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A little background. Back in the early 90s, my family immigrated here to the US. We were dirt poor and all 7 of us lived in a trailer in a gang filled trailer park.
Fast forward to now. Our parents are retired comfortably. All 5 of us are doing very well economically. I'm the youngest. Have a spouse but do not have kids (yet). All my other siblings have young children.
My brother and his wife are very well off. Their daughter, also the first child in our family born in the US, got a Cadillac to go to college with. Her brother just turned 16 and got his license. He was given also a Cadillac. I'm guessing their mother is a fan of Cadillacs.
My sister has 2 boys. She and her husband are also well off. As far as I understand, here is their plan for their boys. When the oldest finishes HS and goes off to college, they will buy him a house in that area so the boy could be comfortable living in a house versus living in the dorms. The younger one is in middle school and they are also planning to do the same for him once he's college age. They reason that the boy could be the landlord and college rent if he has roommates and that will be his income.
In the back of my mind, I'm kinda scared of what will become our next generation. Our parents worked very hard and very long hours to give us a better future. My generation worked very hard to get to where we are. I work full time as an engineer in management and I also own my own a business. What I'm afraid of is our next generation will be complacent due to all the indulgences that they are given.
I think it can depend on how it's given to them. You can give a child a lot without them being ruined - literally spoiled - and have them still understand compassion and how fortunate they are. It is hard I think, though. I was raised in very similar circumstances and also have 2 siblings who are very wealthy. Their children were given a lot but they also achieved a lot. One of the families only really drives Mercedes. Their children went away to school so didn't have cars but when they drive - it's a Mercedes. They wouldn't buy a Toyota just to have for the kids to use. The children have all also traveled extensively and did semesters abroad, etc. They are still wonderful, compassionate people. I do know it was a struggle because we were raised in poverty and it's really difficult to compare the two.
Also - most schools only provide dorms for the first year. After that they have to live off-campus. If it coincides with a real estate investment for their parents it could still be a normal college experience for them.
It's hard to say, but I hear this sort of thing a lot. Years ago I read a book about wealth, and apparently accumulated wealth is t typically gone two generations later -- the first generation isn't wealthy but works very, very hard to get wealth for their children. Those children accrue the benefits of the wealth, but remember what it was like not to have it. They pass the wealth down to their children, who know nothing of not being wealthy, become lazy and mismanage the money and end up losing it.
I think there are certainly ways to try to avoid this, but if people are not inclined to intentionally do so, there's probably not a lot of ways to stop them.
I agree that you can help your children without spoiling them.
However, one concern is that your children have no idea that the benefits that they take for granted are not common. I'll share a story. A relative was speaking with some work colleagues, in her age range, mid to late 20s. The three other people were discussing public schools and couldn't understand if parents were unhappy with their child's education they just did not sent them to a private school. My daughter questioned them and learned that all of them had attended, high ranked, very expensive private schools (the ones with tuition higher than many colleges, like $30,000 or $40,000 a year).
My relative mentioned that she wanted to attend a private Catholic HS (tuition $10,000 a year) and her parents (both professionals) told her that they could afford sending her to the private HS or to use that money to help with college expenses but they could not afford to do both.
My relative said that her colleagues were absolutely stunned and appeared to not even imagine a situation where parents could not afford to send their children to a private elementary or high school. These were children of the 1% and could not even "wrap their heads around" the situations of the other 99%. She said that they were "literally speechless" that her upper middle class parents could not send her to any school that she wanted to attend because of money. Just picture how little these adults understand about society in general and what is typical and what is privilege.
I agree that you can help your children without spoiling them.
However, one concern is that your children have no idea that the benefits that they take for granted are not common. I'll share a story. A relative was speaking with some work colleagues, in her age range, mid to late 20s. The three other people were discussing public schools and couldn't understand if parents were unhappy with their child's education they just did not sent them to a private school. My daughter questioned them and learned that all of them had attended, high ranked, very expensive private schools (the ones with tuition higher than many colleges, like $30,000 or $40,000 a year).
My relative mentioned that she wanted to attend a private Catholic HS (tuition $10,000 a year) and her parents (both professionals) told her that they could afford sending her to the private HS or to use that money to help with college expenses but they could not afford to do both.
My relative said that her colleagues were absolutely stunned and appeared to not even imagine a situation where parents could not afford to send their children to a private elementary or high school. These were children of the 1% and could not even "wrap their heads around" the situations of the other 99%. She said that they were "literally speechless" that her upper middle class parents could not send her to any school that she wanted to attend because of money. Just picture how little these adults understand about society in general and what is typical and what is privilege.
I think when we're young, our world is relatively small. As we get older, our world expands. If your circle of influence is all 1%ers and their kids...when you're 16 or 17...you don't know much beyond that world, unless your parents make you get a job during the summer or something. But even then, a summer job for that 1%er is probably an internship at a law firm, or an art museum, or design firm, or some such.
Seems like, to me, if a parent really wanted a child to learn how the less fortunate live, they should have the child volunteer at a hospital, or a women's shelter, or a soup kitchen. Something like that.
But...it also seems to me, that MOST folks grow up, and they learn that there are less fortunate people than they are, and learn a whole heck of lot more about the human experience, eventually.
The line between taking good care and spoiling is pretty easy to see. It is right there between necessities and luxuries.
If you have the funds, you can provide high quality clothing, food, medical, dental, schooling. And I think that today a phone and computer are pretty much necessities for a school kid.
Everything else, the child has to do some sort of work for. Maybe not earn money, maybe not pay full price, but some sort of expectation involving effort that has to be met before the luxury is theirs..
My kid went to school with kids from top 1% of income families. Everyone of those kids was expected to shoulder a lot of responsibility. They had to keep grades up, they had to put effort into a sport or art of their own choice, they had to do volunteer work of some sort. Every one of those kids had beautiful manners and was articulate.
Last edited by oregonwoodsmoke; 07-02-2018 at 01:13 PM..
The line between taking good care and spoiling is pretty easy to see. It is right there between necessities and luxuries.
If you have the funds, you can provide high end cl I thing, foid, meducal, dental, schooling. And I think that today a c phone and computer are pretty much necessities for a school kid.
Everything ekse, the child has to do n some sort of work for
I'm not so sure it's that easy to see.
I recently spent a few days of vacation with a family that consisted of the husband, who's a lawyer, the mom, who is a stay at home wife and mother, and a 17 yr. old daughter, who, in some ways is/was spoiled.
The daughter was very sweet, and very outgoing, and seemed a bit naïve about the ways of the world. (Which, to me, was kind of refreshing to see actually.) She's had many many opportunities given to her. Voice lessons, piano and violin lessons, and she sings and performs for various things around town. She performs in community theater. She will, no doubt go to a good college. She is a good kid.
BUT she had some...mannerisms too, that bugged me. She was always interrupting her parents when one of them would be relaying a story to us. Like...all the time. I found that annoying. On one hand, it was refreshing that this teen liked hanging with her parents, and with us...but on the other hand, she had not been taught to wait until someone is done talking before speaking up.
Another time, we were eating dinner with paper plates. Her dad asked her to get him a regular, real plate. The daughter said "Are YOU washing the dishes? You'll keep your paper plate." And he ate off of a paper plate.
Personally, I found that outrageous. If MY dad asked for a regular plate, he'd get a regular plate, and I'd say "yes sir", and would not ever speak to him like that, and ESPECIALLY not for a house full of company to hear.
Anyway...I'm not sure that line between "spoiled" and "good care" is all that clear.
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This idea of buying a house in the town where the kid goes to college, and having him be the "landlord" and using the rental income to put himself through college is actually an idea that's encouraged at college meetings.
It costs less, especially if you have two kids go to the same college. When one graduates you've still got the house for the other one.
And it's HARD to be a landlord - that will be a really maturing experience. To be responsible for the upkeep of the house, responsible for locating roommates that will treat the house well, etc, deciding how much rent to charge.
And then at the end the house has still maintained its value and so the cost of housing is much less overall than if you rent or live in a dorm.
BUT she had some...mannerisms too, that bugged me. She was always interrupting her parents when one of them would be relaying a story to us. Like...all the time. I found that annoying. On one hand, it was refreshing that this teen liked hanging with her parents, and with us...but on the other hand, she had not been taught to wait until someone is done talking before speaking up.
Another time, we were eating dinner with paper plates. Her dad asked her to get him a regular, real plate. The daughter said "Are YOU washing the dishes? You'll keep your paper plate." And he ate off of a paper plate.
Personally, I found that outrageous. If MY dad asked for a regular plate, he'd get a regular plate, and I'd say "yes sir", and would not ever speak to him like that, and ESPECIALLY not for a house full of company to hear.
The interrupting thing... if you break the child and teach them to always wait, they'll never be able to get a word in edgewise if there's another more dominant person in the conversation. There are graceful ways to butt in, and others, not so much. But I don't think that matters with this generation. I don't really want to teach a kid to be so reserved when they're about to be out on their own, and need to be assertive, and start speaking up for their own needs. It's annoying because you were taught that it should be annoying.
And the paper plates... depends. You don't know the relationship she has with her father. They could take verbal jabs at each other all day and just it be part of the communication and sense of humor they have. It sounds like you were raised in a very buttoned-down, top-down household. The kid is good. The kid will be successful.
Just my opinion. "Spoiling" has little to do with material value of what kids have or even are given, and much more with how they're allowed to behave. I've seen horribly spoiled kids from very humble means; they were generally entitled, shown no discipline, and allowed to run the roost.
I know plenty of kids I grew up with, that were "handed down" some really nice cars when Mom or Dad was through with it. Its absurd to think of a kid driving a $30K car, but they weren't "spoiled." I don't think of them as being spoiled, since they were taught boundaries, had high expectations placed on them, and generally were good students and citizens.
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