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I work at a university with a fair amount of overpriveleged kids, and the mindset is amazing. At the end of the year when they go on job interviews for some of them it's unthinkable that they would take a position that pays $25,000 a year (or live in shabby one bedroom apartment or gasp! take the bus.) I want to say, "honey, you're a *philosophy* major. That's a good salary."
I will admit I was a rich kid. I was also a rich kid who was cut off after I got through college. I went from having a great lifestyle to having nothing. I think that rich kids have it hard in that we've grown accustomed to having a certain lifestyle, don't know how to make do with less, were never taught to save or bargain shop, etc. I will never ever have the lifestyle that I had growing up again and so it has been a tough lesson in reality. My friends who had less growing are better adjusted because they didn't have the expectations for life and money that I had. I know I sound like a brat, and I was one in a lot of ways. I just didn't realize what I had until it was gone because I didn't know any other way.
Good post!
There's no doubt kids always want to start out with what their parents have now. It usually doesn't work that way.
It's a hard adjustment to go from someone who has never known need to shopping at the local thrift store. Living well for cheap is a skill that has to be learned. I can see where a lot of these kids would be scared to death when they finally had to face the reality of how they were going to live, post Mom and Dad. I think that's one of the reasons kids stay in school.
With the economy in the toilet, even being willing to work hard doesn't mean much. These days you are lucky to have any job. These kids grew up in a time of relatives ease and privilege, they don't know how to cope. They have no idea how to afford clubbing and a YSL bag on a McJob salary. They will learn if they want to survive.
I think I was lucky. My parents were relatively wealthy but money from them always had too many strings attached(their money, after all). I wanted money I could do with as I pleased. So I worked when all my friends were partying on the parent's nickel. Everyone wants the free ride and at the time, I was peeved. But in the end, it was the right thing to do!
The US has been more meritocratic in the last 2 decades in terms of higher education opportunities. Rich kids generally are no longer shoe-ins for the Ivy Leagues and the equivalent. Most Top 20 universities have large need-based grants set aside for students from poorer backgrounds. What becomes more important is your grades and standardized test scores.
However, only high performers benefit from this meritocracy. If you are a mediocre student from a poor background, you are still going to face far more difficulties than a mediocre student from a rich family, especially once out of school. As state school tuition rises everywhere in the country, mediocre students from poorer backgrounds are getting increasingly shafted.
I work at a university with a fair amount of overpriveleged kids, and the mindset is amazing. At the end of the year when they go on job interviews for some of them it's unthinkable that they would take a position that pays $25,000 a year (or live in shabby one bedroom apartment or gasp! take the bus.) I want to say, "honey, you're a *philosophy* major. That's a good salary."
I knew a young woman who was pleasant enough but spoiled and generally clueless. She wanted to get a part-time job so she'd have some extra pocket money--her allowance wasn't enough. She asked me where she could find a job that paid $100 an hour (an 18-year-old with no real skills at all), because that's what she felt her time was worth.
It seems to me that even middle class kids are getting spoiled and pampered to these days....
Globalization makes it even worse for kids who grew up in fairly decent, comfortable regions who have to compete against cold, hardened kids who are willing to work twice as hard for half as much
I knew a young woman who was pleasant enough but spoiled and generally clueless. She wanted to get a part-time job so she'd have some extra pocket money--her allowance wasn't enough. She asked me where she could find a job that paid $100 an hour (an 18-year-old with no real skills at all), because that's what she felt her time was worth.
LOL.... That is as about as ridiculous as when my son was about 7 years old, he wanted a toy and I said I didn't have the money. He said go to that ATM thingy and tell them to give it to you!
I will admit I was a rich kid. I was also a rich kid who was cut off after I got through college. I went from having a great lifestyle to having nothing. I think that rich kids have it hard in that we've grown accustomed to having a certain lifestyle, don't know how to make do with less, were never taught to save or bargain shop, etc. I will never ever have the lifestyle that I had growing up again and so it has been a tough lesson in reality. My friends who had less growing are better adjusted because they didn't have the expectations for life and money that I had. I know I sound like a brat, and I was one in a lot of ways. I just didn't realize what I had until it was gone because I didn't know any other way.
MsRiss, I feel your pain. I, too, grew up in a richie-rich environment until I got through my second year of college. I also agree with the other poster saying that kids growing up in a rich environment SHOULD be taught what it's like to earn their own $$$ way before high school, so that it wouldn't be such a culture shock to these kids that when it's time to make it on their own, well... they won't ever reach Mommy and Daddy's richness overnight, or in a couple of years (unless you do something illegal).
I've always been in private school my whole life until high school, so I was used to being around people in that similar rich lifestyle. When I got to high school, I told my folks I wanted to go to public school because I was sick of wearing uniforms (there was no private school in my area that did NOT require uniform). Wow, I quickly became one of the biggest ridicules in school. I remember making myself look like an a$$ because, when I walked to the school parking lot, I was floored to find an ocean of older non-luxury cars, instead of new BMW's and Benz's.
Being raised and growing up in a rich environment, and then being tossed to the "real world" in my 20's became a harsh reality for me, and it is getting worse right now due to the second great depression that our economy is in right now. Even though "being thrifty" is the "in" thing to do these days, I still feel embarrassed about not being able to buy steaks/ seafood/ going out to eat as much as I want to, because currently I'm supporting for myself AND my spouse (who is looking for a job, laid off from his last one, like what lots of people are going through now), not to mention that he's got his own debts that are now "on my shoulders", so to speak, because well, he cannot contribute currently, financially, until he gets a job. I find myself staying home more and more often because I'm afraid to get myself worked up about buying something I see (when I'm out and about), only to realize that I would have to make a decision between buying something, or buying groceries.
Sorry for the vent, but yeah, life is not serving me very well lately.
All the rich kids I know around me are depressed, seriously depressed.
It seems that they're finally beginning to realize that once they leave Mom&Dad they will have to start earning their own $.
But all of their lives they've lived in comfort and aren't really accustomed to the idea that luxury can't be taken for granted. Thus I've found that the rich kids I know at school are starting to report themselves as depressed as we near the end of high school.
Has life always been this way for (most) rich kids in history? Or is it because of the decline of family-oriented values and the rise of rampant individualism that now the rich kids must "go off" and basically fend for themselves regardless of their childhood background?
It seems to me that the increasing opportunity for social mobility (thus allowing poor, hard working, gifted students up into the stratosphere) has also made the rich kids' position more precarious and unstable to say the least.
Does anyone have any opinions on this matter?
I don't think we can generalize and say that all rich or privileged kids are more depressed these days than are their less affluent peers. I grew up in an upper-middle class home in Northern California suburbia and today, as a 40-something, I work with alot of upper class kids. To me, they pretty much seem the same as I remember me and my friends were. Some were upbeat and confident and positive, with a strong work ethic, while some were apathetic and boorish with a gradnsiose sense of entitlement. I never noticed much depression as I did apathy, once in awhile.
I think you can find a wide spectrum of emtional fitness among any socio-demographic group.
That being said, there's no doubt that rich people are diagnosed with depression (usually falsely) and take anti-depressant meds more often than the poor. But this is due to the fact that they have the means and the time on their hands to be more self-absorbed and think about the fact they might be depressed! LOL. The poor are too busy trying to earn a living.
I'm reminded of the old quote by Michael Crichton, who flirted with becoming a psychiatrist after he got his MD. He quickly became disgruntled with the clientele, saying that it seemed like therapy was merely "hand-holding for self-centered, spoiled adults."
This thread reminds me of another story about a friend's niece. She graduated from college and got her first job, but mentioned to my friend that she was going to take a trip on Spring Break. My friend asked her if her company gave everyone a week off in the spring, and her niece said, "well, yeah, it's spring break." See, she actually thought that in the grownup world you get the same vacation time that you did in school.
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That is as about as ridiculous as when my son was about 7 years old, he wanted a toy and I said I didn't have the money. He said go to that ATM thingy and tell them to give it to you! 
