When the Brat Grows Up

When I use the term ‘Spoiled Brat’ you probably think of some kid under ten. These kinds of brats have the chance to grow out of their sense of entitlement.

But many never do.

Many keep that mind set into their adulthood, and it is not strange to meet a thirty six year old Spoiled Brat suddenly being hit in the face by reality.

Chuky was the text book spoiled brat.

Mommy and Daddy did everything for him and made him believe he was the smartest, handsomest most perfect person on the planet.

He grew up with a sense of entitlement. That he was to get whatever he wanted when he wanted it.

Mommy and Daddy paid for his education and he took two different majors so he could have two degrees. Thanks to Mommy and Daddy. Chuky did not feel grateful, he was entitled.

He obtained a very good job; of course, he was Chuky. There was travel involved, foreign offices, and Chuky was shipped.

He was shipped because everyone in the Home Office wanted to see the back of him.

They couldn’t fire him, he had a contract, and he performed the work, it was just his attitude. His sneering sense of being the centre of the Universe.

Abroad he enjoyed his posting, met a woman, a rich woman, who was almost as spoiled as he was, and they married.

In a short time she was pregnant with their first, then second child, and he was moved to another office. Moved, because the staff couldn’t stand him.

He signed another contract for another five years. The Company was desperate and Chuky had experience.

As spoiled as Chuky was, imagine being in a 3rd World Country where his salary translates to millions.

Chuky was getting a good salary in his own currency. Add two zeros at the end, and he was Upper Class of the Highest Order.

He took advantage of everything he could, joined clubs, went for more lessons, went to various Hotels. His wife, bored, hating the country, did take a course herself just to fill the time.

Chuky’s ego exploded. He could do everything, be everything, and was out more than he was home.

His wife became resentful.

As no one liked the imperial Chuky at his job it wasn’t hard for one of them to befriend the wife and become her lover.

Chuky knew nothing of this, he was so busy being Chuky that he never noticed other people.

Only himself.

What he wanted, when he wanted it, where he wanted to go, and when.

As his contract drew to an end, Chuky expected another, but this time there was no other. Chuky was sent home, spent the last month in the Head Office, and then was offered a posting in a very unpleasant place with the expectation he would turn it down.

He turned it down and was now unemployed.

His wife, no longer the millionairess, no longer married to a man with a great job and great promise, rubbed his nose in her adultery, expecting him to run for a divorce.

He had no proof of her adultery except her statement.

She demanded Child Support and support for herself, in her counter suit. Chuky couldn’t prove that his wife was unfaithful, save her statement, which she claimed was just said in anger and wasn’t true.

Chuky searched for a job and finally got a very crummy one, because he would not be getting any great references. He had annoyed everyone with his spoiled brat behaviour. and no one had a good word to say about him.

Without recommendations he was not making a lateral move. He was making a vertical drop.

If Chuky had not a sense of entitlement, of superiority, of being better than others, if he had just been nice, that would have made the difference.

As a spoiled brat, who has reached near middle age, no one is going to put up with him. No one is going to bend.

Everyone has their own life and own ideas. No one cares what Chuky thinks or doesn’t think, what he honours or doesn’t honour.

Since he thought he was better than people, people didn’t want him around.

No one wanted him and this crummy job was the best he could get. Chuky could go into that tiny office way over there, and with one boss he better please, for the first time, Chuky began to appreciate that the world doesn’t revolve around him.

That is the penalty of raising a spoiled brat. A person who isn’t grateful, who doesn’t feel indebted, who doesn’t try to be nice, but a person who strides about expecting genuflection from people who have no intention of doing so.

Chuky could have been successful. He had chances. But he never saw them as chances. So he lost them.