The identity of the only daughter in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai usually means that the family is rich, the parents are pampered, and the material conditions are good and the mental state is relaxed in the process of growing up...... However, there are some girls who, in this label, ostensibly have a superior family background, even if they are only children, and are not favored by their parents.
They are the only daughter of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai who have not been seen on the other side:
My mother started her own company to do business, and according to superficial calculations and exchanges with relatives, the family's assets are about more than 50 million or even hundreds of millions. But it is impossible for parents to say, they have pretended to be poor since they were young.
I am an only child, but they are very reluctant to spend money on me, and they have to scold me for a long time when they spend one or two hundred. My pocket money in middle and high school is only 100 yuan per month, which is only enough to buy teaching aids and stationery. I don't buy clothes and cosmetics even if I go to college, and I have to save dozens of eyebrow powder by myself. They were extremely reluctant to give 2,000 yuan a month for living expenses, and they also told outsiders that I was not filial and felt that I spent a lot of money.
When I first got a job, before I said anything about buying a house, my parents began to cry that Hangzhou's housing prices were too high and they couldn't afford it. Chat or call to talk about money and they'll lock the door in the bedroom. I'm so old that I haven't received a single piece of jewelry, and when I celebrate my birthday or birth year, they choose to play stupid.
They think that a successful life is a good academic performance, being admitted to the civil service or earning a million a year, while I am not highly educated and not good enough to work and fail; they are never willing to pay for me, but they especially encourage me to endure hardships. My salary is low, and I don't even eat much to save money, but they still hate me for not being able to save money.
But they were very generous to their relatives' children, and often gave my toys to others without telling me. I even had strong doubts about whether I was biological.
They would pretend to be poor in front of me, and the family of three would live in a three-person room when they went out to travel, but my father often bought tens of thousands of watches and hundreds of thousands of jade, and secretly paid off the mortgage for my aunt's son. My mother said that she leaked in front of me, and I realized that she bought herself a very expensive coat and pants, and only picked at me.
Being suppressed since I was a child made me very unconfident and insecure since I was a student. I am very willing to spend money on medical cosmetology for myself, buy clothes, cosmetics, luxury goods, travel, but I am very stingy with spending money in other places, and others think I am an iron rooster, so I have few friends. I always put money first, don't associate with people from bad families, don't believe in any friendship, love and family related to people, and become a very selfish and mean person.
The shame of having no money, and the embarrassment caused by my parents' crying poverty, often made me feel that I was not even worthy of life. I have no bottom line about making money, and I once cheated money and feelings from others, and almost went astray.
The parents themselves are poor and value money very much. In addition, in their concept, having a daughter is used for use, and they should cultivate housework, cooking, and the thinking of a good wife from an early age, and they are unwilling to invest in their daughters, often saying "Girls are almost enough" and "Why do you want so many xxx", I think it's good for me to eat and drink.
Now we maintain a relationship between the boss and the subordinates, and my attitude towards them depends on how much money they give. Their friend's children either don't earn a penny, or they can't come back abroad, and they may find that they still have to count on me to provide for their old age, and the relationship is much more relaxed than before. When my parents are old, I must take back what they spent on my relatives and cut off all ties with my relatives.
When I was 25 years old, I suddenly noticed that my family seemed to be quite rich.
Not long after joining the bank, my father asked me if I needed help at work, and I said casually: "If you have spare money, you can buy 500,000 wealth management in our bank, and if you don't, forget it." "As a result, a few days later, I learned from the manager that my father had invested 3 million to support performance.
My perception of my family has always been: a second-tier city in Zhejiang, an ordinary well-off, although my parents opened a factory to do a little business, but they can't even touch the edge of the middle class.
From childhood to adulthood, parents' attitude towards consumption is "save if you can". Most of my clothes are bought casually in the mall, and the unit price does not exceed 200 yuan, and most of them even only cost a few dozen yuan. Cooking every day at home, ordering takeout or eating out is rare. Parents usually go to the wholesale clothing market in the city to buy clothes, and they have to bargain with the vendors for a long time for each piece. My family bought their first car when I was in junior high school, and it was a very ordinary little Buick.
I went to public school all the way and didn't go to any training classes. The monthly living expenses in the first year of college were 1,500 yuan, and in the second year, it became 2,000 yuan. At that time, there was a roommate who had a living allowance of six or seven thousand yuan a month, and I would only buy necessities two or three times a month, and I rarely bought skin care products and cosmetics like her. Once, I proposed to spend tens of thousands of yuan to sign up for the accounting certificate training class, and my father readily agreed, and I was a little surprised.
I gradually learned about my family's financial situation after I went to university, and it turned out that the textile factory had good benefits since elementary school, and the fixed assets I knew alone were two cars, three suites, including a villa. My parents never took the initiative to mention this, and even after my dad bought 3 million financial management, he still didn't tell me.
Since I was a child, my father always liked to tell me how hard it was to make money, how much money the family lost by buying and selling houses, and the poor efficiency of the factory, and would complain to me that he "went out to socialize and drink, and drank all the body". But the standard of living of our family has not decreased significantly, he is just exaggerating.
I also have a younger brother, and my parents were better to him. When I was a sophomore in high school, my family bought me an iPad because of the school's online class requirements, and my father took the initiative to buy it when he was in elementary school. When I was a child, I saw others learn musical instruments and wanted to learn them myself, but I was rejected on the grounds that it was a waste of money, but my younger brother started attending various interest classes such as painting, piano, and taekwondo since he was a child.
Since I was a child, I have had low self-esteem because of my family background. When I play with friends who are particularly rich, I play the role of a retinue and don't make my own claims. I once had a fight with a friend who came from a very good family, and even though it wasn't my problem, I kept sending her messages to explain, begging to continue being friends with her. Now I find out that in fact, the conditions in our two homes are similar.
Now I have a lot more money than in the past, and I often spend thousands of dollars in the game to buy skins, just to hear others call me "rich brother and rich sister". I want to satisfy my vanity through the pursuit of others, but at the bottom of my heart I feel that I am not worthy. My parents occasionally bought me luxury bags and more expensive clothes, and I felt like a little girl in the countryside, and I didn't match these big brands.
This family environment made me particularly eager to be independent. When I didn't have enough money to live in college, I went to work part-time, and I never asked my parents for a penny. I once received a very urgent design order, the customer placed an order at 10 o'clock in the evening that day, and the finished product was to be obtained before 8 o'clock the next morning, and a friend and I worked in shifts until 4 o'clock in the morning.
Some time ago, my parents offered to buy me a house and a car, but I refused. They often say that all the money I spend now is theirs, so obey them obediently. Since they think so, I have to work harder to get to work, quickly come out on my own, and prove myself to them.
I don't know exactly how much money I have in my family, but every time I ask my parents how much they can earn every month, they say, "You don't have to know that much." When I grew up and chatted with my grandparents, I learned that my family could get dividends every month, and there were many suites that were collecting rent, and my parents could earn tens of thousands of dollars every month without doing anything. After finishing college, they sent me to study in the UK, and the annual expenditure was at least 500,000.
Since I was a child, my parents cried poor and taught me to be thrifty. Before I went to high school, I didn't have a penny of pocket money, and in the six years of elementary school, I didn't eat the kind of stall at the school gate once. There were various reasons that overlapped, and finally led me to go to the supermarket to steal something to eat, in fact, some candy and chewing gum that I had never been able to get..... When I think about it now, I feel "disgusting".
When I was a child, I wanted to buy a Barbie doll, but my parents never bought it. My classmates around me are all in interest classes, I want to learn music, because I know that a piano costs tens of thousands of yuan, very expensive, I proposed to learn violin, from the first grade to the third grade, they bought me a 300 yuan piano.
When I went to boarding school in high school, my parents gave me 200 yuan a week, and when I had the space at my disposal, I was very picky. When I went out to eat with my classmates, I had to struggle with dozens of dollars for a long time, and I had to keep saying "It's too expensive, why is it so expensive" after spending it. I have a very strong sense of savings, the university is in the local area, and the living expenses are 1,500 yuan per month, which I not only can't spend, but also deliver food and work as a tutor to earn some more.
Because I have lived an average life since I was a child, I don't know how to dispose of it when I suddenly have money. After I went to study in the UK, my parents gave me a large amount of living expenses and told me not to suffer myself, but I was reluctant to spend it, bought discounted dishes, went to work in restaurants, and wrote down every account. Most of the students who studied abroad around me are well-off, and I rarely participate in shopping and traveling. I have a very low desire for materialism and have never bought luxury goods. However, after picking and searching to save money, I sometimes spend revenge to make up for myself, and I am in a very contradictory state.
My parents usually behave normally in consumption, but I later found out that my dad could squander hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling, and my mom went shopping spree in the live broadcast room. After knowing this, I feel that I was quite pitiful when I was a child.
My parents are very typical of the traditional parents of the previous generation, believing that "only when you suffer hardship can you become a superior person", so they concealed the family's financial situation since childhood. In terms of life planning, because of their low education and lack of even work, they can give me very little help, which will only put pressure on me. Since I returned to China last year to look for a job, they will only say, "You have to invest more", urging me to hurry up and find a job, which is meaningless.
My relationship with my parents has always been distant. Mom is a strong woman type, and when I was a child, I was coquettish and thought I was numb, and there was very little physical contact. Every time I talk to her about my troubles, she will only complain that my father has been treating her badly lately and that she has had a conflict with my grandmother. Over time, I digest everything on my own.
The lack of material well-off is just a manifestation of this type of education, and it is one of the reasons why I have a serious lack of sense of worthiness and security. In the face of my low materialism, sometimes I don't know if I really don't like it, or if I feel that I can use it badly.
采访/撰文:Bela Echo
Editor: Bela