And sometimes it just seems sort of incomparable. My mom grew up in a rural village of about 30 families in Greece in the 1950s that had no electricity, running water, TVs, etc. She objectively realizes it was a "deprived" childhood by modern standards, but she doesn't subjectively remember it being bad at all. It's just what life was like: you got water from the well, and it was fine, because that's what everyone does, and there was no sense that you were a poor person for not having running water, because nobody had running water, not in your village or in the neighboring villages. And subjectively she even thinks some things were better, like the community and social support you get from a close-knit group of 30 families who all know each other / bake bread at the community oven together / etc. I doubt she would go back to that lifestyle today given the choice, but she doesn't have an "omg that sucked, I'm so glad I'm now in the U.S. in a suburban home" view of it either.