I feel for wealthy helicopter parents. They’re a maligned demographic. All they want is for their prized possessions, I mean, children, to have the best of everything, at all costs, every single creature and thing in the universe be DAMNED.
It’s admirable, in a way. In a society built at least in part on hustling, the only people who are nailed to the cross are the ones who get caught. And even if you do get caught, “Mom wanted to impress other pillar of society-type parents so much she committed fraud in order for you to take the place of a more worthy student at an overpriced institution of higher learning at a time when American education feels like an even bigger fraud” is certainly an intriguing plot line, with a lot of elegant irony embedded in it.
Why stop at bribing your kid’s way into college, however? There are plenty of other, interesting, unusual, and innovative ways to spend that wealthy helicopter parent cash to make sure your precious Madison Harper is better off than filthy poors/minorities/minority poors who think hard work and integrity will get them anywhere in this country.
For example,
Pay Your Child’s Dorm-Mates
Everyone knows that dorms are filthy places — there are no maids but there is the constant threat of accidentally catching autism! — yet for some reason, even the children of wealthy parents frequently prefer to live in them.
Back in my day, you couldn’t have a normal weekend at the dorm without someone drunkenly mistaking a closet — or something far worse, like a bed — for a bathroom, but why should darling Madison Harper suffer the same disgusting rites of passage as everybody else?
The solution is simple: Bribe the people who live on her floor. Pay them so they swap their disgusting hippity hop music for some Haydn. Pay them extra to do gorgeous Madison Harper’s laundry for her (just make sure they actually know how to do laundry first — i.e., have your housekeeper perform a master class — because if you don’t, you know all of that cashmere is going to suffer a gruesome demise, and that’s practically the same thing as genocide).
Pay The People In Charge Of Your Child’s Unpaid Internships
Unpaid internships are for the elite — a way to demonstrate that your child can absolutely afford to work for free, and is therefore extremely qualified for covering, say, global economic crises, or uncovering the next crop of underprivileged writers in the name of our fake publishing meritocracy, or putting in nightmare hours in fashion PR, or doing whatever it is that qualified children like her are interested in doing.
But how elite would it be for you to also *pay* the people who are offering the unpaid internships in the first place?
It’s a good way to make sure stunning Madison Harper will never be the one who has to fetch the lattes or order the Seamless or do whatever it is that unpaid interns who also don’t pay for the privilege of being unpaid are forced to do. You would do it for her if you really loved her.
Pay For Nice Instagram Comments
In this day and age, anyone can buy social media followers for their child. You’re not special if you do it and the other parents at brunch won’t be impressed.
But what about paying struggling English grad students and laid-off journalists to tell amazing Madison Harper that her slightly blurry picture of her third margarita is, well, amazing? What about complimenting her on her superior taste every time she tags twenty luxury brands at the same time? What other people will call a “thirst pic” your hired staff will refer to as “omg, you look JUST like Gigi Hadid in that!”
Because the thing about social media is this — we’re all on it because we want to be loved. Some of us just deserve it a little more than others, right?
Pay For The Best Takes
Good takes don’t pay rent, certainly not in this economy, but spectacular Madison Harper’s rent is already covered (otherwise, what kind of a parent are you?) and there’s no reason why you can’t pay someone to write her takes for her.
Think of a combination of the Daily Show with something a little bit more fresh and edgy, like @dril.
You are welcome.
Pay For Your Child To Have A Sketchy Casino/Well Done Steak Brand
You do want her to be president some day, don’t you?
Pay To Make Sure Your Child’s Heart Is Never Broken
Look, I don’t know how to do that, not really, but you’re the super-mom/dad, YOU find a way.
A broken heart and all of the ensuing hangovers/assorted bad decisions/dull evenings spent staring past the people in the bar at the trash dancing down the sidewalk in the wind that come with it is for proletarian scum, NOT for glorious Madison Harper.
Pay For Age And The Grim Reaper To Take Poor People Instead
I’m pretty sure it worked for Dorian Gray.
For a while, at least.
It’s OK, Madison Harper doesn’t know who Dorian Gray is, anyway. You paid for someone else to take the AP test for her, remember?
Photo: VIA Agency