“We don’t sell anything you like here.”
The Gothic Princess stares at my aunt from behind her throne counter dismally, and I can’t help but smile. The girl is a cashier for Hot Topic in Minnesota, and makes it quite clear that my Ralph Lauren-clad relative is not welcome in her realm. I can’t blame her, really. Mary is a businesswoman, and doesn’t blend well with the red plaid, black t-shirts, and sharp metal objects that compose this store. She’s rich, manicured, and- worst of all- Republican. My aunt wasn’t always this way though, and is furious that a simpering, (dyed) platinum blonde teenager had the audacity to question her style. She isn’t accustomed to being uncool, and, although the designer glasses hide it well, is mortifyingly embarrassed that she is no longer “in.” I, however, am insanely amused. When Mary was my age, she listened to Fishbone and snorted cocaine. Her adolescence burst with an insanity the Gothic Princess wouldn’t even dream of dirtying her hair over, as I try to explain to my livid aunt.
“She’s an Eden Prairie girl, Mary. That’s how they are.”
In order to understand that statement, you must first have an idea about the area we’re in. Geographically, Eden Prairie is little more than a suburb of the Twin Cities. Financially, it’s a haven. Only in Scottsdale, (also known as Snotsdale,) Arizona have I seen such a high percentage of upper class. The houses heave with wealth, the air sags with dough. It is, in a word, yuppie-ville. This massive amount of money and status has a profound effect on the children raised here. Imagine pulling into a high school parking lot, and finding BMWs, Porsches, and Corvettes parked alongside rusted Hondas and station wagons. You would think, perhaps even hope, that the nice, expensive cars are the staffs’ vehicles.
You’d be mistaken.
In Eden Prairie, kids learn early on that they are of higher rank than their teachers. As Minnesota’s governor Jesse Ventura so aptly put, “an elementary student could teach.” School is a joke. Why take the words of someone beneath you seriously? The students know that the you-need-to-get-good-grades-so-you-can-get-a-good-job doesn’t apply to them; they have daddy’s pockets to dig into for the rest of their life.
I know what it’s like to be a youth in Eden Prairie, because I was related one. Actually, before my dad divorced Karen, I was related to three. Jasmine, Joshua, and Jacob would be the first to tell you that Eden Prairie kids are “messed up.” According to my ex-step-sister, ninety percent of her classmates were on anti-depressants. Why the insane amount of psychotropics? America regards happiness from the top-down approach. Success is measured by a persons’ wealth, influence, and power. We strive to own more, control more, but what ultimately happens when someone has the world at their fingertips?
Things become less and less satisfying.
Imagine being born with the ability to have your every whim. If you didn’t have to try for, well, anything, wouldn’t you feel life was a little pointless? No wonder why they have no ambition.
Everyone wants a rich parent. Having a loaded family means vacations to Chile, a Christmas tree stuffed with presents, and nice clothes for back-to-school shopping. When I was younger, I used to burn with jealousy over my cousins, (who just so happen to live in Scottsdale.) Their mansion, (yes mansion, that is no creative exaggeration on my part,) borders a private mountain and hundred-acre golf course. I won’t even describe the interior because it’ll just make you sick. The point is, spending a week at their summer home in Minocqua, Wisconsin and playing with their eight jet-skis, two speed boats, and pontoon made me wonder... why doesn’t my dad even have a tenth of this?
Grown adults also believe that a wealthy home is a happy home. After all, raising kids are expensive, and you need income to provide for their health and well being. While this is certainly true, my experience with Eden Prairie has led me to question just how much is healthy.
There is something deeper behind the depression of Eden Prairie children than a simple lack of ambition. Those rich mothers and fathers I used to guiltily wish my dad was just a little more like, turns out, produce two different types of offspring. The first, Jasmine declares, are the Jocks. You know the type: they play football, have two cars, (one big, one fast,) and actually own the outfits we common folk lust over in Vogue. These kids are like their parents in every way; I wouldn’t be surprised if they owned the same Ralph Lauren polo.
The other group are the Rebels, which my ex-step-siblings proudly fall under. They’re the ones with blue hair, scarred wrists, and enough metal in their face to make a necklace. Of course, the tough, dirty style they’re imitating was bought at a mall for five hundred dollars an outfit, (enter the Gothic Princess,) but it’s the statement behind the black lipstick and studded belts that counts.
Why is there such a vast difference between the Jocks and Rebels? They are, after all, in the same generation, raised by the same kind of parents, with the same amount of money, in the same exact town. My ex-step-siblings wouldn’t admit this, but these supposed “types” are just two different methods striving for the same goal: parental attention.
Making money takes a lot of time and energy. Apparently, so does maintaining it. My father never had any so I didn’t know, but children born of wealth tend not to have a lot of time with their parents. When I stayed for a week in Eden Prairie, I literally saw the dad Mike for a grand total of ten minutes. It was three in the morning, and I was watching That Seventy’s Show. When I told Josh about the incident over breakfast, he seemed almost jealous. To him, his father is a god, whose presence is always felt, but rarely seen.
My encounter with Mike was brief, but I can see why Josh would worship him. He’s funny, enigmatic, and oddly flattering. Like any good businessman, he knows how to relate to people, even a tired teenager passed out on his couch. I don’t want to make it sound like he’s a bad parent. On the contrary, I know Mike holds nothing but love for his children. His affection, however, is sporadic. The attention he gives goes from being intense to nonexistent, with no warning to prepare for the shifting tide.
Until Josh was eleven, he slept in the same bed as his father. One day, Mike decided he was too old for such behavior, and insisted that his son sleep in his own room. Of course the intentions were good- most would agree that an eleven-year old boy sleeping with their parent is unhealthy. It was still a hard adjustment for Josh, made even harder when Mike left on one of what would soon be many trips to Thailand.
This, I’ve discovered, is a common anomaly amongst wealthy, middle-aged men. Thai women, after all, are quite beautiful. Two years ago Mike brought one of those beautiful Thai women back home with him, and married her. Needless to say, this created even more of a rift between him and his children.
We’ve all heard the dilemma: kids or career? You can do both of course, but only at one’s expense. In the case of the children of Eden Prairie, they were the chosen sacrifice. They hunger for their mothers’ and fathers’ love, so desperate that they act out and turn into miniature versions of them just to get it.
Jasmine is Mike’s oldest child. Talented and beautiful, she draws in prey like a flytrap. Her charm is a deadly weapon. People fall under Jasmine’s spell, and are left with nothing but the broken pieces of their heart to remember. Looking back, I don’t think she cares much about the devastation she incurs, or the people she inflicts. All the relationships in the world could never fill in the absence of her father. Did Mike contribute to Jasmine’s rather sociopathic tendencies? Perhaps. As a “sister scorned,” I’m a bit biased on the subject. To me, Jasmine will always be one of those dangerous girls in trashy novels and French films, the ones we know we shouldn’t love, but do it anyway.
Jacob is the youngest of the siblings, and, if I may say so, the nicest. Mike’s here-then-gone approach to love hardened Jasmine and Joshua’s skin, but Jacob is able to be affectionate. He’s the most sensitive of the three, and the most vulnerable. Until recently, no one really knew how much he was suffering. Slowly, he spent more and more time in his room, not wanting to leave the house unless it was with Mike. Friends would ask him if he wanted to hang out, but he’d tell them no, that he was waiting for his dad.
He never came.
This summer, Jacob was found passed out in the bathroom. His body had fallen under a coma, and he was instantly brought to the emergency room. For an entire day he remained unconscious. The doctors were clueless over what was wrong with him, until they finally gave him a drug test.
My thirteen-year old former brother had swallowed every drug killer in the house that he could find.
Even Jacob doesn’t know if this is the first time, because he doesn’t remember it happening. After they told them what he had done, he asked with genuine shock, “I did?”
He’s not the only one who’s surprised. Sweet, giggling Jacob is the last person you’d expect to be in pain. Somehow, he manages to keep joy outwardly open, and sorrow deeply hidden.
I realize that spoiled brats aren’t the only ones prone to depression. Being poor is no picnic, and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting poverty as ideal. Until recently, I used to envy the advantage wealthy children possess. Now, I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned. I look at my cousins from Scottsdale, and realize that I wouldn’t trade places for anything. Can they boast of a proposal on the Greyhound to Canada? Do they have a circle of hippies as loving and supportive as any family? My cousins can have their private dancing lessons, their Olympic-sized pool, their Gibson guitar.... I have my stories, adventures I would not had without the resourcefulness of being raised on a less-than-substantial income.
The Gothic Princess stares at my aunt from behind her throne counter dismally, and I can’t help but smile. The girl is a cashier for Hot Topic in Minnesota, and makes it quite clear that my Ralph Lauren-clad relative is not welcome in her realm. I can’t blame her, really. Mary is a businesswoman, and doesn’t blend well with the red plaid, black t-shirts, and sharp metal objects that compose this store. She’s rich, manicured, and- worst of all- Republican. My aunt wasn’t always this way though, and is furious that a simpering, (dyed) platinum blonde teenager had the audacity to question her style. She isn’t accustomed to being uncool, and, although the designer glasses hide it well, is mortifyingly embarrassed that she is no longer “in.” I, however, am insanely amused. When Mary was my age, she listened to Fishbone and snorted cocaine. Her adolescence burst with an insanity the Gothic Princess wouldn’t even dream of dirtying her hair over, as I try to explain to my livid aunt.
“She’s an Eden Prairie girl, Mary. That’s how they are.”
In order to understand that statement, you must first have an idea about the area we’re in. Geographically, Eden Prairie is little more than a suburb of the Twin Cities. Financially, it’s a haven. Only in Scottsdale, (also known as Snotsdale,) Arizona have I seen such a high percentage of upper class. The houses heave with wealth, the air sags with dough. It is, in a word, yuppie-ville. This massive amount of money and status has a profound effect on the children raised here. Imagine pulling into a high school parking lot, and finding BMWs, Porsches, and Corvettes parked alongside rusted Hondas and station wagons. You would think, perhaps even hope, that the nice, expensive cars are the staffs’ vehicles.
You’d be mistaken.
In Eden Prairie, kids learn early on that they are of higher rank than their teachers. As Minnesota’s governor Jesse Ventura so aptly put, “an elementary student could teach.” School is a joke. Why take the words of someone beneath you seriously? The students know that the you-need-to-get-good-grades-so-you-can-get-a-good-job doesn’t apply to them; they have daddy’s pockets to dig into for the rest of their life.
I know what it’s like to be a youth in Eden Prairie, because I was related one. Actually, before my dad divorced Karen, I was related to three. Jasmine, Joshua, and Jacob would be the first to tell you that Eden Prairie kids are “messed up.” According to my ex-step-sister, ninety percent of her classmates were on anti-depressants. Why the insane amount of psychotropics? America regards happiness from the top-down approach. Success is measured by a persons’ wealth, influence, and power. We strive to own more, control more, but what ultimately happens when someone has the world at their fingertips?
Things become less and less satisfying.
Imagine being born with the ability to have your every whim. If you didn’t have to try for, well, anything, wouldn’t you feel life was a little pointless? No wonder why they have no ambition.
Everyone wants a rich parent. Having a loaded family means vacations to Chile, a Christmas tree stuffed with presents, and nice clothes for back-to-school shopping. When I was younger, I used to burn with jealousy over my cousins, (who just so happen to live in Scottsdale.) Their mansion, (yes mansion, that is no creative exaggeration on my part,) borders a private mountain and hundred-acre golf course. I won’t even describe the interior because it’ll just make you sick. The point is, spending a week at their summer home in Minocqua, Wisconsin and playing with their eight jet-skis, two speed boats, and pontoon made me wonder... why doesn’t my dad even have a tenth of this?
Grown adults also believe that a wealthy home is a happy home. After all, raising kids are expensive, and you need income to provide for their health and well being. While this is certainly true, my experience with Eden Prairie has led me to question just how much is healthy.
There is something deeper behind the depression of Eden Prairie children than a simple lack of ambition. Those rich mothers and fathers I used to guiltily wish my dad was just a little more like, turns out, produce two different types of offspring. The first, Jasmine declares, are the Jocks. You know the type: they play football, have two cars, (one big, one fast,) and actually own the outfits we common folk lust over in Vogue. These kids are like their parents in every way; I wouldn’t be surprised if they owned the same Ralph Lauren polo.
The other group are the Rebels, which my ex-step-siblings proudly fall under. They’re the ones with blue hair, scarred wrists, and enough metal in their face to make a necklace. Of course, the tough, dirty style they’re imitating was bought at a mall for five hundred dollars an outfit, (enter the Gothic Princess,) but it’s the statement behind the black lipstick and studded belts that counts.
Why is there such a vast difference between the Jocks and Rebels? They are, after all, in the same generation, raised by the same kind of parents, with the same amount of money, in the same exact town. My ex-step-siblings wouldn’t admit this, but these supposed “types” are just two different methods striving for the same goal: parental attention.
Making money takes a lot of time and energy. Apparently, so does maintaining it. My father never had any so I didn’t know, but children born of wealth tend not to have a lot of time with their parents. When I stayed for a week in Eden Prairie, I literally saw the dad Mike for a grand total of ten minutes. It was three in the morning, and I was watching That Seventy’s Show. When I told Josh about the incident over breakfast, he seemed almost jealous. To him, his father is a god, whose presence is always felt, but rarely seen.
My encounter with Mike was brief, but I can see why Josh would worship him. He’s funny, enigmatic, and oddly flattering. Like any good businessman, he knows how to relate to people, even a tired teenager passed out on his couch. I don’t want to make it sound like he’s a bad parent. On the contrary, I know Mike holds nothing but love for his children. His affection, however, is sporadic. The attention he gives goes from being intense to nonexistent, with no warning to prepare for the shifting tide.
Until Josh was eleven, he slept in the same bed as his father. One day, Mike decided he was too old for such behavior, and insisted that his son sleep in his own room. Of course the intentions were good- most would agree that an eleven-year old boy sleeping with their parent is unhealthy. It was still a hard adjustment for Josh, made even harder when Mike left on one of what would soon be many trips to Thailand.
This, I’ve discovered, is a common anomaly amongst wealthy, middle-aged men. Thai women, after all, are quite beautiful. Two years ago Mike brought one of those beautiful Thai women back home with him, and married her. Needless to say, this created even more of a rift between him and his children.
We’ve all heard the dilemma: kids or career? You can do both of course, but only at one’s expense. In the case of the children of Eden Prairie, they were the chosen sacrifice. They hunger for their mothers’ and fathers’ love, so desperate that they act out and turn into miniature versions of them just to get it.
Jasmine is Mike’s oldest child. Talented and beautiful, she draws in prey like a flytrap. Her charm is a deadly weapon. People fall under Jasmine’s spell, and are left with nothing but the broken pieces of their heart to remember. Looking back, I don’t think she cares much about the devastation she incurs, or the people she inflicts. All the relationships in the world could never fill in the absence of her father. Did Mike contribute to Jasmine’s rather sociopathic tendencies? Perhaps. As a “sister scorned,” I’m a bit biased on the subject. To me, Jasmine will always be one of those dangerous girls in trashy novels and French films, the ones we know we shouldn’t love, but do it anyway.
Jacob is the youngest of the siblings, and, if I may say so, the nicest. Mike’s here-then-gone approach to love hardened Jasmine and Joshua’s skin, but Jacob is able to be affectionate. He’s the most sensitive of the three, and the most vulnerable. Until recently, no one really knew how much he was suffering. Slowly, he spent more and more time in his room, not wanting to leave the house unless it was with Mike. Friends would ask him if he wanted to hang out, but he’d tell them no, that he was waiting for his dad.
He never came.
This summer, Jacob was found passed out in the bathroom. His body had fallen under a coma, and he was instantly brought to the emergency room. For an entire day he remained unconscious. The doctors were clueless over what was wrong with him, until they finally gave him a drug test.
My thirteen-year old former brother had swallowed every drug killer in the house that he could find.
Even Jacob doesn’t know if this is the first time, because he doesn’t remember it happening. After they told them what he had done, he asked with genuine shock, “I did?”
He’s not the only one who’s surprised. Sweet, giggling Jacob is the last person you’d expect to be in pain. Somehow, he manages to keep joy outwardly open, and sorrow deeply hidden.
I realize that spoiled brats aren’t the only ones prone to depression. Being poor is no picnic, and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting poverty as ideal. Until recently, I used to envy the advantage wealthy children possess. Now, I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned. I look at my cousins from Scottsdale, and realize that I wouldn’t trade places for anything. Can they boast of a proposal on the Greyhound to Canada? Do they have a circle of hippies as loving and supportive as any family? My cousins can have their private dancing lessons, their Olympic-sized pool, their Gibson guitar.... I have my stories, adventures I would not had without the resourcefulness of being raised on a less-than-substantial income.
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