We had very little growing up.
We lived in an old house in the middle of nowhere.
I didn’t know that other people lived differently until I grew up and moved away. Things like window screens on every window of the house were a luxury we couldn’t afford. This is despite the fact that the house I lived in had only one window air conditioning unit. So we would open the windows and run a box fan to cool down the house for as long as possible. Yes, that meant that bugs constantly got in the open windows. When it did get too hot to just use fans, we would turn on the one window unit and all sleep in the living room so that we could get some of the cooled air. The cheap window air conditioner wasn’t strong enough to reach the entire house after all. I remember that that little window air conditioner would run nonstop trying to cool down the house. It would actually get ice outside of it because it never stopped running in the heat of summer. Winter wasn’t much better. We had a few space heaters and the oven. That was it. Since the house was drafty the space heaters didn’t work really good unless you sat right in front of them so my dad would turn the oven on. That wasn’t safe but still I wouldn’t change my childhood for anything. It made me appreciate the small things in life. And yet, I do like living in a house with central heating and air, plus window screens, now.