How Privileged are You? (A meme that’s been going around)

I saw this on Anthromama’s site, and then followed her link to Charlotte’s Web.   I decided that I have to do this one too.

The original authors of this exercise are Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold the true statements. You can explain further if you wish.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college  Not only did he finish, he got a Master’s Degree in Electronics after he got his Bachelor’s in Physics.
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college  She got a Bachelor’s degree in Bacteriology.
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.  My Daddy was a professor of Physics for a while, as was my Grandfather.   Grandpa was the head of the Physics Department at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.   My brother is an architect, which I think counts right along with attorneys and physicians in terms of quantity of education requried and “privilege.”
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  We had thousands of books.   My parents still have most of them.   I have no idea what in the world we are going to do with them all when they die and we have to find a home for them.   I will have to build an addition onto this place to make room if I want to keep them.
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  I studied both violin and piano.   I started violin lessons when I was nine and piano when I was 11 and never stopped taking lessons in both until I got to college.  I also had skiing lessons.  Mostly, though, I hung out behind the sofas in the living room and read the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Book of Knowledge.
12.   The people in the media who dress and talk like me are potrayed positively.  Insert hysterical laughter here.   There are NO people in the media who dress like me!!! and there are few who can discourse as intelligently as I can.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18  More hysterical laughter.   I didn’t have a credit card with my name on it until I had graduated from college.
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.  My parents were an oddity in the world.   They felt strongly that when they conceived a child they had also taken on the responsibility of getting that child educated through a Bachelor’s degree.   They arranged their lives and finances to achieve this aim, saving money assiduously all the time we were growing up.   They pinched pennies while we were in school, too.   I was able to help them out by getting a partial scholarship for my college tuition.   Unfortunately, since they had been saving money so hard all the time we were growing up, we were not eligible for many scholarships because they had too many assets.
16.  Went to a private high school.   There were no private high schools in our area.
17. Went to summer camp  Once when I was 7 years old I sold enough CampFire Girl peanuts to go to Camp WoLoHe for a couple of weeks.  I don’t think this counts.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18  I WAS a private tutor before I turned 18.  I sure as heck didn’t need one.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels  Family vacations involved hiking with backpacks into the high country and wilderness, camping out.   Even when we were travelling to visit our relatives we rarely stayed in hotels.  My dad built a camper to fit on the back of the truck that was our “Home away from Home.” 
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you were 18.  We sewed our clothes.   Does this count as buying new???  I also wore hand me downs.  Now I shop in thrift stores as a matter of personal choice.  The majority of the clothing I wore on the recent cruise I took was purchased at a thrift store, borrowed from friends or sewn myself.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them  Hysterical laughter.  My parents rarely bought cars that were not hand-me-downs.   The car I learned to drive (in 1968-9) was a 1955 Ford Sedan.  The first car I ever owned I bought myself after I graduated from college when I was 24 years old.  It was a brand new Saab 99.   I loved that car.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child  Well, my grandma and my uncle had painted a couple of pictures that were hanging there.   I have original art in my house now, though.   I love it.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house  It was more like an ancient single-family mining shack with several additions that stood up by the grace of God and the fact that no one had told it it should fall down.  It was unique, though!  Drafty, but unique.  There was a corner in the dining room that water would flow into if you spilled it; in the winter the water would freeze if you didn’t clean it up.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home  My parents owned our house.   It had a sign on the front door that read “Don’t laugh, it’s paid for.”   There was a good reason why that sign was there.  see above
25.  You had your own room as a child.  I shared a room with my sister my whole life until she moved out.   Then I sort of had a room to myself if you don’t count the radial arm saw that was in there since my folks were busy remodeling the house.  

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18  Ha ha ha ha   We barely had a phone in our home.  You actually had to dial it.  Until we moved to California when I was 17 years old, we had a party line which we shared with two other families.  Our ring was two shorts, one of the neighbors had two longs and  the other had long-short.  Phone calls were limited to 3 minutes so that every one who needed access to communication could get on the line.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course  Didn’t exist in our school.  I aced both, though.   See #18 above.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school  You have got to be kidding.   We didn’t even get a tv in our house until I was 16.  My parents thought it was important to have children who knew how to read and did not purchase a television until Neil Armstrong was set to walk on the Moon and it was going to be televised.   They felt that was an event that we ought to be able to witness and went out and purchased our first tv a week before liftoff.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college  I’m not sure that there was such a thing as IRAs when I was in high school.  I had a savings account, though.  Usually it had about $150 in it.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16  Yep.   We flew several places when I was a child.   Once we went out to North Carolina to see my maternal grandparents, and once to Utah to go hiking in Canyonlands National Park come to mind.
31. Went on a cruise with your family  Our family did not go on cruises.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family 
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up  Going to the Natural History Museum was a regular and treasured outing.   When they could afford it, they would also buy tickets for the Planetarium.
34.  Were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family as you grew up.  I can’t remember how many times we heard, “Close the door, were you born in a barn?”   Of course, I was well aware of the “cost” of heating the house, because I knew how much effort went into getting the wood we burned, since I was intimately involved in the collection, sawing up into billets, and splitting of the same.