Twelve

Raising a twelve-year-old is difficult enough. But transfer her to a country who has for the past two years ranked at the top of Global Competitiveness, and some very strange perspectives emerge.

She attends an International school. In this school are the children of people from all over the world. Naturally, some have more means than others. And so the competition begins. We do not have much, and we do not need much. Conversely, my daughter likes to spend her hard-earned babysitting money on certain items with designer-style labels. I like to roll my eyes. I'm pretty sure this is not something I taught her. I'm a man. I'm ignorant to such things.

Today, she went to a birthday party, where more twelve-year-olds were also going to be gathering. She smelled of Abercrombie-ness. She was wearing designer tennis shoes that her aunt gave her for Christmas. She was carrying a designer bag, inside a designer wallet. And her shirt had some other label on it. As we were leaving, a six-year-old girl for whom she babysits was playing outside.

her: Hi.
daughter: Hi.
her: Where are you going?
daughter: A birthday party.
her: Another one?
daughter: Yeah. There are a lot this month.
her: And you're taking your Juice bag?
me: Ha. Juice bag.
daughter: Juicy.
her: Does it have juice in it?

We do live in the land of understatement. Wearing labels and bobbles that show your numbers is scoffed at by the Swiss as very poor taste. And apparently the same by 6-year-olds from England.