Privilege

This exercise was developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

To participate, bold the items that are true for you.

1. Father went to college – Stanford
2. Father finished college – I believe he had a Business degree (I know he got an MBA from Stanford Business School.
3. Mother went to college – Stanford
4. Mother finished college – Yup.  Think she was a Music major (with an Ed minor?)
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. – Don’t believe so.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers – Pretty much the same class, so far as I knew or perceived such.  My mom taught elementary school (subbed, generally), so I felt close to the “ed biz.”
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home. – Scattered about, most of the perm ones in our room.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home – Owned?  No. But we went to the library regularly, my dad had a lot of business reading to do, etc.  Plenty of scanning eyeballs at home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent – By my mom.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18  – By which I assume my violin lessons count.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 – Don’t recall anything other than violin lessons.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively – Racial/ethnic? Yes.  Geek/nerd types?  No.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.  – Nope.  At least a few years after that.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs  – For which I am tremendously grateful.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.  – I paid for my books and my incidental expenses out of my savings, and what I earned during the year and over the summer.  But those were relatively small compared to tuition and housing, so I’m going to answer Yes here (see above).
16. Went to a private high school – I went to a private HS for a year and a half, Damien (Catholic), mostly due to the public alternative at the time.
17. Went to summer camp – Oddly enough, never did.  Not something people I knew did, either.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18 – Not aside from my mom giving me violin lessons.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels – Usually, at least en route.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 – Mostly new, but there were a few good-quality hand-me-downs along the way, as well as a few things my mom sewed from patterns.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them – Nope.  Bought my first car from my own savings, used (’71 Super-Beetle), in college.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child – Not a lot, but a few small pieces, I believe.
23. Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 – Not until I moved into my own place, post-college.
24. You and your family lived in a single family house – Early on we were in a fourplex and a duplex, but we were in a single-family home by the time I was in 1st grade.
    Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home – Well, the bank owned it, but that’s what most folks mean by home ownership.
25. You had your own room as a child – Around the time I was in junior high, I moved into the guest room (though I had to give it up when guests came).
26. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course – I don’t think so — I took some AP courses, but nothing specific on SAT/ACT testing.
27. Had your own TV in your room in High School – A small b&w unit my mom won in a raffle.  There was a definite trade-off between “watching the color TV” and “watching what I wanted.”
28. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College – Nope.
29. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 – Once, when we moved down to LA, we took a trip first south by plane.  Alas, I that very day had my eyes dilated, so I couldn’t see much from the window.  After that, not until I was in some speech contests in high school.
30. Went on a cruise with your family – Not our bag, baby.
31. Went on more than one cruise with your family – Ditto. 
32. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up – It wasn’t a focus of our outings, but it happened now and again, esp. history/science museums.)
33. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family – I knew that there were thermostats and issues of energy savings and the joys of air conditioning and all that, but nothing on the specifics.  In California, “heating” per se was not as much of an issue as elsewhere. 

(via BD)