>They came from the same background, had the same advantages, and so on Did they really though? Thinking back to my childhood recently, I've come to almost ex

>They came from the same background, had the same advantages, and so on Did they really though? Thinking back to my childhood recently, I've come to almost exactly the opposite conclusion. There were some kids who I thought were just naturally shitty until I experienced enough of life to realize that they were the ones getting beaten up by their angry or alcoholic parents or being emotionally abused by a narcissistic family member. These were all things that I saw the signs of going to their houses or at sports games, etc. as a kid, but it was so far outside of my frame of reference that I didn't understand the context for what was happening. That angry arm grab and wrench just because dad didn't like the choice of font on a book report? Not a sign of a healthy home life, especially if that was the way he behaved with an "outside observer" in the house. It's all still anecdotal of course, with my small sample size and situation, but after going to a small school with the same ~25 kids (all from similar middle class households) for 9 years I can say that later success in life was strongly correlated to the ones that had supportive and non-traumatic home lives.