Elle Decor Published the Most Ridiculously Offensive Essay of All Time

"I made a huge sacrifice to buy my dream home."

By Seija Rankin Jun 25, 2015 11:02 PMTags
Mean Girls, Regina's House for SaleParamount Pictures

"We built a luxury dream home but can only afford to have two children."

Normally the line above, when written to elicit sympathy, would be ripped straight from an Onion article, but unfortunately this is no satire. This is the actual introduction to an essay published by (formerly) venerable design magazine Elle Decor and titled "I Made a Huge Sacrifice to Buy My Dream Home." 

Things only get worse from there. 

The article goes on to tell the tale of Sarah Scott, a woman who is apparently living out both her wildest dreams and her worst nightmares simultaneously. She and her husband have recently purchased said luxury home. It is a self-described mansion, with features like a "big, beautiful, safe backyard," a "colorful playroom space" and, we assume, a white picket fence and a security system that keeps out unsavory characters like anyone whose median household income is under $100,000. Dream house is right!

The house may be a dream, sure, but the Scott's worked hard for it. They scrimped and saved for a whole year for that down payment! And now that they're in this luxury mansion, they make daily sacrifices. They only take one family vacation a year, and they had to keep to a (gasp!) budget when buying things that they so clearly need like a riding lawnmower and a personal generator. But don't worry, they are still able to afford for Sarah to stay home with their two children so at least she doesn't have to slum it at a (more gasps!) traditional job. 

And that is where the real tragedy comes in. In addition to all the above sacrifices, they can also only afford to have two children. "After talking it over, and trying to adjust the budget, we have come to the conclusion that the decision to buy our dream home last year has eliminated the possibility of having any more children," writes Sarah. "Unless circumstances suddenly change, in order to have one more child, we would need to downsize." Downsize! The horror!

In case anyone out there isn't aware of the true monstrosities of downsizing, it would include "tearing our two kids away from the house they now call a home" and having to "return to work full-time, taking away from the quality time our two children enjoy having with me and putting them (and the hypothetical third child) in daycare." Daycare! No child has ever been subjected to the brutishness of professional childcare and lived to tell the tale.

What's even worse is that Sarah and her husband now want a third child. The third child they are unable to afford. She lets the readers in on this awful reality, telling us that her uterus "literally aches" and that it's a "strange mourning process." Just when she begins to accept her downtrodden life of a luxury home, a yearly timeshare, a stay-at-home motherhood career and two healthy and functional children, she sees a beautiful newborn baby and is reminded all over again of all the hardships and heartaches she is forced to endure. It's even made her, occasionally, regret the decision to put every penny into a luxury home

"Sometimes, I can see us living in a smaller, older home somewhere, selling this one, and adjusting to accommodate life with a third child in a home that is definitely anything but a dream," she says. But then she remembers that "this is the American dream and we are in it, living it, every day, just the four of us" and all is well again. She doesn't expect anyone else to understand her struggle, of course, but not because it is the most out-of-touch, privileged and insensitive struggle that ever existed. It's because people her age don't usually "plan that meticulously." So that's the problem with everyone in the world who would give their left arm and probably their third child to have her problems be their problems: Planning.

We thank you, Sarah Scott, for showing us the light. We now see that you are not merely someone who is lucky beyond words to have been born into the right side of our country's deeply unbalanced economic system, you are simply a Very Good Planner. And your shockingly offensive essay isn't actually offensive at all, it's simply a lesson to the rest of us in How to Plan to Be Better. Bless you and your luxury home.