Karen Karbritz has big aspirations and only a man with a big salary will do
WORDS: SAMANTHA BRICK © DAILY MAIL
A stately home set in acres of grounds, a pristine black VW Beetle – electric, of course – on the long, gravel drive and a wardrobe bursting with designer clothes, shoes and handbags. As for the preferred choice of pet: a pack of Saint Berdoodle dogs (yes, that’s a cross between a Saint Bernard and a Poodle).
There’ll also be regular foreign holidays: Lapland at Christmas, Florida in the summer. Oh, and a second home in the mountains for skiing, naturally. My 17-year-old daughter, Lara, has her future mapped out with laser-like precision. She even has a Pinterest account, where she keeps ‘vision boards’ of where she will marry (the upmarket spa hotel Luton Hoo is the current favourite). She has also decided the names of the two children she plans to have (though won’t share them with me).
Life goals
While she might not know her future husband’s identity, she’s certain of one thing: the size of his bank balance. Lara is unabashed about her desire to marry a rich man. And far from bristling at what some might consider a depressingly retrograde goal, I am right behind her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling her to sit back and forget about her education. She attends a private school and last year achieved straight As and A*s in her GCSEs. She has her sights set on Oxbridge and would like to study classics before converting to law. She then plans to work for one of the ‘magic circle’ London law firms. Admittedly, her reasoning for working towards academic success is that she believes such institutions will help her achieve the ultimate aim — meeting a like-minded, uber-wealthy man. She goes so far as to say she’d like to marry the boss. Some might recoil, but why not aim high?
I support her 100%.
What mother doesn’t want the very best for her daughter? Whoever says ‘money can’t buy happiness’ is kidding themselves. It bloody well can!
We tell ourselves these frankly outdated tales to justify where we’re at in life. Of course you can have money and love. If only because money means you really can actively choose to buy the things that make you happy. I’ve got friends who are extremely wealthy and are in long and happy marriages; and I also know people who live in council flats who aren’t happy. It never occurred to me that mothers would snipe over such aspirations for their daughters. Yet when a recent post on a parenting forum posed
