treat you like milk, do nothing but spoil you. in second grade, i assured the kids around me that my father had a million dollars. of course, i blame my faulty english and ignorance of large numbers, but i was sure we had a million dollars. after all, a million didn't sound like so much, doesn't everyone have it? clearly, we didn't have a million dollars at the time but i had no clue what a million was anyways so i was adamant in my defense of it. now that i know what a million is, i can't conceive of anyone having a million dollars, at least in the next twenty years or so. do you know how much i could do with a million dollars? i could retire for life! actually, not really. a million just doesn't go as far as it used to. a million will fetch you a nice home in san diego with spending money for about five years. maybe.



some people have accused me of being spoiled. like of having a spoiled upbringing, mentality and all the negative connotations that are associated with the word "spoiled." and to my detractors i say, "yes, i'm spoiled." i grew up in the crotch of luxury; i got a car at sixteen; for most of my life, summers were job and burden free; post-college, i scammed my parents to fund years of dilettante existence. i've felt, at various times in my life, that i was supposed to be able to do this, supposed to get that -- travel to different countries, take snowboarding vacations, etc. allowance was a birthright, not something to be earned or deserved.



but i never really put two and two together (until a few years ago) that i lived a privileged lifestyle. after all, i went to school with kids who had giant mansions, complete with multiple staircases and three acre backyards, indoor pools, outdoor pools, brand new BMVs, rooms specifically set aside to hold toys and play things, pool tables, horses. in comparison to the plastics, we just got the econo version of what everyone else got. ah, the warped reality that is private school.



so what did the silver spoons treatment result in? well, fiscal irresponsibility for one. while i don't think being well off leads directly to fiscal irresponsibility, i do believe it's a major contributing factor. why be fiscally responsible when it's never been an issue? while my tastes have always been utilitarian and never extravagant, money never seemed to be an endangered resource. despite my parents' (or rather, my mom's) best efforts to instill the "money doesn't grow on trees" philosophy, i lost something in the translation. part of the reason my mom loves me more when i have a job is that having a job will make me eventually realize the true "value of a dollar." obviously, my mom isn't a big fan of the "money ain't a thang" generation. shame.



the other thing with being spoiled is how easily one can set aside standard life issues. it's easy to ignore worries about having a job and supporting oneself if mommy and daddy are always behind you holding up a giant safety net. people ask me, "hey, aren't you worried about not having a career or a job or an anything?" most of the time i say "nope, not really." part of this is my natural lackadaisical attitude but part of it is that in the back of my (un)conscious mind, there was always a fall back plan. i had the luxury of dawdling around until something desireable came my way, most people don't get this.



i've heard that to spoil your kids is to ruin them. while i don't totally agree with this statement, it is somewhat true. if your kids are used to getting everything, why would they work for anything? then again, i know many kids who've always had everything and didn't emerge with a lax work ethic or a divine right of kings mentality. so, rhetorically speaking, was it just me?