Am I spoiled?

While growing up, I would routinely choose to play Pokémon over doing the dishes. The fact that I had a choice never struck me as strange. While I certainly had chores — cleaning my room when it became unlivable, walking the dog I had begged for, attending the piano lessons my parents had paid for — I had very few household responsibilities. You could say I was spoiled. And thanks to the recent discourse surrounding my generation’s upbringing, I’ve just discovered that I’m one of millions of 21st-century American kids who have been shielded from hardship by overprotective parents.

I don’t dispute this claim. Being in an upper-middle-class suburb in the 21st century, my friends and I spent our summers attending field hockey camp and after-school hours laboring at SAT prep. I’ve never worked an unpleasant job out of necessity, though I will say that I worked on an organic farm in France one summer, feeding goats and making crêpes. But I’m fairly certain that doesn’t count.

While I was never forced to listen to classical music in my crib, I include myself in the category of the over-tended-to. My parents taught me that my ideas mattered (even when they were dumb — hot dog chocolate chip cookies were disgusting) — and they did everything they could to make my life easy and carefree. When I convinced my parents that I needed the baby doll that fake-urinated, of course it was under the Christmas tree.

This has plunked me straight into what the writer Sally Koslow has termed “adultescence.” I’m a college graduate on the verge of 22, and I still feel like a child. One day last week I did my laundry, and all of the white things turned pink. My parents, by relieving me of the burden of household chores, freed me up to do other things like read, write bad poems or watch television (the last being an unintended consequence of their scheme). Yet this “freedom,” in turn, left me deprived of some very fundamental, grown-up skills, like cleaning my clothes without changing their color.

But the current spoiled-youth storyline is missing something crucial. Every single one of the hand-wringing essays I’ve read concentrates exclusively on children like me: the products of privileged upbringings. Maybe not the one percent, but the fifteen percent. Yet the young people who didn’t go to theater camp, who didn’t fly to France to work on organic farms, who didn’t prep for the SATs, go strangely unmentioned.

Spoiled children, in themselves, aren’t dangerous or problematic; there will always be children who have their needs (and more) taken care of by their parents. Rather, spoiled children become toxic to society when they are unable to acknowledge their privilege. The more organic-baby-food-eating children of my generation who can say, “Yes, I’m spoiled,” the better. Those who believe in the naturalness of their economic and academic entitlement prove the most problematic, as they will come to see themselves as superior, even more deserving, than those who were dealt worse hands as children. My peers who oppose affirmative action, for example, insist that admission to college should be based purely on merit, not skin color.

What they fail to realize is that their “merit” was nurtured by their circumstances — math tutors, parents who bought them books, free time to join every extracurricular because they didn’t need after-school jobs.

A friend recently told me, “I��m spoiled, but I’m not a brat,” making a crucial point in this debate. We can’t help being spoiled; our parents did that to us. But what our parents can also do to us is instill a sense of social responsibility and humbleness that will prevent us from becoming adult brats. Part of my avoidance of “brat” status, I believe, comes from having attended public schools, where I learned alongside a socially and economically diverse group of students. My parents also preached to me the importance of social activism and political involvement: dragging me to rallies, encouraging me to volunteer and constantly reminding me how fortunate I was to grow up where I did.

Admittedly, even as an early 20-something, I must constantly fight the brat impulse. I recently sent a text message to my mother asking if she could send a care package with candy to my Brooklyn apartment. I still have trouble mustering the energy to take out the trash. But I’m working on it.

Fortunately, no matter how spoiled you are as a child, you learn how to function when you’re forced to live by yourself in the world. Because the real world can’t sustain the spoiled lifestyle. If you don’t take out the trash, the mice will come for you. If you can’t take public transportation, you’ll spend your life savings in cabs. And if you act like a brat, everyone’s going to hate you.

You are certainly privileged and own a lot that many people don't have but spoiled is not about what you have but how you act and how you treat others. It's about a sense of entitlement that you deserve what you have over and above everyone and everything else. It's also about showing off and flaunting what you have to others who may not have as much.

From your question you don't sound as if you're spoiled. If you're working for what you have, appreciate what your parents are able to provide, and show a caring attitude toward your friends and others, you aren't spoiled.

I don't think it matters what you own but by your character and attitude towards these things, and from what it sounds like you don't sound spoiled at all!:)

Just because you asked this questions makes me doubt that you're spoiled, most people who are spoiled could care less. You appreciate what your parents buy you and you get good grades. Those are important qualities. Your friends may think that your spoiled but hard work pays off. I'm sure they would get some rewards too if they raised their grades a little!

Best wishes and good luck!!xx

I think you're the only one who can answer this question honestly. What I think is, so what if you get the things you want? If you truly do appreciate the things your parents get for you and do take care of your things. That's great. Being spoiled in my definition is whining about what you want even when your parents say no. Throwing tantrums and not appreciating what you do have. If you're as good a child as you say you are, like doing good in school, not breaking rules, following what your parents say, then you're not spoiled. Hell if your parents can afford to spend extra on you and they feel you've earned and do deserve it, then whatever right? I don't think your spoiled and I think your friends might just be a little jealous.

I think more so that your friend is a little jealous of your possessions, and not you being spoiled. Your friends calling you spoiled over the items you have just because your parents are giving you items you appreciate makes them sound bitter because they are not receiving same treatment as you are by their parents. This is very judgemental, and that to me is being spoiled by their attitude towards your possession, not you being spoiled just by having these items.

BUT... then again I do not know you, and can only answer the question as I read it. You could possibly be bragging about your items, and it may be doing your friend's head in, so they are just saying you are 'spoiled' to make you be quiet through annoyance. After all, you did list items to us as if it is necessary to tell us, so I don't know if you mention your possessions to your friends, or blatantly show it off in front of them.

You don't seem spoiled to me. The things you own don't determine how your parents treat you. To me, a 'spoiled' person is someone who receives alot of good things or attention from their parents, HOWEVER they get so use to it, they begin taking things for granted and expect their parents to buy them things and treat them like their little prince or princess no matter how they behave. (I may be wrong) But from what I see here, you are definitely appreciative of everything you have. And you work hard for the things you have. I think your friends are either assuming you are spoiled because of the things you own, or they are just plain jealous.

You're not spoiled, just have many advantages that other people don't have. Like I don't live in a house, i don't own a pool, i don't have a father, im poor. You just have a good life and you have to realize your blessed to have it. But don't go bragging about first world problems, people will disfavor you. I'm not saying you are, some people are just less fortunate than others.

Yes but that's ok I'm spoiled to lol I have a flat screen tv

Laptop

iPhone 6

A lot of Victoria's Secret

Purses

CDs

Movies

DVD played and vhs

I can name lots more I might be getting a Nike windbreaker this weekend. So don't feel bad! Lol :)

Yes, you're spoiled. So what? Being a spoiled brat is another thing though

No just privilege

Big difference lol

I have that same problem with people thinking I'm spoiled too because Of my lifestyle

People seem to misuse the word 'spoiled.' What this means is someone who is rotten to their core that they have little or no regard for anybody or for anything but themselves. Society associates "spoiled people" with that of children who come from a life of financial privilege. But, as someone who has grown up within a life of relative comfortability, I see this word as unjustly applied.

Throughout my life, some of the most humble people were ones who had come from a life of privilege, while some of the worst people (in terms of personality and attitude) were ones who were relatively less financially able. Truthfully, I have seen more kids who come from middle or lower class families who had acted very rotten in comparison to kids who come from well-to-do families. This is not to shift the shame towards the children of relatively poorer families, but to illustrate that "spoiled people" could also be those who are less fortunate.

To me, a "spoiled" person is someone with a $hitty attitude. I think that the more appropriate term for you would be 'pampered.'

In the link below is an example of someone who is spoiled rotten.