No, not the Hank Williams Jr. song. I’m talking about the tradition that is spoiling our children.

I always tease my mother about the way she spoiled my son. He has always had “steak taste on a hot dog income” thanks to the early, forming days but even now that he has steak income, he wants the steaks plated in gold too. He was never at a loss for anything that he wanted whether he was four or twenty four. He was the first grandchild & wore the spoiled tattoo with pride. His birthday is in July but he got new roller-blades at the first thaw. “Why wait? He needs them now.” When is Christmas? That would be October for him and a new snowboard. “Don’t want him to waste half a season on an old board now, do you?” Heavens no! Not the same board 2 years in a row! Ack!

I can see my brothers rolling their eyes now. I was the youngest & had three older brothers – yes, the spoiled tattoo first belonged to me. I could do no wrong & pretty much got whatever I wanted too (except for that barbie super market set from the catalog when I was 6 & don’t think I’ve forgotten!) I remember coming home one day to my brothers being lined up and looking in trouble. Something to do with a hose being left on & no one would fess up. *big swallow* “Um… it was me.” I don’t recall being punished although it looked like there were 3 male tokus’ being prepared to be beaten.

The spoiling works for my cousins too. My mom’s dad was particularly fond of the granddaughters apparently. I remember driving to the Jersey shore with my aunt and her 3 kids. “Shy” was still in a car seat & Bryan didn’t take kindly to staying buckled. When he stood in front of the car seat & cried out, “Mom! Shy kicked me in the head!” The response from my grandfather was simply, “What was your head doing there!” Not to play favorites or anything.

Yesterday, hubby came home with a web cam for me. I had a 3-way chat going on in yahoo IM with my “bestest” loons on Friday night. They both had web cams going but I didn’t. It was great seeing them & their kids then their kids darting off to grab the towels that I made for them & hold them up for the camera. *sniff* Apparently they were complaining that they couldn’t see Aunty Bug so I wanted to remedy this for next time.

I was doing some maintenance on my laptop so I didn’t want to install it until I had some things cleaned off. My daughter saw it sitting there & ran for her laptop. Yes, she got a laptop 2 Christmas’ ago with the help of my parents. I’ve said before that she has started writing so there was no argument from me. Of course we had to get a wireless router so we could all be online at the same time (research you know) which my mother also purchased. (No, my spoiled tattoo hasn’t quite rubbed off yet either.) She downloaded it then promptly went upstairs with it. Bye, bye new webcam.

She came down this morning running through her list of things. Since her brother always has the latest & greatest, she gets the “hand me downs”. Her TV is bigger than ours, she has his old X-Box since he now has the 360. She also got his PS2 when she needed a DVD player for her TV and of course all the games. “What do you want for your birthday, Val?” he asks. “An ipod.” Could he get a 4G simple one like mine? pffffttttt itouch!! Hello!! He works for Verizon so even though I didn’t think she needed a cell phone at age 8 – she had one & the “hand me down” was of course a top of the line. (Now I can’t complain here because I got the “hand me down” Treo that was $600. in its prime.)  Of course they’ve been upgraded since & will continue to do so. This little girl also surprised the heck out of me when my aunt asked her what she wanted for Christmas a few years back. “A playstation DS.” I knew nothing of this until it showed up! I’m putting ’67 Mustang on the list next time my aunt asks & see what happens.

This is all triggered from my daughters comment this morning. I about fell over when she said, “I’m kinda spoiled, huh?”

“Do ya think?”

It’s come full circle and then some. Admittedly I was spoiled too – it just seems these days keeping up requires so much more. I remember when one car lighter did the trick to pulg something in – now we have a 3-way splitter & a power converter as well. *sigh*

I have 2 books I set in the 80′s. It’s funny how hard it was to go back & remember what the heck we did without cellphones & internet.

A magnet I used to have but got lost in the shuffle somewhere read: “Avenge yourself! Live long enough to be a problem to your children!” I hope they remember these things and at least pick me out a nice nursing home.