Today, I am not feeling nice. I was woken up exceptionally early by unfamiliar sounds and could not get back to sleep. This set the tone for my entire day. I am not in any way a morning person, unless you count those days where I just have not been to sleep yet. I am a night owl and despite being stuffed into a corporate job that requires mornings, I have never adjusted. But this post isn't about my inability to greet the early morning without wanting to kill it, this is just explaining why I am Cranky McCrankyPants today.
What I really want to talk about is people with privilege and how ridiculous they sound when the world just doesn't fall into place for them or give them exactly what they want when they want it. I feel I have every right to talk about this and point fingers because I will absolutely be pointing three right back to myself. When I was growing up, for the most part, if I wanted it and it wasn't just absurd (buy me that $300 toy that will break in a month), I got it. My mother loves to buy presents. She loves to see a person's face light up when she gives them just the thing they were looking for. But, as parents are known to say, she was not the bank of Mom when I became an adult. Plain and simple, she could not afford to keep bailing me out when I was the one spending all my money. Now, she has saved me in DIRE times of need. Like my brakes have failed and have to be replaced, or co-signing on a loan to pay off credit card debit. But it wasn't just a handout, I always had to pay her back. Always.
I have some friends who their parents always help them out. Stove's broken? No problem, we'll get you a new one and call it a birthday present (they still got birthday presents when their birthday rolled around). About to miss a car payment cause you didn't balance your checkbook? Here you go, just don't do it again. (they did it again, multiple times). In one case, they got a free house. A whole house. (Not the best house or the best neighborhood, but the square footage is good and there's a lot of potential. And I should mention that they cared for their ailing Grandmother who owned it until she passed, so it wasn't entirely unwarranted.)
In all honesty, I'm not opposed to my friends having the privilege of parents who will take care of all the lifestyle cramping expenses. If their parents want to do that for them and never make them face the reality that one day their parents will be gone and they will have to handle their grown up lives all on their own, more power to them. What I am opposed to is these friends not having the good graces not to constantly talk about it. Yes, it makes me feel absolutely wonderful when you tell me (about five times in less than an hour) that your parents are going to drop $300 on a new iPhone 4s 32gig for you for Christmas. No, it doesn't bother me in the least (for those of you who are terrible at working out the inflection of one's writing versus one's speaking, this is sarcasm). Of course, I would love to listen to you bitch and moan and sigh about how there are no iPhone 4s' to be found and how you won't have it right this second. And no, I don't feel at all guilty when your apparently extremely fragile feelings are hurt when I tell you that your over-privileged whining is doing nothing to improve my horrid mood (this part is sarcasm free).
These are the same friends that don't understand making a choice between bills or food. Don't get me wrong, neither did I. But then I graduated high school and put on my big girl panties. Now, don't read too much into that, I have never been in danger of starving (I'm a pudgy little thing). My mother would always feed me if I needed it. And she would house me if I needed it. Simply put: I'm an adult and DON'T WANT HER TO.
So, those of you who still get whatever you want by pointing at it and saying "Mom, Dad, buy me that", I'm not saying you have to change your ways, I'm saying you don't have to tell me about it.
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