I am not ashamed: monologue of a girl from a rich family
'13.11.2018'
Source: Нож
In the mass consciousness, the children of rich parents are associated with drugs, tranquility, racing on "gelendvagenah" and all that comes to the mind of an ordinary person with the word "major". Such people by default do not deserve sympathy, and all interest in their personalities comes down to counting other people's money.
The daughter of a large Russian businessman told “The knife»About invisible markers of luxury, about why the state of the parents comes with shame and how wealth interferes with living.
I was lucky: I was born in a family of perplexed twenty-year-olds (a cadet of a military school and a music school teacher), and by the age of fifteen somehow turned out to be the daughter of a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. So it turned out that I had money, and they are more than my friends and acquaintances. Therefore, the last 10 years I live in constant exhausting tension, no matter how embarrassing anyone and catching a mocking one myself - if you are lucky - or a hating glance: “Yeah, rich, well, everything's clear with you”.
I do not know what exactly our monthly income is and how much I can spend. I understand that it is big, but every time I have to ask for money, I worry, although they never refuse me. I don’t consider this money as my own.
Money and partner selection
I never knew anything about the affluence of my partners when relationships were established. The first guy we were together for two years kept us both. For unforeseen or special expenses such as holidays or visiting a doctor, I took money from my parents. I had 18, I studied and worked in a bookstore, but that salary was only enough for cigarettes.
During my next serious relationship, we had a fight with my father and then didn’t talk for half a year because my boyfriend and I refused to take money from him. He shouted that I did not respect myself if I was going to live in these terrible conditions (the room on Tverskaya which we planned to rent was terrible for him). It is ridiculous that by the standards of his city, a young man was from a very rich family, just like our family was by Moscow standards, and he was a little worried at the beginning, because we met in the middle of the field during the summer festival, he moved to Moscow for our relationship, already other criteria of security.
The wealth of partners is not a problem for me, but my wealth is a serious obstacle for a partner, especially if he has a heightened sense of self-worth. My current relationship is much more balanced in terms of "who's in charge here." We think more about how to make it convenient and comfortable for both than about whose money we spend.
Shame and prosperity markers
Now I am 25, I am incredibly tired of being ashamed, shy and thinking ahead. Whatever you do, you are still doomed to condemnation. I try not to offend anyone, nor do I feel any guilt before the poor. Perhaps this is because I was not born in a palace and my parents' incomes grew before my eyes: we live in an apartment with concrete floors in Korolev, we move to the outskirts of Moscow, go abroad for the first time, move to the center, etc.
For a long time I did not have the moral certainty that being a well-to-do person is good. Yes, I have something that others do not have, it is convenient, but it still confuses me that I cannot pass for an ordinary person, just like everyone else.
Here are examples of such situations when I would like to.
Once a friend and I agreed to go to a home party. There were going to journalists, very smart, very liberal, and one and all despised the damn bourgeoisie. I had to buy alcohol, and on the way I went to the first store I got. The elevator did not work, so for a couple of spans to the required floor, we braked with a friend and, without saying a word, got the beer out of the “Alphabet of Taste” bags, the bags were hidden in a backpack, and the beer was uncomfortably stuck in the armpits.
Funny Today, yes, but then there was not a shadow of doubt that this wealth marker would not help me to find new friends among a huge company of strangers. I didn’t want my security to be the first to know about me. Often I myself play on the lead and anticipate the reaction, which in reality may not be. The restraint sits in me so deeply that I don’t want to run up once more.
After the New Year, they were going out of town with friends. The first option: a nice dacha of artists, very pleasant and simple, but close for a large company. The second option: I propose instead to go to the country house to my parents, where there is a forest nearby, there is a pool and several rooms.
“What do you think? Guys can be embarrassed by excessive luxury! ”. Maybe a man without any ulterior thought said, but for me - a blow to vanity.
Why should we even think that there is too much luxury? If there is a pool, let's swim in it, and not comprehend the class stratification.
My circle of acquaintances is creative, enthusiastic people engaged in thousands of different projects - from architecture to children's education. For me it is important that a person knew how to invent unexpected things, was easy to lift. Yes, they sometimes criticize me, pay attention to my money, but I don’t want to change my company: these are interesting people, it’s not boring to them.
Charity and ambitions
I am now subscribed to regular donations for projects related to the protection of children, with the provision of assistance to bed patients, adults, hospices and animals. Every New Year I participate in collecting gifts for people in nursing homes. In that year she went to Vydropuzhsk, where she wrote down the stories of the people living there. As a volunteer, I occasionally work as a hotline operator when meetings are held in Russia, deciphering diaries in the “Live” project. There are one-time donations, but there is no particular involvement in this. If I see a project that agrees with my ideas about “so that no one leaves offended,” I transfer money.
I usually don't discuss my volunteer activities with anyone. Because once I was told: “If I had so much money, I would support all the projects that I collect with the largest possible sums; it's dumb that you spend more on taxis than on children. ” Not by the fact that my acts of charity are considered less significant than those that are carried out by less affluent people.
The highest salary in my life is 70 000 rubles. I never received again.
Thanks to my father's money, I can not think about wages and work on projects that I like. Never in my life have I asked for a pay raise, and the reason for this is still the same feeling of embarrassment, because my colleagues know that I have no problems with money.
I have no career ambitions in the area where I work now. Dad always says: when will you open your own? Projects in art or education that I like are already there, and in order to do something better, I still lack experience.
Every time when we raise funds for the next festival, the boss seems to be jokingly saying: “Why don’t we let money go to your dad?” She, on the one hand, gently zhurit me that you can not invest your money in the project, on the other - never in a hurry to issue an advance on work that does not start without advance payments. We have an awkward, quiet agreement that I will do it myself - I am responsible for the event. Then she smiles motherly and says: "Well, do you again? ..".
Clothing and wealth markers
Now, in order to feel comfortable, I need 220 000 rubles per month. Although in principle I can live - if you do not take into account the rent of my apartment in the center of Moscow - and on 25 thousand rubles, I had this experience.
I almost never buy branded items for myself, but it seems that if I ask my parents, there will be no refusal. For fashion do not watch. The latest Céline collection is not different from the collection two years ago. My bohemian surroundings greatly affect the taste in clothes, so the price of things is not the main thing for me. Going shopping itself takes a lot of time. Usually I buy clothes in “Tsvetnoy” and in Leform, parents bring a lot from trips to Europe.
With brand clothes there are more nuances.
If a girlfriend will save for a long time on the Chloé jacket, she will have the opportunity to be proud of him. If I say: “Look, what is my new skirt”, then it will sound strange: it is clear to others that, most likely, it is expensive. Although I just wanted them to praise, say, the pattern and how it sits on me.
Recently there was a conversation with a friend:
- Do you remember how we first met? I came to work in your office, we had the same project.
- Yes! I walked out to you from the second floor, we had previously been cool in writing ..
“... and you wore such a Prada shirt.” I immediately realized that we are from different worlds and I have no place here.
From the moment of our acquaintance we communicated for five years, and now it turns out that all these years it was immediately clear to the person that we are from different worlds.
Contempt for the children of the rich
The fact that I was born in a poor family has the following effect: we usually don’t find common topics for conversation with golden youth - the children of father’s friends. But in general, I communicated with rich peers for a very long time, as a teenager, when my mother took me to social events. She was bored alone, and in this circle it was considered good form to go out with children: “socialite and her lion cub” type. Several of my classmates participated in the Tatler ball. But the father is of the opinion that the less you shine, the less you have problems. So I have no need to maintain the “status” earned by my parents.
I have practically no friends who have the same means as our family. I do not know why it happened. Maybe because of the extremely unsuccessful learning experience at the Moscow Economic School, where children in the 9 grade were taken to the metro for a tour.
One school friend went to the "Hummer" with pink wheels, whose rhinestones had her name on the door.
The idea of a rich, evil, stupid person who made a lot of money with the help of criminal schemes is terribly tiring. I know a lot of wealthy people from the circle of my father’s acquaintances, and none of them are stupid. I can not say that they are erudite, we will never support the conversation about Sylvia Plath, but at the same time I can never say anything intelligible about shipping, financial transfers or the production of PET containers.
No matter what you think of me, I think of myself even worse. Often I myself feel the same biased contempt for the children of wealthy parents as the majority. Mom says that her friends returned from England a daughter: she is so clever, designer, artist, St. Martins.
I roll my eyes: "I know these designers, moms."
You say the same thing about me.
