We all have blind spots when it comes to recognizing privilege. I’ll be honest with you: it took me years to understand that some of the struggles I faced growing up actually meant I had less privilege than many of my peers in London. But it also took me just as long to realize that there were countless worries I never had to face at all.
Growing up working-class outside Manchester, I thought I knew what hardship looked like. My dad worked in a factory, and through his union involvement, I learned early on how power really works in society. But here’s what I’ve come to understand: even within my own struggles, there were fundamental securities I took for granted.
Let me share seven worries that, if you’ve never experienced them, suggest you grew up with more privilege than you might realize. And before you get defensive (I would have), remember that recognizing privilege isn’t about guilt. It’s about understanding the full picture of our experiences and how they shape our worldview.
1. Whether your family could afford basic groceries this week
I remember complaining about having beans on toast again for dinner. What I didn’t realize was that we always had beans, and we always had toast. Some of my schoolmates were experts at hiding their hunger, at making excuses for why they “weren’t hungry” at lunch.
Food insecurity affects millions of families, and it’s not always visible. Kids become masters at concealing empty cupboards and missed meals. They learn to time their visits to friends’ houses around mealtimes, hoping for an invitation to stay.
If your biggest food worry was whether you’d get your favorite cereal brand, that’s a form of privilege. The psychological toll of not knowing where your next meal comes from shapes everything from academic performance to long-term relationship with food and security.
2. If you’d have a safe place to sleep tonight
Housing instability doesn’t always mean homelessness, though that’s certainly part of it. It might mean sleeping on different couches each week, or living in a car that you hope doesn’t get towed. It might mean staying with an abusive relative because it’s better than the street.
When I moved to London for university, I stressed about finding affordable accommodation. But I never worried about having no accommodation at all. There was always home as a backup, even if going back felt like failure.
The constant anxiety of housing insecurity affects everything. How do you focus on homework when you don’t know where you’ll do it tomorrow? How do you maintain friendships when you’re ashamed to reveal your situation? This worry creates a type of hypervigilance that never fully goes away, even after achieving stability.
3. Whether you could go to the doctor when you were sick
Growing up in the UK, I took the NHS for granted. But I’ve learned from American friends and from reading extensively about global healthcare that millions of people worldwide face an impossible choice: seek medical care and face financial ruin, or suffer through illness and hope for the best.
Parents watching their children suffer because they can’t afford antibiotics. People ignoring lumps and pains until it’s too late. Diabetics rationing insulin. These aren’t rare stories; they’re daily realities for many.
Even in countries with universal healthcare, there are gaps. Dental care, mental health support, prescriptions — these can still be out of reach. If you went to the doctor whenever you needed to without your family having a financial discussion first, that’s privilege.
4. If your parents would still be there when you got home from school
I’m not talking about divorce or separation, though those bring their own challenges. I’m talking about deportation, incarceration, or parents working three jobs who you might see for ten minutes a day if you’re lucky.
Reading James Baldwin taught me about the particular terror that many Black families in America live with — the possibility that any traffic stop, any encounter, could mean a parent never comes home. Immigration raids that happen while kids are at school, leaving them to return to empty houses and uncertainty.
The stability of knowing your parents would be there, predictably and consistently, provides a psychological foundation that’s hard to replicate once it’s missing. That security shapes your entire worldview about permanence and trust.
5. Whether you’d be able to finish school
When everyone around you goes to university, it’s easy to forget that completing even basic education is a privilege. I was the first in my family to go to university, and I felt that pressure intensely. But I never doubted I’d finish secondary school.
For many, education is a luxury that competes with immediate survival needs. Dropping out to work, to care for siblings, to help the family business — these aren’t choices made lightly. They’re sacrifices that close doors before they ever open.
In some parts of the world, girls especially face this burden. Their education is seen as less important, less worthy of investment. If your biggest school worry was grades rather than whether you’d be allowed to attend, you experienced privilege.
6. If someone would hurt you in your own home
This is the hardest one to write about, but perhaps the most important. The supposed sanctuary of home isn’t safe for everyone. Some children become experts at reading moods, at making themselves small, at knowing which floorboards creak.
Domestic violence, abuse, neglect — these aren’t just news stories. They’re daily realities that shape entire personalities around survival. The hypervigilance never fully fades. The ability to relax in your own home, to let your guard down, to assume safety — that’s a profound privilege.
7. Whether your skin color or religion would make you a target
I grew up in a predominantly white area, and as a white person myself, I never had to worry about being the only one who looked like me in a room. I never had to wonder if a job rejection was about my name or my qualifications. I never had to teach myself to be less threatening, to smile more, to prove I belonged.
Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates and Reni Eddo-Lodge opened my eyes to the exhausting mental load of navigating spaces where your very presence is questioned. The privilege of moving through the world without your identity being seen as a threat or anomaly is something many of us don’t even realize we have.
The bottom line
Recognizing privilege isn’t about feeling guilty or diminishing your own struggles. When I watched my hometown lose jobs and opportunity, when I felt like an outsider in London circles where everyone knew each other from school, those experiences were real and valid.
But understanding privilege helps us see the full picture. It helps us recognize that success isn’t just about hard work — it’s also about which obstacles we didn’t have to overcome. It builds empathy and understanding for struggles we’ve never faced.
Most importantly, acknowledging privilege can motivate us to use whatever advantages we’ve had to create a world where these basic securities aren’t privileges at all, but rights that everyone can count on.
What worries from this list have you never experienced? And what can you do with that recognition?
