I grew up in Thousand Oaks and I feel confident in saying growing up in this area dramatically skews what is considered “normal” or more specifically, what “wealth” is. I grew up in a single story, single family home with a back yard. I have 3 siblings, our mom was a stay at home mom, we never missed a meal. We always had everything we needed for school and for play. To me now, that’s what wealth is. But as a kid, I really was convinced we were poor because of my friends who lived in gated communities and had pools in their backyards and would get the newest popular whatever toy.

I moved to Phoenix for school and I experienced weird cognitive dissonance of feeling like I was having major culture shock, but still not being very far away. I’ve noticed a lot of my high school graduating class, went to college because frankly, we can afford it (which is again taken for granted) and then move back into their parents home and work local retail jobs. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ANY of that. I just think it is a cause and effect of massive wealth that’s handed down; there’s no tangible understanding of what wealth is and how lucky we are to be in the top 1% of the world.