never good enough

Sometimes I feel for B’s youngest sister; and sometimes I just want to slap her upside the head. In this instance I am leaning more towards the former because I can only imagine how hurt I would be if my parent made such a remark. First some background:

M already has her MBA, from Wharton no less. She got married a year and a half ago to another Wharton grad and they are expecting their first child, a boy, in January. I was there during part of the debate when M was considering accepting the job offer at the prestigious firm on Wall Street where she currently works. Her parents were clearly enamored by the money not realizing that part of the reason they offer such a nice compensation package is that they expect your soul in return. That’s not ink in the red pen they send with the contract.

M tried to get that point across, but the parental unit couldn’t get past all that money. They really couldn’t understand why anyone, let alone one of their offspring would turn it down. Of course the job also required a move to New York City, so a large chunk of all that money would go towards day-to-day living expenses. Their Dad is literally in love with New York, and has admitted that if he had it to do over again, he would have lived there. So that got M next to nowhere.

Thus, after being shot down, she got on the phone and accepted the offer. She was actually one of the lucky ones as several of her classmates that year had their offers rescinded at the last minute. Well, depends on how you define luck though too.

So fast-forward nearly four years. M has been made a Vice President. She just turned 30 years old. This is quite an achievement, no?

B’s Dad sent out an email. He announced M’s promotion adding that “but everyone is a VP at the firm.” Nice. Really, nice. Nothing is ever good enough.

After sharing this with me, B suggested M might want to go for the MD. I got a little confused and thought he was suggesting that M go to medical school (talk about a crazy measure to please a parent), but it turns out he meant become a Managing Director. At the firm where M works the MD's are higher up on the corporate ladder.

Of course, if M didn’t see this coming a mile away she truly does deserve that smack I mentioned. I don’t buy it mind you, but clearly in B’s family (especially in his father’s eyes) B is the King. He can shack up with an overweight white girl, get laid off and decide to remain job free for two years (all while M is climbing the corporate ladder, breaking the glass ceiling, and bearing heirs), and he is still number one. For some reason I don’t think she gets this. I really want to get her a t-shirt that says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results”. I am sure though that it would go right over her head.

This is not to say that they don’t badger and try to control B’s life every chance they get. That truly is not the case. Every time they come to visit conversations focus on what they want B to do with his life (they have started to do this to me as well which B sees as a sign of their warming up to me). Of course they are thrilled that they have finally “broken him” and that he is now in grad school getting an MBA of his own. His Dad (more than his Mom) is even more delighted that the school B is going to is better (depending on whose survey you believe) than the school M attended (in fact it seems she applied here but didn’t get in). For the most part though B just ignores them until he gets fed up and then he snaps at them and storms off. And you wonder why I try to avoid all contact.

Of course it seems like I may get my wish as Chicago is too cold (like New York is in the tropics), so they won’t be stopping by to visit us over the holidays. Personally I think they just want to see what M looks like all fat and pregnant. Take lots of pictures of her with the camera M and her husband gave them last Christmas.

Unless the doctors are off on her due date, they will not be there for the arrival of their first grand child. Hopefully they won’t feel like they missed out and want to be around should B and I ever find ourselves there. Would it be wrong to send out uninvations? I’d have them engraved: Your presence is NOT requested… It sounds mean, but why stress out the baby like that?