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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]i don’t think people always “try” to hide their privilege. i think they often don’t even see it. they really genuinely think everyone else (you) are more or less in the same boat as them. And they most likely do not even see how lucky they are to have been given so much by their parents, etc. They take it for granted. [/quote]

This. My spouse and I got married and bought a home in our 30s like everyone else we know. Sure, our wedding wasn't as fancy and our home wasn't as big or as nice. But we still did it, so they all assumed that just like them, we'd gotten a chunk of change from our parents for our wedding and down payment.

Then a few years later, they renovated those first homes or upgraded to something nicer. We didn't. We were still just able to pay our mortgage and put away a little money each month. Hard to say if their parents financed the renovations or the second home. But by then, our friends also had a lot more in savings and more disposable income because they hadn't had to pay for their own weddings or down payments, or could put down bigger down payments for smaller mortgages.

Then we all had kids and the jig was up. Their parents showed up to provide childcare or pay for it. Their homes were bigger and nicer and they had full time nannies. They opened college savings accounts for their kids and suddenly they had 30-40k in them because of parental donations. They started vacationing mostly with family so that the grandparents could spend time with the kids, which is how you learn about the lake house or the pied a Terre in Paris or the winter home in Florida.

So we just started asking, because it became so obvious that we were in a different situation. Turns out most of them got a minimum of 20-30k for downpayment (most more like 50-100k) plus weddings paid for. Many had parents who paid all their non-housing bills basically until they were married, including cell phones and cable. Vacations often funded as well, especially special vacations like honeymoons or anniversary trips. When they had kids, parents paid for extras like doulas, cleaning services, 5k here and there to outfit a nursery or to go on a "baby moon". Etc. etc.

It was stunning. And when we said "oh, no, we got nothing" there was a lot of silence on their end. We both thought we were in the same boat. Turns out we live in the little dinghy attached to their yachts by a rope. My main takeaway is that we should NOT have been splitting checks all these years. I bought these folks drinks many times! And they were just sitting on piles of free cash the whole time. What a joke.[/quote]

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