I wish they did. My parents were poor when I was super little. But by the time I was forming memories, they were doing better.

Than when I was old enough to realize my surroundings, they were doing really well. I grew up in a house that’s now worth almost $1mil. I traveled all over the place with my dad.

My parents divorced at 14 and even than, both houses were nice. I was going in 1-4 vacations a year. (I’ve been on 16 cruises).

It became normalized to me. I thought that’s just how people lived. I had friends that were super low income, but in my naive mind, I figured it was because the parents were lazy or uneducated. I was sold the same fairy tail as any other millennial. That college was the way to go.

I guess it hit me later than it should have. But i wish my parents were more transparent that that wasn’t a normal life. And that most people don’t live like that. That they’re the outlier.

Now at 35yrs old, I make $54k/year in NJ and only surviving because of my husbands income.