What perks did you have as a kid because of your parent's job(s)?

[jmeb]

Now THAT is really cool!

It was certainly interesting. I was huge into baseball as a kid...little league world series and all that. But by HS my athleticism wasn't there. So most my hours in that stadium were spent running a concession stand for marching band fundraising. Stephen King was a regular customer.

 

[Jenny]

- Held overnight birthday parties on a full-size replica of the Santa Maria (mother managed it for a while)

How fun!

 

[Turoa Kiwi]

My dad was a fireman in Wellington New Zealand. Up until the late 80's, senior fireman and their families could live in apartments built as part of the fire stations. The stations that I lived at had full sized snooker and table tennis tables ,and dart boards which we were allowed to use if the firemen weren't using them. Out the back of the stations the ground surfaces were always concrete. These areas were always used for playing basketball, volley ball , tennis or bull rush. I had more than my share of scraped knees playing there. I was only a teenager and we regularly played with the firemen so we learnt pretty quick that we had to earn our victories
There were five kids in our family so the firemans salary didn't go far. Dad had part time jobs, and sometimes we had to go with him. These included Ambulance driver, Concrete truck driver,(Apparently I always wanted to be a mix mix driver) Tour bus driver and delivering confectionary and cakes to shops.( ginger kisses were my favourite perk there) I only went with him once in the Ambulance. He generally just manned it at the local Saturday night stock car race track. The day I went he got knocked out and had to go to hospital, when a car car lost control ,rolled and smashed in the safety wall and a stone flew through the netting and smacked into his head. They had to send another Ambulance to take us to Hospital....my God. That was 47 years ago. Where has the time gone?

 

[Dave Petersen]

My Dad owned an auto body shop. He had access to good deals on cars. My first car as a teen was a '71 Mustang he bought. He also had deals with other car related businesses in town - I had chrome Keystone Sunspoke Wheels and Firestone tires with raised white lettering. It was a pretty cool car even though it sucked down the gasoline.

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My Dad's shop also painted rides for a carnival. When they would be in town they would give us free tickets. I remember my Dad talking to the owner once when we were at the carnival. The owner had a big roll of bills in his pocket -- I think the carnival business was pretty profitable. I was impressed.

 

[Dave Petersen]

I got to work in a hot, humid steel fabrication shop in the Midwest summers. I did learn to weld and use a cutting torch but most of my time was spent wielding a grinder

I know that feeling. My parents had me working in the auto body shop during the Midwest summers when I turned 13 through college. Hot, dirty work. Did a lot of sanding cars, masking cars and prepping for paint, washing windows, sweeping, and picking up parts. The only air conditioned place in the building was my Dad's office.

 

[Philpug]

A good friend of mine's father was very high up in the Genovese Crime family in N.Y. The parties at the family house on Long Island were incredible along with the celebs that were in attendance.

 

[Cheizz]

Does drawing with a marker on an overhead projector count?

 

[David Chaus]

Fancy Boeing letterhead made for great paper airplanes. Though my dad was an engineer, I figured that out on my own.

 

[tch]

Late to this thread but it strikes a chord. My father was a teacher at a VERY wealthy mid-western prep school. Even though he made squat for a salary, I grew up like a rich kid b/c the school was my home and playground. 1,500 acres overall. Almost three miles of waterfront on a big lake. A full fleet of sailboats, over 100 horses with a dedicated equine facility, a private airstrip, a huge library, an auditorium with touring acts, 13 tennis courts, a rec center with gymnasium, squash courts, rifle range, and swimming/diving pool. I never really appreciated how incredibly privileged I was until I went off to look at private eastern colleges: "Is this is all there is?" was my first reaction. It took me a while to comprehend how fantastic my upbringing had been.

As an adult, I taught for 37 years at a community college. Coming face to face with the discrepancy between my upbringing and that of my own students was the source of a lot of personal growth and learning for me. I wouldn't trade either part of my life for anything.

 

[Tricia]

I thought this would be a good summer bump.

My perk...
My dad owned a small, one man operation excavation and septic pumping business in a town with a population of 3,500 people. Everyone knew my dad because everyone needed their septic tank pumped at some point or another, and frankly, everyone liked and respected my dad.
I recall being pulled over by the local sherrif after I started driving. He took one look at me and said, "Ah, you're jacks daughter. You're a good kid, I'll let you go."

 

[ilovepugs]

My mom worked for the city, so we had great health insurance and almost zero medical costs. An immediate family member had 2x open heart surgery and we managed not to lose our house.

sorry, sorry… I’m guessing you weren’t asking for reminders of the US’s dystopian healthcare system.

ummm… she also had a coworker with season tickets to the Red Sox who thought of us as surrogate grandkids, so I’ve been to a surprising number of games at Fenway considering how apathetic to major American professional sports I am.

 

[crosscountry]

Interesting thread...

My Dad was a civil engineer. So every once in a while, when he works on a location that has anything worthwhile to see, he would take me along on one of his site visits. So I got to travel to interesting locations occasionally. Got to see some of the country at a relatively young age. And also some industrial sites other kids wouldn't typically visit (shipyard, for example)

My Mom works for the power company. So our house got free electricity as a perk. We had air-conditioning and all electric kitchen and bathroom appliance. A relatively rare setup.

A related "incident" was, because the house wasn't wired for so much electric appliance initially, the fuse occasionally trips. It wasn't until my college freshman year and I took a physics lab that I figured out a couple of the appliance was wired wrong. It was also then that I realized we've been living with a fire danger for some years! Fixed it so it doesn't happen again.

 

[crgildart]

Military ID and PX (Base Exchange) access. Stupid good deals there. It was like Pro Form for stereo gear and groceries..

Gonna add on that moving 11 times in my first 8 years of life made me quite the chameleon, able to quickly adapt to new surroundings..
Living in Korea at age 6 was pretty wild.. We were essentially free range kids in an environment way sketchier than my mom ever realized. We were in downtown Seoul. Dad was up at the 38th..

 

[Uncle-A]

How about a reverse perk not from parents but from a child. My daughter use to babysit for a nice family that lived in a wealthy community. The father of the family was a successful lawyer and had season tickets to the NJ Devils and when he wasn't able to go to a game he would offer the tickets to my daughter and I. All the time I would try to pay him for the tickets but he would never take any money for them. Their children are grown so no more babysitting. We are still friends with this family but haven't been to a Devil's game in a long time. But that is a perk in reverse from my child to me.

 

[Jim Kenney]

How about a reverse perk not from parents but from a child. My daughter use to babysit for a nice family that lived in a wealthy community. The father of the family was a successful lawyer and had season tickets to the NJ Devils and when he wasn't able to go to a game he would offer the tickets to my daughter and I. All the time I would try to pay him for the tickets but he would never take any money for them. Their children are grown so no more babysitting. We are still friends with this family but haven't been to a Devil's game in a long time. But that is a perk in reverse from my child to me.

Reverse thing has been working pretty good for me in my retirement. Have four adult kids; one in Caribbean, one in San Diego, one in Utah, one near my home location in Wash DC area. I rotate visits to three while fourth keeps eye on my house.

 

[Bad Bob]

Gonna add on that moving 11 times in my first 8 years of life made me quite the chameleon, able to quickly adapt to new surroundings..
Living in Korea at age 6 was pretty wild.. We were essentially free range kids in an environment way sketchier than my mom ever realized. We were in downtown Seoul. Dad was up at the 38th..

Living on the Economy in Asia as a kid in the 50's early 60's was an adventure. Roaring around the Ginza and allies on your bike as a towheaded kid was quite educational. In school we were given one class a week on the local culture, probably to help us survive.
We weren't quite as mobile as you, there were only 10 schools through HS. There is a lot of truth in your statement about being a chameleon,

 

[Dave Marshak]

I'm not sure this was a "perk," but my first college math course was taught by an adjunct instructor who worked full time for my father.
The sadly ironic part was that the course course was taught from the same textbook as my last HS math course. That was supposed to be an AP course but the school never certified it. It was an advanced algebra course that used an unusual set of symbols. It was like reading Kanji, but once you learned the symbols is was as simple as grade school arithmetic. In the first college quiz I got something like 159 out of 180, the next best was less than half my score, and everyone else was below 60. It was a whole semester of wasted nepotism.

dm

 

[johnnyvw]

My father was partners in a plastic extrusion company...tubing etc. In the 60's we had dozens of hula-hoops as his company made the tubing they were made from. Small perk, but a fun one! Was even more fun when the grown-ups got plastered and started hula-hoop contests! (and they had epic parties...many times a full weekend blow-out)

 

[Philpug]

Was even more fun when the grown-ups got plastered and started hula-hoop contests! (and they had epic parties...many times a full weekend blow-out)

That generation doesn't get the credit they deserve, from the three martini lunch to the weekend BBQ's, they knew how to drink and party.

 

[crgildart]

How about a reverse perk not from parents but from a child.

Just this week our daughter told us Appalachian State is still in her top 3 choices after she finishes her 2nd year at Wake Tech. I'm like