family portrait

Almost nobody knows that I grew up in a very wealthy family. Even though we have a very huge house and lots of cars, we live very down to earth, and I care little about material things, despite being a millionaire's daughter. I've never told that anybody before, because it's nobody's business, but still, it changes a lot in life. At home there was never any privacy. Downstairs was our medical office, upstairs the housekeeper. Growing up I was raised with about three different nannies. As soon as I went to primary school, I started to get ready in the morning by myself, and for pocket money, I had to do household chores. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that money doesn't make you happy, that´s why I have chosen a profession where I will earn the least amount of money in our family, but which does make me happy.

My family could not be more diverse than it is. The only thing that connects us is our IQ, but for the most part, we all can't stand each other, and even outsiders say we couldn't be more different. My only person to relate to is my mother. I spent most of my time with her, and she is like a good friend to me. My father is autistic, which does not excuse how mean he treats everyone. My brother is very emotionless and has always been very intellectual. My sister is the rebel who hates everyone, and makes our life quite difficult sometimes, and I am probably right in the middle. Something between nerd and rebel, but the only one with "more ordinary" social interests, as my mother always says. And so I usually feel quite out of place when all the topics of conversation revolve around super-intellectual topics, and nobody is interested in more "normal" topics of conversation.

Unfortunately, I could only meet one of my four grandparents. My grandpa was such a great person. He died when I went to primary school, but I still have lots of memories. He was as crazy as me, and with his ideas it never got boring. I would have loved to meet my grandma, she was such a strong feminist and inspiration. She had many siblings and fought for going to high school, which was unusual during that time. She found herself a tutor, was the only one to graduate from high school and became a doctor. Such a strong woman.

As we all are so different, we do not have a lot of contact. I have almost no contact to both of my siblings. My sister is still very difficult to interact with and my brother is always working and not very communicative. With my father I ended contact about 3 month ago, and it was the best decision made in a while. You cannot continously be hurtful and expect love when you never gave love yourself. The only family I really have is my mother, and as wierd as it might sound my pets.

Only money is something which is shared in our family. If it is christmas, birthdays etc. you just get asked what you wish for and you get it; quite unpersonal. So I stopped having birthdaywishes etc. years ago. If you need something, they will buy it for you. It does not hurt them as they tend to say. But what if I have a wish that you cannot buy with money? Exactly, not happening.

Happiness is more important than money, and you cannot choose your family. As a live-in nanny, I had hoped to be once part of an intact family. But I learned that many families are just as broken as mine, and it could always be worst.