IWONNIT

I never felt excluded but, yeah, as soon as had an income of my own you know what I spent it on. But I've never wanted a games console cos they're just like something other people have. I can't relate.

I had a nintendo, but that was it. After like age 13 I just always went to friends' houses, so I never felt excluded. Also, it's possible I stuck out like a sore thumb 'cause of poor-kid clothes, but I don't remember ever feeling like I did or having anyone make fun of me at all.

No TV in my room but I've permanently borrowed my dad's CD player. We have a Nintendo 64 that was a gift from a friend who was moving cross- country and it's the bane of my existence. We can do school and 4-H camps but not ones that cost like a thousand dollars. I'd love to go on a foreign school trip but the financial situation sucks now. I'd say we are solidly middle class.

Only a couple of my friends can afford everything, and a couple can't afford as much as we have, and most can but make different priorities. Like, a lot of kids live in these tiny houses that are barely bigger than trailers, but they wear really expensive clothes and drive new cars, while we have a bigger house, cheaper clothes, and used cars. So my relationship with other kids is pretty normal. Sometimes I feel like we have a lot more and try to play it down. I only really feel jealous when they get cars because I'm stuck taking the bus at 6:45 AM every day.

I got a Sega Master System when I was 11, but no one liked those anymore and it was second hand so I played a lot of Alex the Kidd. No one was very jealous of it. But I don't know, I had no friends in primary school anyway! When I was about 12 I got a crappy tv and video when my grandma died which I still have now. Now I have a megadrive with master system converter that I got really cheap at a record fair. I long for theme park...

I have a car so I guess any attempt to say no here would be a little silly. (returning to my sweet car today! voooooooooom). Having said that if I ever asked could I have a TV in my room my parents would tell me where to go. I mean it wouldn't even be an issue. The thought of asking it seems ridiculous. I think this is because at least a car is practical ie "we don't have to drive you anywhere anymore, you learn to drive at an early age" whereas a TV is just a total luxury.

I went on some trips at school, but again I was kind of talked out of going on ones that were very expensive or that my parents thought were silly. I don't ever remember massive arguments or even small arguments. They never spent much on toys or at Christmas but they would send me to Taize or something when I was in school because they thought it was of benefit. They're still like this and I think it's good.

My parents could have given me a TV in my bedroom - we had a spare one, even - but they wouldn't. "We'd never see you again," they said. I never had any sort of games console other then a 1977- vintage Binatone thing that played 6 different varieties of ball/bat/wall games. Our multiple-tellyness came from inheritance rather than spending power.

Oh dear this is another In My Day one, in that In My Day having a TV in the house at all was about as common as having, say, three TVs nowadays. We didn't have any source of music other than a radio until I was 13. This is not at all a tale of poverty: I was set off to a fee-paying boarding school the following year. I was probably the most common kid in the school, but that was okay, sort of the equivalent of working class chic, in a stupid way.