Do you wish you had grown up more spoiled than you were? ~

Very good and interesting question.  And gets into just what we mean when we say that.

I would say I was spoiled. My parents grew up during the depression and World War Two which meant some hardships and sacrifices and going-without even for well-off families like my mother's and especially regular families like my father's.  So when my father's start-up became prosperous and my parents realized they could afford many things they had not had growing up they went for it and were largely in accord on that.  So we had a well-appointed comfortable suburban home with plenty of heat and eventually air conditioning, wall-to-wall shag carpeting, each of us kids had our own room, we had always, from the end of the 1950s,  a cook and often a maid and housekeeper (sometimes our cook and housekeeper was the same person).  We had a family membership in a prestigious country club around which my parent's social life revolved. We had televisions and radios and later stereos in each of our rooms in which we often took our meals by ourselves.  We all had cars as teenagers even though mine was actually one of my brother's hand-me-downs. We wanted anything we got it. Which I never really wanted much, really nothing.  But still my father would get home from being on the road with gifts for all of us.  Partly because he felt guilty he was away from home so much of the time. We kids would get mostly mechanical-type things that my father would explain carefully to us and though we may have played with them for a short time or used them briefly they were pretty quickly forgotten.  A number of my friends had horses though we never did. We were sent to all private schools and we were pretty much left to do our thing by ourselves as increasing my mother became addicted to uppers she less and less supervised us.  We went to parties where there were a lot of drugs of different kinds and drinking and were mostly unsupervised by adults.  We had no particular household duties we were responsible for.  My brothers were sent to summer camps and I went to charm, etiquette, deportment, and dancing classes. But it was somehow expected that my brothers would cultivate friends and enter the business world after college at Ivy League schools and be successful.  Which both did and were. 

Being the only girl that was not expected of me but I was expected to uphold the family honor by marrying well or someone who was clearly "going places".  As my father could not roughhouse and related to me as he could my brothers he used to whisk me out of school and take me in a limousine to New York City to see musicals and go to nightclubs.  Because I was his "little girl" he wanted the best for me and it was almost like whatever I did (and I became pretty unruly as an adolescent) I could do no wrong.  I was close to my mother when I was young but when I did not turn out beautiful and poised as she was she blamed both me and herself and she despaired and came down harder on me for my behavior when she was able to.  I became a sore disappointment to her. 

Eventually I felt there was just no way I fit in to my parents world and I was just a disappointment and I got into drugs and acting out, cutting classes, staying out nights and so on.  Despite all I had I had a very poor opinion of myself and felt constricted.  I eventually made plans to run away which I did after I turned 17. To where I felt more free to be myself and do drugs and have sex and enjoy relationships and learn about life on my own terms.  So could be said that away from home I was even more spoiled though I did have to face making the money for things or going without. But I learned to work with people and help people which I guess I had picked up from my parents even though I had been spoiled.  I think if I had stayed home my father would have spoiled me rotten. 

So I would say no I would not have wanted to have been more spoiled than I already was.  But that was the reality and like all realities we have to deal with them in our life. 

I was an only child with well-off parents. I was fairly spoiled. I was not a brat about it, though. 

"No."  My parents taught me the basics and I further enhanced the condition after leaving the nest. :)

I was never spoiled nor nurtured. A bit of both would have been nice.

I was the exact opposite of spoiled.. every day was a struggle to endure both mentally and physically - very little food, constant beatings and belittlement..  I can only wonder what it would be like to be nurtured or spoiled.. but on balance, I am happy with who and how I am now and my past was part of making me.

No.  We were not often indulged but we had what we needed and a little of what we wanted.  When I think of my favorite people most of them grew up in a similar situation as I.  My children were born into a wealthy family but I worked hard to quash any sense of entitlement as a result of that.  They grew into adults of whom I am so so very proud.  

No. We had mandatory bath time to prevent us from spoiling.

I wish I would have grown up a little less spoiled.  I took a lot for granted.  It took quite a while to develop respect for life in general.