, splurging for them was taking us all out once every six months to an all you can eat buffet for 3 bucks a head.

1. Father went to college.
 2. Father finished college.
 3. Mother went to college.
 4. Mother finished college. 5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. 6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers. 7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home. 8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. 9. Were read children’s books by a parent. 
 10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
 11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
 12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
 13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. 
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. 15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs. 16. Went to a private high school. 17. Went to summer camp. 18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18. 19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
 20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. 21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. 22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. 
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house. 24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home. 25. You had your own room as a child. 26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18. 27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school. 29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college. 30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. 31. Went on a cruise with your family. 32. Went on more than one cruise with your family. 33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. 34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Merriam-Webster---"privilege"-­---"a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor..." Does "peculiarity" indicate something unwarranted or substantively odd, or is "peculiarity" merely a function of numbers, say when 49% or less of the general population has or does something? I hope not the latter, because that would mean receiving government-paid food, housing and health care is a "privilege". Wait......

i should think that 49% is too large a percentage of any group to allow the word 'peculiar.'

peculiar carries connotations of uncharacteristic, Atypical, eccentric...

if you've got 49% of some group sharing some benefit...then it ceases to be atypical, yes?

these polls/surveys usually begin anyway, with questioner-bias built in by means of a normatively-laden or even pejorative gatekeeper buzzword. Here, it's "privilege", in that few want to consider themselves a "child of privilege".

Either "peculiar" is a matter of numbers or it's not. If it is, I agree that 48% may be characterized as "typical" in the sense of "regularly occurring"---just like murder, e.g.; but not "typical" in the sense of happening more often than not---again, just like murder. It's rather like the question of "normal" in psychology---it can't be wielded without certain literally normative assumptions built in.

Dawn:

There you go . . . . don't laugh to hard. I considered my childhood to be a good and happy one, maybe because I did not know better? Parents never saw me play basketball or baseball in high school and I was gooddddd. Out of the 5 of us, 4 still living, three of us have advanced degrees. The significance of this? Mon graduated high school and dad never finished grade school. Maybe because I did not know better?

"It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed." Kin Hubbard

1. Father went to college.

2. Father finished college.

3. Mother went to college.

4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent. 

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. 


14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. 


23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.


28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka , "From What Privileges Do You Have?" Illinois State University

Come live in SOCAL for a few years. You'll see what I mean.