A spoiled child is someone who exhibits behavioral problems from being overindulged by their parents or other caregivers. You probably knew a kid like this in school: they couldn’t handle hearing ‘no’; would be a sore loser at whatever, be it a game, a test, a bet; and act like the entire world revolved around them.
Much of this delusional entitlement continues way into their adult lives, making them not the most likeable person in the room. But there are things in life called reality checks that put even the most spoiled of us in our place.
So when someone asked people on Reddit “What was the best moment you've seen where the real world hit a spoiled rich kid?” the stories started pouring in one by one. 15.6k comments later, we have some of the most entertaining cases where people who believe we owe them the world were forced to have a cold shower and wake up.
#1
Saw a college guy with a ridiculously expensive car (can't remember the model) rear-end this woman who drove an absolute beater. Her car was definitely totalled and his wasn't looking that hot either. He got out and started screaming at this woman. She was in tears. He kept telling her that she was going to pay for this.
When the cops came, I saw each of them give their statements. After that, me and like 10 people came forward and gave our witness statements. It sounded like each and every one of us put complete fault on him (which was the truth). When the cops went back to him, I saw his face just sink. He probably told them it was her fault and just found out that two handfuls of people just confirmed that he's full of s**t.
I've never seen that many witnesses stick around for a simple traffic accident. I think the other people felt the same way I did: that kid was a douche and should be punished for what he did.
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336points
#2
I saw Justin Bieber throw a fit and end up not getting what he wanted.
We have quarterly teambuilding exercises at my company where you basically go and play minigolf or some other activity capped at $25/person. Sometime between 2009 and 2011 (I really can't remember exactly) my group just decided to go for a fancy lunch in Downtown Portland. After lunch we took one of our coworkers to the semi-famous Nike store which was a couple of blocks away and that was the day Justin Bieber happened to show up.
When he and his entourage arrived he said something somewhat loudly along the lines of "Y'all are going to have to leave for a bit 'cause I'm here to do some shopping" and some of his people acted like they were going to try and politely force the already-present customers out of the store so Bieber could shop alone but the Nike employees even more politely told him that was not possible. At that point Bieber lost it-I mean he threw a total tantrum because they wouldn't shut down the store for him. The tantrum didn't work and he and his folks left in a huff.
That's really my only "celebrity in the wild" encounter and it's freaking lame.
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306points
#3
I grew up with rich kids and still keep in touch with a few of them. One guy's father owned the most prestigious law firm in town. He said his life changed the moment he called his father from jail, the second time it happened. His father said "Well, sorry to hear you got arrested, good luck", then hung up.
He said getting locked back into his cell was the singular moment that completely turned his life around.
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264points
It’s no secret that part of the problem with spoiled kids is nothing else but their very own loving parents. So to find out how parents spoil their children and what happens when they encounter a reality check, Bored Panda reached out to Lynn How, the author of “Positive Young Minds” who specializes in supporting parents, teachers, and children navigating through mental health issues and prevention.
“As an only child, I’ve often considered that perhaps I was a bit spoilt and whether this was inevitable due to my parents having extra time and extra finances to spend on only me,” she recounted.
“However, in my situation, I didn’t get everything I wanted and for example, I was asked to choose between horse riding and flute lessons and I was certainly not allowed a pony!”
#4
I teach at a public high school, though it's in a fairly nice area. Because we serve a number of nearby towns, we have a diverse population ranging from poor to very wealthy.
The lunch monitor told me that on the first day last year, a freshman girl sat at her table and ate nothing for the period. At the end of the period, she came up to him and complained that "no one came to take her order."
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241points
#5
Me and my sister grew up fairly well off. When my sister went off to college, my parents made her work a job for spending money. My mom got a furious call from my sister yelling that some people were taking money out of her pay check, and that she was going to call them, and get her money back.
It was state/fed taxes.
My mom just said “Good luck with that, and welcome to the real world!”
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238points
#6
Here's a switch....highly successful local doctor/politician expects son to attend medical school and become doctor. Son opts out, gets job with new company called Costco, pumping gas. He's been with that company ever since, just his regular pay raises and bonus checks give him a good life. He just didn't want the high stress life his dad had.
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237points
#7
Dad buys a rich kid a Mercedes. It was pinkish (Salmon colored) so the kid [complained] about it. Dad took to away, sold it, and never bought him another car.
Rich brat had to buy his own.
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224points
Lynn said that in her experience as an educator, she has met various children who she would consider to be ‘spoilt.’ “Traits that have led to this conclusion include parents giving in to demands in order to avoid a tantrum, rather than simply saying ‘no.’”
#8
About 10 years ago I was having a pint with a friend of mine. His family s**t gold I swear. I mentioned I was struggling with rent and bills while in College and he just said "get your mum to pay for it then mate?". She's disabled and we've never had real money.
He instantly realized what he said and did feel bad about it. I think it was the first time he really understood that not everyone has their parents to lean on financially.
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204points
#9
Oh I have one!
I used to work at Starbucks and there was a girl that was just newly hired and in training. Mind you she was 20 years old and her parents made her get a job. She grew up in a very wealthy family.
On her first or second day, I had instructed her to do the dishes to help catch us up for closing. She looked at me with these lost eyes and told me she doesnt know how. Apparently she grew up with house maids and literally has never cleaned a dish in her entire life. I had to teach her step by step how to clean a dish.
194points
#10
I was one of those spoiled rich kids, and let me tell you, it leaves you with no social awareness. One of my best friends in High School once brought me to his home. I had to open my fat mouth and call his home trash-filled due to his step-father's tendency to horde. His mother was within and politely asked for me to never visit again. I lost a good friend that day and have regretted it ever since.
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191points
“We all need to pick our battles with our children but giving in to them every time will lead to trouble (especially as their demands will increase along with the size of the strop as they age).” Moreover, “parents with plenty of financial means but little actual time can sometimes inadvertently spoil their children. Their children would benefit more from time with their parents rather than the material things being provided.”
#11
Freshman year of college - the guy across the hall from me is a spoiled rich kid from a big southern city. Old money clearly coming out his a**. A couple of weeks into the second semester he and a buddy found a checkbook on the sidewalk. Stupid f***ers decided to write themselves a check and cash it in the bank that the account is in. The teller immediately called the cops and they both got arrested.
We talked the night he got arrested and he laughed and said his dad would "take care of it" and everything would be fine. That weekend we met his dad as they moved everything out of the dorms since his dumb a** got expelled. Guess daddy didn't take care of it.
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169points
#12
While working as an EMT on the ambulance for probably the richest area in San Diego County, a judge had ordered a 15 year old resident of the area to do community service for vandalism he had committed. The community service was to report to the nearest fire department every saturday for a month and clean whatever the fire chief wanted him to clean for a few hours. He shows up the first day and the chief asks him to go ahead and polish the chrome parts of the fire engine. They take the kid downstairs to the apparatus bay and give him the spray chrome polish and some rags.
An hour or so later we checked in on him surreptitiously from a second story window and he was just standing there staring at the spray bottle in one hand and the rag in the other. When we asked him why he hadn't started he claimed he had never cleaned anything in his life before and he 'didn't want to mess up' the fire engine. We gave him a short tutorial and over the next month he probably learned a more useful life skill than any other up to that point.
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167points
#13
When I was little, my daddy owned an exotic pet shop in Texas. A college girl comes in and tells him that she needs a sloth so her sorority can win a contest they were having to get the weirdest animal.
My dad says, "No, you don't want a sloth, it will destroy everything" but she insisted and said her daddy owned the city and would have him shut down if he didn't get her the sloth. So he told her to come back the next day.
So he talked to a lawyer and they drew up a long agreement saying he wasn't responsible for any damages, blah blah, and made her sign it and told her if she brought the sloth back, she'd have to pay shipping for it back to brazil or wherever it came from.
So the sloth comes in and the girls come get it, and they're so excited, because they're gonna win.
The next day, she comes in crying. It had shredded her clothes, carpets, wallpaper, beds, furniture, everything. She tried to get my dad's shop to pay for the damages, tried not to pay the shipping going back, but she'd signed the contract. She tried to use her daddy about that, too, and mine said he could come down and see a copy of the agreement if he wanted.
welp.
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166points
Having said that, Lynn explained that on the other end of the spectrum,” it is also possible to ‘spoil’ children with too much time and attention. For example, if you spend all of your time playing with your child, they will not learn how to entertain themselves, become resilient or solve problems without adult intervention. I have heard the term ‘helicopter parenting’ to describe this.”
#14
Somewhat distant relative spent all of his university years and twenties partying hard with the ~100-120K allowance his rich company owning father gave him each year. He'd travel the world each year going to Bali, Thailand, Europe, every year Oktoberfest, just rampaging.
At 32 or so he decided to settle an upscale ski resort area of the US and open a business with his hot gold digger fiance. When he went to transfer his money to his US bank account he noticed it only came to a few thousand dollars. He angrily asked the bank worker why she hadn't transferred the entire amount only to be told that that was the entire amount. His father had cut him off without saying anything and he just hadn't noticed.
Absolute flatline.
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156points
#15
Rich kid in high school whose parents bought him new cars every time he wrecked one, let him throw wild parties at their lake house etc.
He was asking why I didn’t show up to a particular party. You know, the whole “Don’t be a pussy” routine. I told him my parents had said no, I couldn’t go. He laughed and made a comment about my parents being overly strict. I just said earnestly, “Naw man, they’re not mean, they just care about me.”
He laughed, but I definitely saw a flash of understanding in his eyes before that.
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150points
#16
I had a roommate my freshman year of college that came from an incredibly rich oil family from the Middle East. I remember him having the hardest time adjusting to not having someone else prepare him food. I remember waking up one morning and going to the kitchen and seeing him try to eat eggs and toast he had just prepared himself. He asked me how I normally prepare fried eggs because his tasted really crunchy. Turns out he had just cracked the egg whole into the pan and prepared it shell and all. I couldn’t stop laughing but felt really bad for the dude.
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144points
She continued: “All these issues have a common theme; you are making a rod for your own back! Furthermore, teenagers who have been spoilt can be more prone to mental health concerns such as depression and excessive self-absorption. Sometimes parents can see where this path is heading but they feel it is too late to reverse the issue.”
#17
Friend of a friend totalled his brand new luxury car by driving 2-3x the speed limit drunk, plowed into some metal railings, and destroyed the front of several storefronts in a plaza. Fortunately this was the early hours of the morning and nobody was around to get hurt. He got out of his car and decided to just walk it off as he didn't care about the several hundred thousand dollars that the car cost. Cops found him, arrested him, shocked pikachu face when he realized that you can't bribe the cops as easily in Canada, got deported because he was on a student visa.
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128points
#18
While working in a casino here in Las Vegas, a herd of girls came to my window, & one proceeded to tell me about her great birthday party itinerary that her dad had paid for. For her 18th birthday. With no adult in the party. Just a bunch of teenaged girls, out in Vegas.
Where none of them could do anything because none of them were 21. I couldn't even check them into their reservation. They start yelling & screaming at me, I calmly call security - and security tells them they can either "go play in the arcade" or leave & try to find a hotel off the Strip that will take them in w/out being 21. The anger turns to tears, the security guard is unmoved.
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123points
#19
At a Starbucks and she thought apparently people gave her parents free drinks and such for her all these years. Like the cashier told her the total and she said, " Wait I don't get it for free?" She never realized her parents swiping their cards all those years was paying for her things I guess.
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119points
#20
Rich scummy injury lawyer’s kid was in my class in HS. Goes to college (mid size school in the Midwest) and gets plastered drunk (parents bought him and his friends alcohol since freshman year so nothing new) and RA says he has to write him up for alcohol in the dorms. Punches 2 RAs, then gets cops called on him and knocks a cop’s tooth out. Long story short his parents have to drive back 6-7 hours after one day to get him and he’s not even allowed to leave the state until his hearing. Last I heard he’s working at a fast food establishment.
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116points