With recent dialogues circulating social spaces dealing with issues of privilege, Twitter users did not hold back in getting in on the action, creating the hashtag, #PrivilegedKids. The internet, being as brutal as it is, pointed out to all those kids out there who don’t understand what it’s like growing up and living without privilege. Not just the monetary kind, but all other types as well. So we at The Daily Vox have drawn up a pretty comprehensive list of things privileged kids will never understand.
1. Bucket baths
Even if you had a tub, you never filled it. And showers? Haha! What are those? So, you have a bucket bath. What is it? It’s water filled into a bucket that you scoop out with a margarine container with which to clean yourself.
And, the bucket bath was usually in an…
2. Outside bathroom
Township houses were usually built with no bathrooms, so we had to have them outside. It wasn’t much fun in winter, let me tell you.
But even outside, you were expected to be sparkly clean with…
3. The orange sack loofah
Yes, you read that right. No amount of scrubbing with a sponge or loofah could get mud and grime off you as an orange sack. We scrubbed until our knees were red. And every single time someone bought a sack of oranges and shared with the neighbours, the race was on as to who gets the sack for their bathroom.
4. Re-using the teabag
Tea time, regardless of what brand of tea you bought, was – and still sometimes is – a tradition in the township. But waste not, want not. So a one-cup teabag went as far as making two, or sometimes three cups of tea.
5. Hand-me-downs
Regardless of how much smaller you were, you wore your older siblings’ clothes until they got too small for you. And there was never an argument about it. You wore it even if you hated the colour, whether you wanted something different, or whether it smelt like your great aunt Tessie.
6. M-Net Open Time
No M-Net? No problem! M-Net’s Open Time, running from 6pm to 7pm every weekday, gave us a taste of what we were missing out on. Those of us lucky to have bunny aerials got the best reception ever.
7. DIY toys
From backyard cricket bats to cars made out of old wire, we were very inventive with our toys. And an old cardboard box held entire universes as we used them as forts, houses, and treehouses.
Would watch through the window while some of us were playing. pic.twitter.com/2op7zBZPvb
— BongiMtobeng (@Van_de_Skool) January 17, 2017
8. Frozen beans in the ice-cream container
Just when you thought your parents had decided to spoil you a bit, lo and behold, it’s not ice-cream in the freezer. It’s beans. Or carrots. Or dhall. Anything but ice-cream. The pain was real.
9. Going to the public pool in summer
On that really hot day, it was a treat for someone’s parents to say: “We’re taking the kids to the pool!” We used to either walk or catch the bus into town and splash away. It was so much fun, and we came home exhausted and happy.
10. Being embarrassed as mum haggled for everything at the Saturday veg market
Yes, we went to veg markets. Yes, our mum bargained for everything. And yes, it made us want to crawl into a cave and never come out. Especially when she yelled, “50 cents for that?! You must be joking!”
