By "INDYSTRUCTABLE" - 12/05/2017 14:51
INDYSTRUCTABLE tells us more.
hi, OP here! wow, I can't believe I finally got posted! Okay, so here's what happened. My daughter got upset because her 2 year old brother was wearing Birkenstocks and she claimed he would grow up to be bullied like she is by her "friends" because those sandals are "lame" & "cheap". I'm not wealthy but i do strive to give them what I consider nice things, or so I thought. For Christmas she got 225 dollar timberland boots and 100 dollar snickers in Feb for her birthday. she ruins most shoes with mud, scrapes and mistreatment within a month! so I don't want to purchase the 300 dollar shoes and see my hard earn money wasted. she argued that she's popular therefore I'm obligated to buy her things to impress her friends. Any gifts I give her such as trips to Victoria secret for new bras is not a "gift" but her right because that's the norm now in 2017. she told me I need to try to give her a better childhood than I had or I should have taken BC or given her up for adoption. (I grew up poor, with 10 shoes from payless) I don't spoil her at all! I'm not wealthy! but her friends are putting these stupid thoughts in her head by telling her their parents spend a 1000 dollars every week on new shoes. (this is a middle class public school, completely false). As a teen mom, I sacrificed so much of my happiness and went without so much so she would never feel "poor" although I struggle greatly to support her alone, so her completely broke my heart and reduced me to tears. I don't want her to be a materialist person. I love the minimalist lifestyle but I don't force it on my family. I try to show them that life's most valuable things have no price tag. I feel like social media is putting these insane unrealistic expectations on kids to get likes. apparently the few compliments on her shoes mentioned above weren't good enough. She is a spoiled rude self entitled brat. I won't be spending a dime on another piece of clothing or shoes for a very long time. by the way this argument took place over the phone, otherwise I might have thrown her through a wall for the disrespect.
Top comments
Comments
And that's when you stop buying any fancy clothes and make her realize how fortune she is to have what she has. And when she is old enough to work a PT job, completely stop buying her clothes, make up, and other such nonessentials.
I'd advise OP that for a month or two he'd only pay her an hourly wage for the chores the daughter completes around the house - cooking, cleaning, doing laundry as such. The hourly wage should be the minimum wage in the state they live in. And for that she should buy her own necessities. Maybe that would make her see how much money is actually worth.
What a child values and their attitude comes from the parent or parents.
Well too late for the first but maybe adoption is still an option?
take her to a homeless shelter so she can realize what she's got. if she needs 300$ shoes to impress her friends- what kind of friends are they?
Even better, make her volunteer in the homeless shelter for a spell and actually get to know the people. That would hopefully give her a dose of reality.
Great idea! At the homeless shelter, they'll be impressed by much cheaper shoes! You are a genius.
Just saying.... my brother spent a year and a half in a homeless shelter, more than half of them have been there a lot longer than he had, and a good portion of them had iPods, tablets, phones, laptops and other things like that, she may end up feeling worse if the shelters around Op are like this one lol.
I hope you teach her to appreciate what she already has, and that's trying to impress people with expensive things isn't worth it at all. On a side note, I think making expensive clothing for kids is ridiculous, considering that they'll eventually grow out of them.
"Too impress her friends?" That's bullshit. Now, to get a sugar daddy? Well, that could be an investment!
Wow, she's a spoiled little brat. Has she always gotten her way? And I agree with people who have said that you should stop buying her nice stuff altogether. And yes, make her see how fortunate she is by taking her to a homeless shelter. And if she needs new clothes? Hit the second-hand store for a while.
hi, OP here! wow, I can't believe I finally got posted! Okay, so here's what happened. My daughter got upset because her 2 year old brother was wearing Birkenstocks and she claimed he would grow up to be bullied like she is by her "friends" because those sandals are "lame" & "cheap". I'm not wealthy but i do strive to give them what I consider nice things, or so I thought. For Christmas she got 225 dollar timberland boots and 100 dollar snickers in Feb for her birthday. she ruins most shoes with mud, scrapes and mistreatment within a month! so I don't want to purchase the 300 dollar shoes and see my hard earn money wasted. she argued that she's popular therefore I'm obligated to buy her things to impress her friends. Any gifts I give her such as trips to Victoria secret for new bras is not a "gift" but her right because that's the norm now in 2017. she told me I need to try to give her a better childhood than I had or I should have taken BC or given her up for adoption. (I grew up poor, with 10 shoes from payless) I don't spoil her at all! I'm not wealthy! but her friends are putting these stupid thoughts in her head by telling her their parents spend a 1000 dollars every week on new shoes. (this is a middle class public school, completely false). As a teen mom, I sacrificed so much of my happiness and went without so much so she would never feel "poor" although I struggle greatly to support her alone, so her completely broke my heart and reduced me to tears. I don't want her to be a materialist person. I love the minimalist lifestyle but I don't force it on my family. I try to show them that life's most valuable things have no price tag. I feel like social media is putting these insane unrealistic expectations on kids to get likes. apparently the few compliments on her shoes mentioned above weren't good enough. She is a spoiled rude self entitled brat. I won't be spending a dime on another piece of clothing or shoes for a very long time. by the way this argument took place over the phone, otherwise I might have thrown her through a wall for the disrespect.
It shouldn't be your problem that she's got expensive tastes! I'd tell her that, from now on, anything beyond the most basic essentials can come out of her own bank account. Babysitting isn't that hard!
Hey OP - I totally hear you. I'm a (former) teen mom myself. My oldest will be 17 on Monday and seems to think that his skinny (pasty white) ass is a "thug". *sigh* He also is dealing with addiction issues (thanks genetics!) and my mom 100% enables him. He is now living with her and she comes from the school of thought that you need to be FRIENDS with your kids, not the parent. Yeah. That's what partially caused her to be grandma before she was 40 in the first place, the moron. I have tried getting him in to rehab, which caused him to run away. He is now missing 5 front teeth because he got them knocked out in February (and guess who got to pay for that? Yup - me). He's not going to school. Of course, if I get social services involved, all they will do is charge me child support (our state's social services are overworked, overfull, and useless) to the point that I will lose my house and he'll run away back to my mother. All you can do is continue doing what you're doing and hope the message sinks in eventually. Stop buying the nice things. Buy the basics. Bare basics. If they are her friends, they will still like her. If they don't - well, she can start baby-sitting to earn the money to actually buy her own expensive things. My kids always liked to pull the "but my friends get money for doing chores!" routine. That's nice. I'm not paying you to keep your room clean and pick up after yourself. As an adult, you don't get paid to keep your house clean. It's part of being an adult. As a parent, I'm teaching you to be an adult; that's MY job. Part of living in a home is keeping it clean. I'm not paying you to be a decent human being with common sense and a modicum of respect.
My daughter pulled something similar once. We bagged up all her "fancy" clothes, and took her shopping at Goodwill for some clothes instead. It was amazing how fast that attitude went away!
Keywords
![FMyLife](/images/v2/logo-fml.png)
![FMyLife](/images/v2/logo-fml.png)
And that's when you stop buying any fancy clothes and make her realize how fortune she is to have what she has. And when she is old enough to work a PT job, completely stop buying her clothes, make up, and other such nonessentials.
take her to a homeless shelter so she can realize what she's got. if she needs 300$ shoes to impress her friends- what kind of friends are they?