Private planes, spring break trips out of the country every year and a credit card that will fulfill your every online shopping desire are arguably pretty nice, but the reality is these aren't luxuries everyone can afford. There is nothing wrong with growing up in a household with parents who are willing and able to provide these luxuries to you, and there's nothing to put down about financial stability. However, nothing will teach you that money isn't everything better than growing up without it. And personally, I have found that my most valuable lessons have come from growing up not having a ton of money, and that's not something to be put down either.
As annoying as it was to constantly hear my mom sing her own rendition of The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" when nobody asked her to while growing up, I learned from a pretty young age that patience unfortunately is a virtue. At times I definitely still resented having to wait for my parents to be done working late hours before I could leave to hang out with friends, and I did sometimes resent that my rollerblades were my most reliable form of transportation rather than a car of my own (or at least one that didn't break down in the McDonald's drive through), but I still believe I learned patience better than if these things had simply been handed to me. And most of the time, from getting Dairy Queen Blizzards after I helped my mom at work to finally getting to the college I had saved my paychecks from work to pay for, the waiting has turned out to be worth it.
I learned to appreciate my parents more because I grew up in a family that didn't have a ton of money. My parents often worked two jobs at a time to put my sisters and me through school, to make sure we had food to eat and cars to drive when we needed them, and even to pay our unnecessarily high cell phone bills without asking for anything in return (except for the occasional McFlurry). I appreciate my parents sacrificing all of their energy and free time to give my sister and I a private school education and make sure we got to have the college experience much more than I would appreciate an annual trip to the beach or a cruise. I might sometimes argue with my parents, but I will always admire the selflessness and work ethic they taught me.
And lastly, I've found that the cliché "money isn't everything" isn't just a cliché, but actually a lesson to be learned with life—and luckily, I learned that lesson early. Where I go for spring break, where I buy my make up and the make and model of my car are not the most valuable things to me. I value Saturday nights at Skate Zone 71, 49-cent ice cream cones from McDonald's, late nights trips to Waffle House, and searching for VHS tapes with my sister at the thrift store. I value road trips in my Chevy Cavalier with the excitement factor of potentially stalling at any intersection, the hidden gems of the north end of Columbus like Clown Cone ice cream and day trips to random towns in Ohio where my dad will definitely say "Howdy" to the waitress, my twin will order a cheeseburger and my older sister and I will roll our eyes when our mom tries to say something corny. There are so many things more important to me than money, and I'm definitely glad that I was raised to think that way.
