So they won’t spoil their damn children…..
It’s the end of the day at Plano West Senior High School, and teenagers are pouring into the parking lot.
One jumps into a BMW M3. Another takes off in a Jaguar X-Type. A Land Rover joins the pack.
Senior Jodi Payson drives a black Hummer H2. She carries a Louis Vuitton purse and a credit card with no limit.
Last year, Jodi was among the privileged class at Plano West that sets the unspoken benchmark that many other students – and therefore their parents – strive to attain.
Plano West stands out for its students’ affluence and their academic achievements, but it is as representative as any Collin County school in that parents say they feel pressure, from their children and their surroundings, to meet the highest lifestyle standards.
Competition starts early. Parents try to outdo one another on birthday parties with limousine chauffeurs and costumed characters.
By the time they’re teenagers, children can shop on their own, which takes the spending to a whole new level.
They want bigger toys, including cars, and they won’t settle for the type of jalopy their parents drove when they were 16.
This area is one of the wealthiest in the country, and it is also among the youngest. About three in 10 residents of Collin County are younger than 18.
Parents from all income levels say the urge to spend is most powerful when it comes to their children.
They might be in debt up to their eyebrows, but their child will have a cellphone and a Blackberry and a luxury car, said Mia Mbroh, a parent educator for the national nonprofit counseling organization Practical Parent Education in Plano.
“They do it out of love, and they don’t want their kids to be the odd man out,” she said. “Adults want to fit in as much as children.”
All for the kids
On a spring night in Frisco, Jenny and Jeff Proznik invite six of their 30-something neighbors for an informal dinner party.
As they crack jokes and pass around a few beers, they talk about their lifestyles and priorities. While they’re not the type to be obsessed about Rolex watches and the latest line of Vera Wang cocktail dresses, they acknowledge that they fuel the Collin County-area consumerism.
“A lot of our spending is what you hear upstairs,” Mike Pettis said, gesturing toward a playroom where 11 children were giggling and trying out one another’s toys.
“We’re breeders,” Ms. Proznik said. “There’s something in this water. You just get into the mind-set that it’s all about the kids.”
They all have their own playrooms, Mr. Proznik said.
“There’s more toys up there in that room than I had in my entire life. And that’s just going to keep multiplying,” he said.
Childhood has changed, said Mike’s wife, Nikki Pettis. She recalled a Christmas party where the women passed around pictures of themselves as children.
“We looked at the backgrounds. There was a chair in the room or a couch. There were no accessories,” she said.
“You do more for your kids than your parents did for you,” Ms. Proznik said. “My responsibility is to make [my daughter’s] life easier and better than mine. That’s my job.”
The Prozniks say they won’t give in to a child’s demand to buy something merely because one of his or her friends has it, but they also want their son and daughter to fit in.
“I don’t want it to be that my kid is the only one who doesn’t have a scooter, and every other kid is zooming by on the street,” Ms. Proznik said.
I call my kids the “anticonsumers”. They’ve seen all of this kind of thing going on at their high school, and they find it rather stupid. The only things my kids ever want is more books, video and computer games, and gaming books for their role playing games. Clothes, cars, flash they couldn’t care less about.
Competing with others to look good or impress them with your stuff is probably the worst thing about American culture. We all have too much stuff, and we all are never satisfied with it until we realize that life is about more than stuff. The people who are most into competitng for stuff are usually the most brain-dead, least interesting people I know.
The excuses these people make for their excess in the article are just classic. They would be far better off taking their kids to do some charity work or over to the bad parts of town to see how real people live. Then, maybe, we wouldn’t have such screwed-up values in this country.
2 Responses
Bravo….I had a well off (at the time) adolescence, and was plenty thankful for everything I had and was exposed to (theatre, travel, etc.) But on a recent trip to Belize, where the locals were thrilled to have piped in water within a short walking distance, I heard comments from “adults” in the vein of “why do they live like that…they’re in shacks…I didn’t come on vacation to see this”….drove me insane….we have so much, TOO much and the next generation is even worse (from that socio-economic class). The other problem is, that those of a lower socio-economic class strive to be like that, so they gravitate to WalMart to get more stuff..where the hell is this ever going to end??????
good article i think kids in wealthy families should lean how to work in the real world for a couple of years and maby they would appreciate all they have