The Richest Families We Knew Never Seemed Rich at the Time

The Short Answer

Many families in the 1970s and 80s lived on one paycheck, bought big things on layaway, and made do with what they had. Looking back, a lot of people say the families who felt richest weren't the ones with the most money. They were the ones with full houses, open doors and time for each other.

Hand-Me-Downs Were Normal

Clothes went from the oldest kid to the next one, then to cousins, then to the neighbor's kids. A winter coat might have three or four owners before it finally wore out. Nobody was embarrassed by it, because everybody was doing it.

Layaway and Saving Up

If you wanted something big, like a new bike or a record player, you saved up for it, or the store held it on layaway while you paid it off a little at a time. You might wait months. When it finally came home, it meant something.

Birthdays at Home

Birthday parties happened in the backyard or the living room. The cake was homemade, often from a box mix, with candles saved from last year. The games were the kind you didn't have to buy: tag, hide-and-seek, and a donkey drawn on poster board for pinning the tail.

The House Everyone Went To

Every neighborhood had one. The house where the door was always open, where there was always room for one more at the table, where whoever happened to be there at dinnertime got fed.

Those houses usually weren't the big ones. They were the ones with a porch full of kids and a mother who never seemed to count heads.

Free Fun

Summer entertainment was a sprinkler on the lawn, a bike, a ball, and the public pool if you were lucky. A Sunday drive cost a little gas. Fishing cost a few worms. The library was free, and so was the creek.

What We Were Really Counting

Kids don't keep track of what a family earns. They keep track of who showed up, who laughed, who let them help in the kitchen, and who sat on the porch until it got dark.

Maybe that's why the families who seemed to have so little are the ones so many of us remember as rich. We were counting the right things all along.