Top 10 Cities With 'Most Spoiled' Kids
For
the most part, I don't care how other parents parent their own kids.
After all, what does it have to do with MY kid? But I am starting to
hate parents who spoil their kids.
So I have to say a company that's claiming they have a list of the cities with the most spoiled kids (and of course the cities with the least spoiled kids) made me curious. Could we be looking at a giant warning sign for parents who don't want to be sucked into buying their kids a bunch of crap they don't need because we want to keep up with the Joneses?
The thing is, I never thought my kid would be spoiled. Not even when we made the decision to be one and done. And then she started elementary school. In came the wants. No. Wait. The needs! "Mommy, I need this," she insists. Because, of course, so-and-so in her class has it, so therefore, she must have it too. You see the problem?
It's like a virus that spreads. One parent spoils their kid, and the next kid starts whining, and finally THAT parent gets guilted into making a purchase, and so on and so on. For the most part, we just say no. That's our jobs. But there's only so much whining one can take, and we all have to give in some time. Let's just say there was a lot of "but everyone has one" that led to the handheld gaming system charging in my living room outlet right now.
Tracking "spoiled kids" by city doesn't surprise me in the least. So here's the skinny:
Bundle, the compiler of the spoiled kids list, used the average amounts spent at stores that sell toys, clothing, and other kid accoutrements to judge whether parents were going overboard on their kids. Their data puts Manhattan at the top of the list, followed by Brooklyn, New York; then Miami, Florida. Minneapolis and Tulsa round out the top five. Los Angeles -- home to all those celebrity parents -- makes the top 10, as does Dallas, Texas, land of living large.
I was set to say that it was all about the cost of living -- Manhattan, after all, is an expensive place, so people are going to have to spend more on a box of blocks, right? But get this. Number five "most spoiled" city Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a cost of living that's just about equal to Madison, Wisconsin, the city that gets the billing of LEAST spoiled in the country. Not to mention the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are a total split -- the former is on the most spoiled list, but the latter is full of parents who are making their kids make do.
So what should you do if you don't want to have to listen to a kid harping (and be the mean mom who says "NO" all the time?)? Avoid the following:
- Miami, FL
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Dallas, TX
- Atlanta, GA
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Diego, CA
- Ft. Worth, TX
Now move to Madison, Wisconsin; St. Paul, Minnesota; or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They're the three cities where spoiling is truly out of style!
Are your kids spoiled? In what ways?
How do you avoid spoiling your kids?
Here is the link to the orginal article from Yahoo that I read last week. It also lists the 10 cities that spoil their kids the least.
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/cities-where-kids-most-spoiled-201700290.html
I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Formerly Dallas, currently Fort Worth and I have to say that I would agree with the article. I am even guilty of it myself. Not over the top, my kids need $200 tennis shoes every month or the lastest and great electronics that come out every 3 months, but I have been known to indulge in 'unnecessaries' because they have asked for them.
Quoting Cafe MichelleP:I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Formerly Dallas, currently Fort Worth and I have to say that I would agree with the article. I am even guilty of it myself. Not over the top, my kids need $200 tennis shoes every month or the lastest and great electronics that come out every 3 months, but I have been known to indulge in 'unnecessaries' because they have asked for them.
My kids sure don't get everything they want/ask for.
If they are spoiled, it's more in that they have very few chores compared to a lot of other kids.
I dont think how much a child gets is determanent on how spoiled they are, rather their attitude about it and if they get everything they want. But anyway, my kids are far from spoiled. They dont have so many toys that they dont even know how many they have or what half their toys are, we dont buy toys unless its Christmas or their birthday, sometimes they will get the occassional little toy as a treat, but thats it and they dont care, they truely appreciate every toy they get. We havn't guarded them from how some people live, they know that some children dont have any toys at all or have the needs that they need to survive, like food and clothing and a place to sleep, so they really do appreciate it when they get a gift, no matter how small. You could give my son a box to play with and you would be his new best friend. We buy based on needs and purpose, if they say that they want or need something, we ask them why and if they have a good reason, like its a toy dinosaur and they really like it and they dont have anything else like it, then we say okay, put it on the Christmas list, but if they say that they "need" a new pair of shoes when they have perfectly good ones because everyone else has them, we tell them too bad, they have good shoes, they dont "need" another pair. They also know that no amount of whining will change our minds, in fact it will make their chances even less of getting them. They need to ask nicely, if they whine, doesn't matter what it is, they aren't getting it. My kids are very well behaved, very smart, and very loved, but they understand that that doesn't entitle them to everything they want. If theres something that they truely want and they dont want to wait, they work for it by doing jobs around the neighborhood.
Vacation trip
- Cafe MichelleP
on Jun. 12, 2012 at 9:29 AM