[jkestner]

Agreed, thanks OP for the prompt, for myself.

My father was really stingy with money and wouldn’t gift me anything. All my friends drove cars in high school. I didn’t feel jealous (rides everywhere!) but it felt good when I earned my first car (and, uh, learned stick shift on the drive home). My mother didn’t spend a lot but never worried about money while working exactly the job she wanted how she wanted (including taking the risk of starting her own business to run her way).

You can guess they had slightly different upbringings. I had a solid middle-class experience growing up, never was spoilt but there wasn’t much I wanted, either. Supported by the privileges of socioeconomic class, between them I got a healthy balance of fiscal responsibility and freedom from letting that dictate my life.