The end may be nigh for our Yummy Drummies
Thursday May 01 2008
You see them flocking round the MAC makeup counter at Brown Thomas or drinking their skinny cappuccinos at the Dundrum Town Centre, because it's never too early to start counting calories.
Rigorously accessorised, orthodontry gleaming, confidence oozing from every pore: a generation is developing among us for whom conspicuous consumption is a way of life.
Instead of baby blankets for christening presents, these children are given entitlement-to-wealth starter packs.
Call them the celebutante set, Lolly Dollies or Yummy Drummies. Spot them by their golden skin and American slang. Know them by their gleaming orthodontry, their Juicy Couture tracksuits, Ugg boots and Abercrombie tops. "Why choose? Buy both!" is their watchword.
Interacting with them must be like living on the set of cult California TV series 'The OC'.
Clones? Maybe. Tribal? Probably. Female? Undoubtedly. The calibre of female who'd have Emmeline Pankhurst spinning in her grave. There must be boys, I suppose, but the girls are more visible.
We've noticed them for some time now, operating at an altitude apart from the rest of us, their parents the standard bearers for the excesses of the Celtic Tiger.
Theirs is a world in which the pursuit of pleasure goes beyond a recreation -- it's a right. It's a world in which daddy is a 'high net-worth individual' as they say in financial circles, and mummy shows you exactly how to manipulate him.
The trend is set from their earliest years, when birthday and communion parties are staged as lavish set-pieces at exclusive venues, rather than jelly and ice cream on paper plates at home.
On the roads, you spot these celebutantes zipping along in their Mini Coopers, bought as 18th birthday presents by affluent parents sharing their wealth. Or assuaging their guilt. In shops, you notice them using credit cards guaranteed by mum and dad to buy luxury goods.
These celebutantes (because they feel due a life in which paparazzi trail them, even if they've done nothing to justify it) are natural born consumers. But it's not about earning money and omigod, it's definitely not about, like, saving it. It's about spending. They spend as if they're on hedge fund manager incomes, although many have never held down a Saturday job.
Of course, the economic downturn currently gathering pace -- another 250 jobs were lost on Tuesday, this time at Dell -- could be the deal-breaker. The wealth pyramid is starting to crumble, and the wakeup call for this gilded youth could be cruel. It's a fair guess those teen wheels will be the first sacrifices when debts are called in.
For now, however, this sub-species of exotic child-woman continues to bloom in our midst. Their expectations couldn't be any higher if their surname was Rothschild or Bin Talal Alsaud.
In restaurants, you encounter groups of them out to dinner together. Not with their parents but with their peers. Fourteen-year-olds eating out on a Wednesday night? Whatever happened to schoolwork?
Ay, there's the rub. They don't really anticipate having to work. Not at their exams and not at humdrum jobs. Why would they expect such a fate? When they need money they ask their parents, those human ATM machines never known to refuse.
Some assume they'll inherit family businesses, most look forward to inheriting properties -- more convenient than paying a mortgage -- and none seem familiar with saving for anything. Money isn't earned, it's received. But at what cost? Rod Stewart has admitted he believes his riches have caused his seven children to lack ambition.
We struggle to know what to make of them because this is the first time an entire generation of junior have-mores has flourished here. There've been isolated examples before, but we've never had an uber-wealthy class on the current scale.
Their affluence seems more pronounced now, with the rest of us feeling the pinch from mortgage rate rises, higher grocery bills, petrol, diesel and home heating oil at record levels and unemployment figures on the increase. But even they cannot remain insulated indefinitely.
Some may gain perspective when they reach college and meet a broader cross-section of society. Others, fewer in number, have parents with enough judgment not to turn them into pashas.
For now, most of the celebutantes remain accustomed to the good life: four holidays a year -- and we're talking the West Indies rather than the Costa del Sol.
A sense of entitlement and no work ethic are a dangerous combination in a downturn, however. Their spending splurge has even attracted Education Minister Mary Hanafin's attention -- who warned about parents giving money rather than time to children.
It's true they tend not to see much of their fathers, who toil long hours or have second families; but their mothers have taught them to work that guilt trip.
It may be the only work they do, although at a pinch they'd take jobs in television, fashion or the film business. Anything bringing admittance to glitzy parties as a perk.
Then again, do they actually want to work for a living? What they really, really want is to marry a man just like Daddy. Except the numbers don't stack up: there are way more celebutantes than cash cows.
We're all having to tighten out belts a notch, but there's a shock in store for a generation trained to put itself first.
In teaching them to believe they have an automatic claim to privilege, their parents have handed them a smoking gun instead of a silver spoon.
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