I wouldn't say my parents are rich, in the grand scheme of things -- they're not one percenters or anything -- but they do well for where they live: they own a few small businesses and a beach house in Costa Rica, so whatever that means. It was kind of a weird perspective growing up, because as a kid, whatever you're born into just sort of registers as normal; money wasn't something I thought much about, because it wasn't a source of tension in my family, but it was for other people, and that's something I had to learn to be sensitive to. I remember once in middle school seriously pissing off a friend without even realizing what I'd done, because I was complaining about my parents' dragging me to their boat on weekends in the summer, and I guess his family was struggling at the time, and it must have sounded like I was rubbing it in. I wasn't a snob or anything -- like it never would have occurred to me to think less of someone because their parents had less -- but I'm sure I came across that way sometimes.

One lasting consequence of this, for me, was I became extremely self-conscious of being seen spending money, and I'm still this way as an adult, long after I've been out on my own. I bought a new car recently, because my 2003 Toyota Matrix with 180 thousand miles on it broke down and wasn't worth fixing, and I didn't really mention it to anyone. My coworkers seemed a little put-off when they saw it and I hadn't told them about it, but how do you bring up a new car without sounding like you're bragging? In a lot of respects, I still live like I'm 23 and scraping by trying to make it as a freelance writer, because I'm embarrassed about having more than someone.