I’m still not sure, but it is a looooooong way from the Windy City.

(Posted by Gayle)

Recipe for Making a Little Princess (who will grow up to be “a May”.)

1. Two 40 year old parents.
2. No living brothers and sisters.
3. Add a pinch of unresolved grief due to a son who died 15 years earlier at 3 days of age.
4. Make sure dad’s business is booming when she is born.  You need lots of money to make a Little Princess.
5. Live in a high rise brownstone apartment a few miles away from downtown Chicago.
6. Send her to the University of Chicago Laboratory School (I was among the “handful” of elementary students mentioned in this article).
7. Don’t encourage playmates of her same age.
8. Do encourage her to be adult-like, a great little hostess, and exceptionally polite (make sure she raises her hand and is called on before speaking if adults are having adult conversations in her presence.)
9. Dress her in “ruffle butts” .
10. Make sure she has a designer wardrobe (way before designer wardrobes are cool) from Marshall Fields with matching Keds for each outfit.  (She can only wear tennis shoes to her la-te-da private school. This will ensure that she will never really fit in with kids her own age.)
11. Inspire her to be like her contemporary – Caroline Kennedy (do not encourage her to be a democrat or catholic though!)
12. Take her to adult functions.  Do not leave her with babysitters.
13. Vacation with her in Jamaica at the Playboy Club for her Christmas break in first grade (who needs Mickey and Minnie when you’ve got Hugh and the bunnies?!)
14. Give her everything you wanted and never had.
15. Make sure she isn’t spoiled.
16. If number 15 seems impossible in-light of number 14, heavy helpings of guilt can be used for counterbalance.

Read Part 1 of Ron’s Story

Read Part 2 of Ron’s Story

Read Part 2 of My Story

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