Most mother and father wish to give their children one of the best, however is there a degree the place “one of the best” goes manner, manner too far? For instance, a mother who’s on public help and spends most of her cash shopping for designer child garments?
That is the controversy that one UK mother has sparked after she appeared on a British tv program to elucidate her child’s extravagant way of life — and her personal impoverished one.
She’s a single mother on welfare and spends most of her cash shopping for her toddler daughter designer child garments.
20-year-old Carissa hails from Dorset, United Kingdom, and as she revealed on the UK actuality TV present “Blinging Up Child,” she and her seven-month-old child Lavinia stay a life-style most of us can solely dream of.
Effectively — Lavinia does anyway. Carissa? Not a lot.
The only mother eats soup and on the spot noodles so she will spend most of her $120 per week earnings on designer child garments.
Carissa, who can be going to high school to be a hairdresser, receives round £100 per week in money — about $120 — as a part of her authorities advantages packages, and almost each cent, or pence, in her case, is spoken for. Not by diapers and method and all the opposite myriad wants for a child, however on floofy, sparkly clothes and name-brand apparel for tiny Lavinia — what she calls her “obsession” with “bling” for her child.
“I all the time ensure Lavinia’s bought the issues she wants first,” she informed the “Blinging Up Child” crew. “She’s bought every little thing — it’s me that goes with out issues. I’ve been dwelling off like tin soup, perhaps Cup-a-Soups, and packet noodles,” she went on to say.
After all, Carissa’s concept of what constitutes Lavinia’s “wants” could be very totally different from most mother and father — because the cameras pan round Carissa’s house, she reveals off all her daughter’s high-end clothes, together with myriad clothes dripping with sequins and crystals, tiny hot-pink child Ugg boots, and clothes units from costly manufacturers like Lacoste.
The mother spends all her cash on designer child garments in order that her child will know she’s appreciated later in life.
Carissa says her baby-fashionista efforts are all to make sure Lavinia feels particular as soon as she’s older. “I’m hoping that once I look again at pictures along with her,” she mentioned, “she will see how a lot effort went in, and she will see how beloved she was.”
And, like most mother and father, Carissa’s final motivation is making an attempt to have a greater parent-child relationship along with her child than she and her personal mom had.
“I by no means was shut with my mum,” Carissa mentioned. “Once I put the issues I purchase on her, I kind of get emotional over how good it’s. I prefer to really feel that manner. For me, it makes every little thing price it.”
Carissa was raised by her grandparents, who nonetheless assist her to today, together with with elevating Lavinia. “I believe if we didn’t assist her out, she wouldn’t be capable to have any meals,” Carissa’s grandmother informed the truth present crew. However she considers it a part of her grandmotherly—and now great-grandmotherly—obligation to take action. “That’s what you do for your loved ones, you assist them out,” she mentioned.
Carissa has based mostly her child’s glamorous look on legendary British actuality star Katie Value—and never everyone likes it.
“Katie Value is my greatest affect,” she informed the documentary crew. Value, a former nude mannequin who grew to become a UK family title after showing on “I am A Movie star…Get Me Out Of Right here!,” is a legendary UK media persona and enterprise mogul recognized for her Barbie-like sense of favor, quite a few plastic surgical procedures, and closely enhanced physique.
Assume Kim Kardashian meets Paris Hilton meets Pamela Anderson, however with a British accent.
Value has additionally proudly embraced the stereotypical moniker of “chav” — derogatory British slang for a kind of supposedly low-class individual with a foul perspective and a love of high-end manufacturers — assume someplace between “white trash” and “Jersey Shore” right here within the States.
As you may think, Carissa’s Value-based inspiration for child Lavinia’s appears has drawn loads of ire too. “Not everybody shares my imaginative and prescient,” she mentioned in her TV look. And, like with Value, “many individuals name my daughter ‘chavvy’ and ‘cheesy,'” she says.
However Carissa says she refuses to let it get her down. “I don’t actually care about them — it’s the look I like,” she mentioned. And he or she’s not selecting a brand new position mannequin for herself or her daughter anytime quickly both. “The whole lot about her she does totally different,” Carissa went on to say of Value, “and that is what I like about her.”
If doing every little thing in another way with child Lavinia was Carissa’s purpose, there is not any denying she’s knocking it out of the park — or the newborn part of the Louis Vuitton retailer, because it had been.
John Sundholm is a information and leisure author who covers popular culture, social justice and human curiosity subjects.
