7 ms·

This all rings true, but it doesn't have to make you feel like America is broken. I'm of South Asian descent, where finances between generations are even more i

This all rings true, but it doesn't have to make you feel like America is broken. I'm of South Asian descent, where finances between generations are even more intertwined. In America we've created a narrative of one generation being completely free of the last, and when we don't fulfill it we feel shame. Like many destructive narratives our society has, it might be time to let this one go.

georgeburdell 8y ago
And yet, presumably you are here in the U.S. and not in South Asia.
- sooheon 8y ago
  Are you implying that financial independence between generations is everything that makes the US better than South Asia?
  - georgeburdell 8y ago
    Maybe. The O.P. seems so sure in his conviction that "South Asia's" culture in this regard is superior without evidence, and yet his forebears felt compelled to emigrate from there. O.P.'s argument appears to be that inter-generational independence is hard therefore we should give up and not feel bad about it.
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      What are the downsides of having an inter-generational safety net?
      - jtuente 8y ago
        It provides people with ammunition against tax-funded welfare? Changes opinions to be against estate taxes (my family earned this money why do you get to tax it)? Establishes expectations of inter-generational help or wealth?
      - trevelyan 8y ago
        Ritualized patterns of obligation and dependence lead to inauthentic relationships, an inability to communicate, and self-harm.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        It makes it harder for young people from escaping an abusive family. Sure, they "just" have to leave without a safety net, but when those are widespread, society adjusts to reduce other kinds.
      - antisthenes 8y ago
        All the replies so far describe the downsides of poor interpersonal relationships and political hypotheticals. I'm not sure I see even one argument against the safety net specifically. A semi-argument seems to be that a familial safety net will somehow reduce other safety nets, but that sounds like a false dichotomy at best.
        jtuente 8y ago
        Yet, if you don't take the time to think of the hypotheticals, you can't account for them, and the same goes for the interpersonal relationships. These are items which increase ignorance in localized populations and are easy to turn into movements against a larger idea. It's not reasonable to solve all of them, but it's good to at least acknowledge them. Slightly off-topic, but in recent memory: The woman from Alabama who joined ISIS had experienced poor family relations and is now stuck in a refugee/detention camp in Syria. Because of the poor relationships, her ignorance in Islam and ISIS enabled them to turn her to support their cause, which she seems to now renounce.
      - rb808 8y ago
        Pretty much what the original article implies - it generates unfair playing field. Its great if you have a healthy and wealthy family, if you're a talented child in a poor or dysfunctional family you'll never get anywhere. By having independent nuclear families its less unfair.
    - gorpomon 8y ago
      I'm breaking a rule of the internet here by attempting to clarify my comments: > Maybe. The O.P. seems so sure in his conviction that "South Asia's" culture in this regard is superior without evidence. It's not a conviction. I'm not wedded to any side (nor is this an issue with a side). I didn't say in my post that any one thing was better than others. I'm simply saying that there are other places on Earth where finances are more intertwined and people don't feel shame about that. We can learn from other people and cultures and maybe in the process lose what is not a particularly helpful narrative in our society. Is any one culture perfect? No. South Asia has many problems. But one problem I see less of is this idea that taking money from your family is bad. In America we all get money from our relatives when they're dead, and we do so guilt free. Why do we fret about it just because they're alive and can see us actually enjoy it?
- rayiner 8y ago
  My parents left south asia because of the corruption and theocracy, not so they could live an independent life and die alone. I'd hazard a guess, though, that the difference is more manufactured than real. My wife's family came over from Ireland in the 1600's, but the idea of tallying up the time grandparents spend taking care of kids and categorizing it as "unpaid labor" would seem odd to them too. I suspect the real difference is between middle/upper-middle-class Americans and everyone else. There was a brief spell when a kid from a middle class household could go to college at 18 and afford to start a family, and not look back. The NYT finds it remarkable that its often no longer true. But it wasn't true for much of America even in the 20th century. Multi-generational entanglement was always common.
zimablue 8y ago
"let go" the notion of individual freedom, and replace it with your parents having control via financing over your life for most of it. Yeah I'll pass. Alternative proposal - vote for parties who will reverse intergenerational inequality: reform the housing market, dispose of the (corporate and literal property) rentiers, introduce a wealth tax, equalise pensions (it's insane that one generation is going to get pensions and the next basically isn't). "Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word with yourself.
- komali2 8y ago
  >Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word with yourself. I assume your family has a couple generations of America under their belt? If so, I'm not surprised you find the statement your op to taste bad. It's fundamentally opposed to the American value system (though as this article indicates, at odds with the reality of America today). Are they wrong? If you had time to apply for colleges because you had housing in high school and didn't have to work all day to pay for food and housing, are you truly independent? If you didn't have to fetch your own water every morning and hunt your food? Maybe you think I'm taking the argument too far, but I see where they are coming from. True "freedom" is a bit of a myth, and shouldn't it be? Do you want to be the sole party responsible for ensuring your medicine isn't laced with arsenic? In any case, other cultures have taken on the idea of familial responsibility and wealth to great success by their own measures. Just because it is different, doesn't mean it's bad.
  - zimablue 8y ago
    I'm not even American, and for the record I got a couple of K a year at uni which I'd have survive without and never a dime since. Having to live under the control of your parents (which is fundamentally what happens when they hold the purse strings) past the age of 18-21 depending on taste is messed up. I know plenty of people from both camps and it's definitely bad for you to have your parents controlling your life past 21. It's different when you're younger, but even that is painful - at 15 I was ready to operate independently and my parents having some control over me until 18 probably messed up our relationship a lot. Not everything which is cultural is also arbitrary, as humanity advances we tend to promote individual freedom to the maximum extent we can support (and this is coming from a lefty). This isn't even bringing it how it will perpetuate class-systems, even for the beneficiaries I think it's incredibly harmful.
munificent 8y ago
I agree that our cultural shouldn't consider it a failure to have multiple generations of a family helping each other and working together. That's what family is all about! At the same time, there is an underside to this. No one gets to choose their family, and a cultural that presumes familiar support is a cultural that makes life harder for those who happen to be born into dysfunctional or tragic families. Maybe the way to thread the needle is to have a culture that says "we're in this together" and is based on more "family" as defined by the people you choose to make part of your life and less people you happen to share DNA with.
- throwaway_dys 8y ago
  What is the way forward for those born in dysfunctional families and no safety net? I think the only answer is try to amass as much wealth as possible while I can in an area it's more possible (bay area, nyc etc) and bail out solo somewhere else later to try an afford a decent life.
- rmah 8y ago
  At the same time, there is an underside to this. No one gets to choose their family, and a cultural that presumes familiar support is a cultural that makes life harder for those who happen to be born into dysfunctional or tragic families. I'd say it's the exact opposite. A culture that does not presume family support is one that feels it unnecessary to lend a helping hand to those without strong family networks to draw upon. Family support is, for most people, a given -- to pretend it doesn't exist is to deny reality. When someone faces life without it, he can't help but feel a bit cheated. When one considers family help to be unremarkable, then those who succeed without it look all the more exceptional.
peruvian 8y ago
I'm not Asian American so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I see in my friends it is NOT uncommon for Asian American parents to have a significant presence in their child's finances particularly when it comes to purchasing property, college, etc. Parents and grandparents are also more than happy to take care of children. Two of my Chinese American friends own property in a high COL area due to help from their family (none of them are rich) but they are far from "ashamed" of it nor do they think they did it all by themselves. The "flipside" is that the sons and daughters are expected to house and take care of the parents once they reach very old age and do the same thing their parents did to them with their own children.

georgeburdell 8y ago

And yet, presumably you are here in the U.S. and not in South Asia.

sooheon 8y ago
Are you implying that financial independence between generations is everything that makes the US better than South Asia?
- georgeburdell 8y ago
  Maybe. The O.P. seems so sure in his conviction that "South Asia's" culture in this regard is superior without evidence, and yet his forebears felt compelled to emigrate from there. O.P.'s argument appears to be that inter-generational independence is hard therefore we should give up and not feel bad about it.
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    What are the downsides of having an inter-generational safety net?
    - jtuente 8y ago
      It provides people with ammunition against tax-funded welfare? Changes opinions to be against estate taxes (my family earned this money why do you get to tax it)? Establishes expectations of inter-generational help or wealth?
    - trevelyan 8y ago
      Ritualized patterns of obligation and dependence lead to inauthentic relationships, an inability to communicate, and self-harm.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      It makes it harder for young people from escaping an abusive family. Sure, they "just" have to leave without a safety net, but when those are widespread, society adjusts to reduce other kinds.
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      All the replies so far describe the downsides of poor interpersonal relationships and political hypotheticals. I'm not sure I see even one argument against the safety net specifically. A semi-argument seems to be that a familial safety net will somehow reduce other safety nets, but that sounds like a false dichotomy at best.
      - jtuente 8y ago
        Yet, if you don't take the time to think of the hypotheticals, you can't account for them, and the same goes for the interpersonal relationships. These are items which increase ignorance in localized populations and are easy to turn into movements against a larger idea. It's not reasonable to solve all of them, but it's good to at least acknowledge them. Slightly off-topic, but in recent memory: The woman from Alabama who joined ISIS had experienced poor family relations and is now stuck in a refugee/detention camp in Syria. Because of the poor relationships, her ignorance in Islam and ISIS enabled them to turn her to support their cause, which she seems to now renounce.
    - rb808 8y ago
      Pretty much what the original article implies - it generates unfair playing field. Its great if you have a healthy and wealthy family, if you're a talented child in a poor or dysfunctional family you'll never get anywhere. By having independent nuclear families its less unfair.
  - gorpomon 8y ago
    I'm breaking a rule of the internet here by attempting to clarify my comments: > Maybe. The O.P. seems so sure in his conviction that "South Asia's" culture in this regard is superior without evidence. It's not a conviction. I'm not wedded to any side (nor is this an issue with a side). I didn't say in my post that any one thing was better than others. I'm simply saying that there are other places on Earth where finances are more intertwined and people don't feel shame about that. We can learn from other people and cultures and maybe in the process lose what is not a particularly helpful narrative in our society. Is any one culture perfect? No. South Asia has many problems. But one problem I see less of is this idea that taking money from your family is bad. In America we all get money from our relatives when they're dead, and we do so guilt free. Why do we fret about it just because they're alive and can see us actually enjoy it?
rayiner 8y ago
My parents left south asia because of the corruption and theocracy, not so they could live an independent life and die alone. I'd hazard a guess, though, that the difference is more manufactured than real. My wife's family came over from Ireland in the 1600's, but the idea of tallying up the time grandparents spend taking care of kids and categorizing it as "unpaid labor" would seem odd to them too. I suspect the real difference is between middle/upper-middle-class Americans and everyone else. There was a brief spell when a kid from a middle class household could go to college at 18 and afford to start a family, and not look back. The NYT finds it remarkable that its often no longer true. But it wasn't true for much of America even in the 20th century. Multi-generational entanglement was always common.

zimablue 8y ago

"let go" the notion of individual freedom, and replace it with your parents having control via financing over your life for most of it. Yeah I'll pass. Alternative proposal - vote for parties who will reverse intergenerational inequality: reform the housing market, dispose of the (corporate and literal property) rentiers, introduce a wealth tax, equalise pensions (it's insane that one generation is going to get pensions and the next basically isn't). "Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word with yourself.

komali2 8y ago
>Let go of the idea that you can live as an independent human" have a word with yourself. I assume your family has a couple generations of America under their belt? If so, I'm not surprised you find the statement your op to taste bad. It's fundamentally opposed to the American value system (though as this article indicates, at odds with the reality of America today). Are they wrong? If you had time to apply for colleges because you had housing in high school and didn't have to work all day to pay for food and housing, are you truly independent? If you didn't have to fetch your own water every morning and hunt your food? Maybe you think I'm taking the argument too far, but I see where they are coming from. True "freedom" is a bit of a myth, and shouldn't it be? Do you want to be the sole party responsible for ensuring your medicine isn't laced with arsenic? In any case, other cultures have taken on the idea of familial responsibility and wealth to great success by their own measures. Just because it is different, doesn't mean it's bad.
- zimablue 8y ago
  I'm not even American, and for the record I got a couple of K a year at uni which I'd have survive without and never a dime since. Having to live under the control of your parents (which is fundamentally what happens when they hold the purse strings) past the age of 18-21 depending on taste is messed up. I know plenty of people from both camps and it's definitely bad for you to have your parents controlling your life past 21. It's different when you're younger, but even that is painful - at 15 I was ready to operate independently and my parents having some control over me until 18 probably messed up our relationship a lot. Not everything which is cultural is also arbitrary, as humanity advances we tend to promote individual freedom to the maximum extent we can support (and this is coming from a lefty). This isn't even bringing it how it will perpetuate class-systems, even for the beneficiaries I think it's incredibly harmful.

munificent 8y ago

I agree that our cultural shouldn't consider it a failure to have multiple generations of a family helping each other and working together. That's what family is all about! At the same time, there is an underside to this. No one gets to choose their family, and a cultural that presumes familiar support is a cultural that makes life harder for those who happen to be born into dysfunctional or tragic families. Maybe the way to thread the needle is to have a culture that says "we're in this together" and is based on more "family" as defined by the people you choose to make part of your life and less people you happen to share DNA with.

throwaway_dys 8y ago
What is the way forward for those born in dysfunctional families and no safety net? I think the only answer is try to amass as much wealth as possible while I can in an area it's more possible (bay area, nyc etc) and bail out solo somewhere else later to try an afford a decent life.
rmah 8y ago
At the same time, there is an underside to this. No one gets to choose their family, and a cultural that presumes familiar support is a cultural that makes life harder for those who happen to be born into dysfunctional or tragic families. I'd say it's the exact opposite. A culture that does not presume family support is one that feels it unnecessary to lend a helping hand to those without strong family networks to draw upon. Family support is, for most people, a given -- to pretend it doesn't exist is to deny reality. When someone faces life without it, he can't help but feel a bit cheated. When one considers family help to be unremarkable, then those who succeed without it look all the more exceptional.

peruvian 8y ago

I'm not Asian American so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I see in my friends it is NOT uncommon for Asian American parents to have a significant presence in their child's finances particularly when it comes to purchasing property, college, etc. Parents and grandparents are also more than happy to take care of children. Two of my Chinese American friends own property in a high COL area due to help from their family (none of them are rich) but they are far from "ashamed" of it nor do they think they did it all by themselves. The "flipside" is that the sons and daughters are expected to house and take care of the parents once they reach very old age and do the same thing their parents did to them with their own children.