People who grew up without any ponies at all

[Wardah]

Who else didn't have any ponies as a kid? Whether you grew up in a gap between available generations or just didn't learn to appreciate MLP until you were older. What generation was the first generation of pony you liked.

I actually grew up with the original LPS.  When the new generation came out I fell in love with G3 while I was hunting for new pets.

[Tulips]

I avoided anything pink and girly like the plague as a child. I was only vaguely aware of MLP during G3 and knew nothing of G1 or G2. G4 technically got me into My Little Pony just as I entered my 20s, but my first 'pony' was a Lanard Fakie I bought from a white elephant stall in my early teens. I collect all generations now.

[lostpony]

I grew up with no interest in pony. 

I got caught up in early computers, had a whole career ending in burnout and languished for a decade before discovering G4 less than two years ago and then found G1 and now my life has meaning.

I love G1 so much.

[Kittywhiskers]

When I was a kid, I really liked ponies - as in the actual animal. However, I didn't have any actual My Little Ponies. I barely knew those existed. I grew up with money troubles and a dad who had a massive irrational hatred of all things MLP up until I eventually introduced him to Friendship is Magic and he managed to finally accept that My Little Pony is not inherently terrible. (He's a nice person, but sometimes he gets these weird ideas into his head that he refuses to let go of and it's really just easier to pretend to agree with him.)

The closest I got to actual MLP was a pair of fakies I got at the Royal Adelaide Show the one time I went there (which my dad hated from the moment he first saw them. He also insisted they were MLP even though 4-year-old me could tell they weren't. He didn't believe me until a decade later. Gah).

The first generation I was able to get into (thanks dad...) was G4.

[NightGliderSA]

It makes me sad to think that there were people who grew up without any ponies at all. Kittywhiskers, your story is heart rending. I can just picture this poor little one yearning for ponies to play with; it must have been so hard and I am so sorry.

[Blue Haired Ken Doll]

I didnt hace any growing up! Loved LPS tho!

[Luxrayx]

I had a G2 and some fakies as a kid, but I just treated them like generic horse toys. Not only was I strongly opposed to pink/girly things, but I'm pretty sure I didn't know what My little pony was - the first time I remember hearing that name is when FiM got popular!

[Cswift]

I technically had a hand-me-down Sweetheart Sister (Rosey Love, I think) and a few G2 McDonald's toys, but that's about it. The way I played with dolls, they were all basically just characters in a sprawling story, and it didn't really matter to me if those characters were humans, ponies, dogs, cars, etc...basically, because I wasn't into ponies specifically, I had no incentive to seek MLP out. I only got into it later specifically because by chance I saw some G1s in person and thought "wow, this is way cuter than the MLP I remember!"

I remember making my McDonald's toy Light Heart a huge jerk in my games. I'm not really sure why, lol.

[CloudyGlow]

I didn't have any ponies until 2003 when I was 12 or 13 so I didn't really have ponies as a child. I don't remember seeing them in stores until then. I probably overlooked them but was pony not really big in the 90s? I just don't remember ever seeing commercials or cartoons and no one I knew played with them.

[invaderhorizongreen]

For me I grew up with gen one two did not appeal to me at the time, and I missed gen 3 entirely, by chance I found a pinke pie in a snow pile at work, and then gen 3 grew on me. I had no idea of gen 3.5 till I found one and thought they were cute. 

[lostpony]

Wow Kittywhiskers that's so sad.  I hope you are making up for lost pony time now.

Haha Cswift there's no explaining why we assign what personalities to toys in play...but I love hearing about it.

invaderhorizongreen, my first MLP was a G3 Pinkie Pie found in some trash and had her around and when G4 gripped me and I learned about fakies, I described it to a friend and found out who she is.  Also I love g3.5s so much, and I don't like big heads on things generally but they are so luxurious and heavy and wonderful even if some think they're ugly.

I'm loving these stories.  Thanks everyone for sharing and thanks OP for posting this topic.

[Kittywhiskers]

It makes me sad to think that there were people who grew up without any ponies at all. Kittywhiskers, your story is heart rending. I can just picture this poor little one yearning for ponies to play with; it must have been so hard and I am so sorry.

When I said I liked ponies as a kid, I just meant the actual animal (and I just went back and edited my post to make this more clear). I was barely aware of My Little Pony at the time - my dad's insisting that the fakies were MLP was actually the main reason I even knew about the franchise at all before I started seeing ads for some oddball G3s like Sweet Steps when I was 9 or 10. The ones I saw in the ads weren't that appealing, but I had the vague feeling there were probably other ones out there that I'd like.

Wow Kittywhiskers that's so sad.  I hope you are making up for lost pony time now.

Pretty much, yeah. Now I have probably over 100 ponies from all generations (though I don't really keep track of the number), and I've checked out the shows that went with each generation. I've also tried whatever video games I've been able to get, though they tend not to be any good. My family's fine with my collection, complete with the DVDs from various eras that I have in the living room with the rest of our DVDs (the "pink section", which grows from time to time).

[HoustonCollector72]

Growing up we never got budget for toys it was pretty dire on that end, I do remember some plastic horse toys I loved, they were a gift of my God Parents and I still remember those horses, a cream one and a black one on the Arabian Classic pose, such pose as the Barbie Horses that I started collecting last September  ,how cool all comes full circle LOL. I have added around 140 Barbie Horses since then and maybe 50-60 Barbies as well, I was 12 and my addiction to toys then was strong, I bought many Barbies back in the 80s ,I was already doing some odd jobs for toy money LOL I stopped buying toys maybe after my sisters grew up and were no longer into them, I do remember saving their boxes and making a frame like for them to be hanged kinda like how I hang my g2s now, I left home and never knew what happened to them ,but they surfaced in a suitcase after my Mom sold her house few years back.
my Niece has them now and she was the one who offered me the first Barbie Horse, it was about to go to the trash or garage sale bin but I jumped on trying to give it a spa and savage it , little that I know that It would make my love for Barbies and Horses reignite once again 30 years later .
It turns out the horse is super rare , there were 3 on the set (Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper 2004 )Royal Horses, Still waiting to find the other 2 and maybe even a new one of the first one I have.

so no ponies in the 80s for me, maybe some McD ponies that were hideous ,probably the g3.5 ,My niece had few lol

Netflix insisted on me wathchin MLP FIM back in 2012, I was hooked on the show and by July 2012 I was buying ponies , by September I was here trying to get the euro releases and then discovered the rest of the Gens, 2013 came and G2 became my obsession and still are, along with Barbie Horses now

[Harmonie]

That would be me. I had no interest as a child, and this is made very clear to me by the fact that I don't even have any recollection of even knowing what My Little Pony even was before high school when I joined another forum where a moderator had a username based off of a then brand new G3 My Little Pony.

By then I long had no interest in toys at all.

It would be several years after that I found interest in MLP. It started with the Friendship is Magic cartoon. I had heard of Faust's idea that the show should be a show where all kinds of girls could relate with the characters, and I liked that and wanted to check it out.

It would be a few years after that where I found interest in the toys, and it was the G3 toys I found interest in - the generation I actually first found out about.

[Al-1701]

I didn't even know ponies existed until 1992 when the show started airing on the Disney Channel.  My sister was also the wrong age for ponies.  So, there were no ponies in my house.  Not until I started collecting a few years ago.