WAS I BORN ON ANOTHER PLANET?

Now that I have cable TV, I've been watching a lot of "reality programs".  I've been watching "The Little People," "The Kardashians," and people buying homes.

I'm particularly affected by the way the parents of these people just hover around these kids giving them everything they want.  They being so worried about how they can help them, monitarily or telling them they love them every second, hugging them, kissing them, crying about them or physically helping them with running to them for every little problem they have.

Well, let me tell you, that would be the day my parents would doat and hover over me like that.  I had to work for everything I have with no support or understanding from my cold, cold siblings and parents.  They brought both my siblings and me up hard, unemotional and with no fun, happiness, or smiles on our faces.  No "I love yous," no kisses, no hugs, no compliments on how we looked, no monetary support, no effort on their part to help us move, get involved with our education, reading to us when we were young, no exposure to anything outside of our city and family.  They never had any outside friends.  The family was their friends, but if somebody in our family needed help, forget about it.  You were on your own.

These parents on TV do lead a good foundation for their children, worrying about their college education, almost to the too much.  The kids should be researching colleges themselves.  Instead, the parents are so sick with worry about their kids even being able to get into college, they are chauffering their kids around of colleges, even with the kids bored with the whole process and making it evident with their hmms, haws, body language and of the whole process.  How ungrateful these kids are.

When I asked my mother why she never got us a dog when we were younger, she replied, "Because you kids never asked for one."  What a poor excuse for parenting.  They never brought us up to help one another (our siblings), and if you dared to ask for help, they replied in a discusted manner.  I always knew from an early age, not that we had to be told, not to ask for anything, because the answer would be no.

When I was young and in grammar school, our teacher gave us a flyer to take home and we would be able to go to summer camp for free.  I ran home soooo excited to give the flyer to my mother.  She glanced at it and said, "This is for poor people." She tossed the flyer into the trash.  My whole body just felt like I was pinched with a needle, like puncturing a balloon with a needle and was sooo deflated after that.   We weren't rich, we weren't poor, but my parents were dirt poor in education, empathy, compassion, giving or even showing of their loving emotions towards us (if they even had any).  When I wanted to go to just visit some place near our city, not necessarily a vacation, because we didn't go on vacations, I was told, "That's for rich people."  They never exposed us to anything beyond our home.  The zoo circus, Ice Capades and family picnics were it.

Now I can't say we didn't have a roof over us, a clean house, food on the table and nice clothes on our backs or things like a bike, roller skates and ice skates or record players, which we only got on special occasions, i.e., birthdays or Christmas, but all those things are a given when you choose to be a parent.

When I see these grandioso homes, expensive toys, computers, being chauffered around, grandioso trips that these ungreatful kids' lives are emersed in, and the kids thinking nothing of it, and expecting more, it really gets to me.  Them sitting around the house after high school, not working, no interests, laying on the couch, I just say to myself, "That'd be the day we'd be able to do that."  In fact, we wouldn't even have thought of doing anything like that.  We didn't have to be told, we were just brought up to work during high school and after high school and give a portion of our earnings to our mother.

When I see these siblings, hugging, kissing and helping out one another, horsing around in the house, laughing, having fun doing things together and caring about one another, I just can't believe what I'm seeing.  Siblings being sooo close, saying they love one another...well I just didn't know things like this existed.

With having said all of this, was I born on another planet, or is it just me?