I am really happy to see this topic being addressed. I am 25 years-old and was very spoiled (mostly by my father) when I was a child. I have 3 older sisters, but they were out of the house by the time I was growing up, so I grew up like an only child. I knew exactly how to manipulate my parents to get whatever it was that I wanted. I never really had to do chores; never really had any responsibilities. I had jobs when I was a teenager, but my father would still give me what I wanted if I asked for it.
After a few years of my parents being divorced, my mom took my dad for everything he had. My dad at the time was also not in the best of shape and was forced to go on disability, which didn't exactly pay very much. Our family was reduced to living on toast and peanut butter for almost every meal. We were lucky if we had pasta. This was a bit of a wake up call for me, but not necessarily a big enough one. I still felt like the world owed me something.
When I left home for university, everything was pretty much paid for. My uncle covered my tuition and my mom and dad paid my rent and other bills. After a while at university, I started to become a little more humble. My way of socializing with others was simply not working. People didn't really like me, probably because I always felt I had to be the center of attention and nobody really likes an attention whore. Plus, there were a whole lot of other kids whose families had way more money than mine did. I started to think, "maybe I'm not so special."
I'm not really sure at what point in my life that my attitude and outlook started to change. Maybe it was when I took a couple of religion classes and learned about Buddhism. I thought, "this really makes sense. Why haven't I been trying to live my life a little more like this?" I started to loathe materialism and began seizing my days and the wonderful times with the people I love in my life.
I am still sort of broken from the way my parents spoiled me. I am an exotic dancer now and have been for 4 years. It started as a summer job during school. I was good at it and so it became a profession for me. I don't know. Maybe because it was so easy for me to get money out of my father, it comes naturally for me to get it from other men. I know I've been spoiled. I think of getting a regular job sometimes, but the money and the freedom that my job provides makes it extremely difficult to leave this lifestyle.
So, parents...if you have a daughter that you're spoiling, I'd say look out. It will make her lazy and she will look for the easy way out of everything. Money comes and goes in life. It's the time that you spend with your child, the way you spend it and the values that you instill in your child that matter most.
