Spoiled Kids

Spoiled kids. They seem to permeated today's society and the structure of the family. Of course, they are the result of many things. It would be easy to blame the parents but I think personally it's much more complicated than that. Spoiled kids have been around for a long time; however, there seems to be more of them leading me to think that many of them might be in part a product of this generation. The popular video Facebook: for the troubled teen seems to be circulating the web recently, bringing this issue up to my attention. Perhaps I am a little late on the subject but I would like to give my two cents on it nonetheless.

Before I begin, I would like to state the difference between privileged and spoiled. Being privileged is recognizing the many things you have while being spoiled is not. Spoiled children usually want more while privileged children recognize what they have. This is an important difference. I would like to think of myself as privileged though I have my spoiled moments.

The spoiled child makes everyone's life a pain. Many of them do not have regards for the lives of others but can only think of themselves.

They believe that the world owes them something and thus they are responsible for nothing. They have a constant want for more, more, more. Their every wish must be gratified and if it's not, their parents suddenly become some of the most evil people in the world. They have absolutely no value for what they have so they will not think twice about leaving it out or possibly breaking these very objects. Usually they are of the middle or upper class.

We all know who these children are. We've probably met them in our everyday lives. For me, many of them are the stupid bitches I know in school who of course have every brand name and they are the troublemakers in school not accountable to the teachers. They have just about everything they want and they have no sense of how fortunate they are.

Of course, these children cannot be punished and are extremely hard to control the more they grow. When they grow up, it is even more difficult to control them and they have to wait a little bit to find out what exactly is coming their way. Often the spoiled child is set up for failure and, in a way, their parents are too (especially when they get older and these spoiled children cannot bother to be in their presence).

Now, what causes them? It's easy to say their parents. According to the many parents I've heard from, parenting is the hardest job in the world. It's extremely difficult to say no to a child and it's even harder to actually discipline them. Obviously, though, when this is not done and the child is not made to work for what they have, they become spoiled. There become a natural set of qualities that come to a child like this.

Yet I believe an underlying cause of this is the way society works today. In today's world, we are filled with gadgets. These gadgets are more expensive than most other toys. The Internet and the TV have inundated us with the message of consumerism, telling us to want more, more, more and that we deserve more. These messages do not teach us self-control but rather to blow caution to the wind. They teach us instant gratification instead of the virtues of patience and hard work. Thus, parenting becomes harder in this day and age.

There is also the problem of the attitude in modern society. At the very least, punishing your child was more acceptable in the past. I am definitely against physical punishment but at least that was something. Now, the idea of multiple chores is unacceptable to many. The idea of little Johnny's self-esteem becomes so important that this little Johnny is exempt from criticism.

While the actions of the parent in the above video were lauded by many, many criticized this parent as being emotionally abusive and of being too extreme. Personally, my only complaint is that this laptop was not wasted and not given to someone who actually needed it.

According to americanhumane.org, emotional abuse is ignoring, verbally assaulting, rejecting, isolating, exploiting/corrupting, terrorizing and neglecting the needs of the child. None of these behaviors were exhibited in the above video. It could be argued that this father was isolating his daughter by his actions but I disagree. His daughter is still allowed to go to school and she will not be permanently grounded. It's not like the Internet is a right. Also, he had no idea the video would go viral in the first place so he had no idea of the embarrassment he might cause (on the other hand, she did humiliate him and the other adults in her life by posting that message on Facebook in the first place). I seriously doubt that anyone at her school will make fun of or even recognize her father; if they do know her, they'll be like, "damn, glad this wasn't me" or "your dad sucks". That's not how most teens think. People need to get real.

The idea of spoiled children is a serious issue in our society that needs to be dealt with. The welfare of my generation as well as those very kids depends on it.

By the way, I say kudos to that dad! His daughter's behavior, while normal teenage rebellion, was unacceptable and needed to be dealt with. His punishment will definitely stick and I'm sure it's made other kids think twice.