3 ms·

There's this really insidious meme that it's important for children to completely find their own way in life. I could best summarize it as: Children that receiv

There's this really insidious meme that it's important for children to completely find their own way in life. I could best summarize it as: Children that receive more from their parents are some flavor of "less good" humans. I don't know where/when it started. It seems like one of those ideas that mostly the bottom 99% of the income spectrum hold onto.

miles 3y ago
> There's this really insidious meme that it's important for children to completely find their own way in life. ... I don't know where/when it started. It seems like one of those ideas that mostly the bottom 99% of the income spectrum hold onto. Why the super-rich aren’t leaving much of their fortunes to their kids https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-the-very-rich-arent-giving-much-of-their-fortunes-to-their-kids/2014/08/10/4a9551b4-1ccc-11e4-82f9-2cd6fa8da5c4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-the-very-... 8 billionaires whose kids won’t inherit their fortunes, from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, to late Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3148570/8-billionaires-whose-kids-wont-inherit-their-fortunes https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/31485...
- rybosworld 3y ago
  I agree that it's interesting that a handful of ultra rich are bucking the trend and not passing all their wealth to their children. But this is only interesting because it's so rare. It's also not very accurate. Gates has stated publicly he plans to leave each child $10 million. Buffet has stated publicly that his kids will only get $2 billion each. Articles like the ones you've posted are just fuel for a false narrative.
  - aksss 3y ago
    Yeah, Gates is leaving couch money to his kids, but realistically those kids are set for life unless they have catastrophic lifestyle failure. For all intents and purposes, his kids are and will remain extraordinarily wealthy.
cheeseomlit 3y ago
"Trust fund kids" are a real phenomenon that many of us have experienced personally. People who never have to work a day in their lives usually end up as insufferable spoiled brats when they grow up, and its not hard to see why
- rybosworld 3y ago
  That's almost entirely down to how they are raised. And as with anything, a few examples do not make for a trend. There are lots of people in this world who have grown up wealthy and aren't anything close to the spoiled brat you are describing.
  - cheeseomlit 3y ago
    I agree, thats why I didn't say 'wealthy' but 'never work a day in their lives', there's a big difference
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  It's worth pointing out that those kids are merely a very visible minority of wealthy kids, typically born to nouveau riche families. The majority of wealthy families, especially those who have had their money for a couple generations, are basically invisible to the proletariat. The kids go to prestigious private schools, where they get a better education than you, then get propelled into jobs that simply aren't available to most, like politics, or non-profit boards, and the like. Some will end up taking jobs basically recreationally, like my billionaire highschool teacher. They might be somewhat entitled, in the sense that they don't feel that their life of largely leisure is undeserved, but in our current economic system they're regularly told they're not wrong. These are the terrifying rich, and the ones that are actively running the world. They're effectively checked out from the money economy, and spend their time primarily in the power economy. The illusion that "oh, rich kids grow up to be spoiled, ineffectual brats" only works to their benefit.
- cykros 3y ago
  You can pay for school, but you can't buy class.
Hermitian909 3y ago
Having grown up around a bunch of ultra-wealthy kids the thing that is being grappled with is that knowing you will never have to do anything from a young age is corrosive to most (but not all) children. It's noticeably distinct from the feeling of "you can never truly fail" which is more common with the upper middle class and seems be significantly better for your long-term mental health. I don't think this means you need to actually not leave your children gobs of money, but in my experience it certainly helps to act like you're not for the duration of your kids' childhood.
danaris 3y ago
Let me flip that around on you: There's this really insidious meme that just because their parent(s) made astronomically absurd amounts of money, children should be able to spend their entire lives doing nothing productive, treating regular people like shit, and wrecking the environment all in the name of enjoying themselves. I genuinely believe that every human being should be given the means to survive without having to work for it—even a bit more, because psychological needs are a thing, too. The vast majority of people have an innate drive to do something, to contribute to our world, to make other people's lives better, to create something real. Being given enough money that you can just pop from NYC to Paris on a whim on the family private jet—or even just buy a new jet to do so, because the other jet is in use—is entirely different. Being disconnected from work, and from people without enough money to treat other humans like animals, is genuinely an unhealthy thing.
cykros 3y ago
This goes back to at LEAST 19th century socialist thought, if not beyond. Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin writes about the evils of inheritance in his works.

miles 3y ago

> There's this really insidious meme that it's important for children to completely find their own way in life. ... I don't know where/when it started. It seems like one of those ideas that mostly the bottom 99% of the income spectrum hold onto. Why the super-rich aren’t leaving much of their fortunes to their kids https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-the-very-rich-arent-giving-much-of-their-fortunes-to-their-kids/2014/08/10/4a9551b4-1ccc-11e4-82f9-2cd6fa8da5c4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-the-very-... 8 billionaires whose kids won’t inherit their fortunes, from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, to late Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3148570/8-billionaires-whose-kids-wont-inherit-their-fortunes https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/31485...

rybosworld 3y ago
I agree that it's interesting that a handful of ultra rich are bucking the trend and not passing all their wealth to their children. But this is only interesting because it's so rare. It's also not very accurate. Gates has stated publicly he plans to leave each child $10 million. Buffet has stated publicly that his kids will only get $2 billion each. Articles like the ones you've posted are just fuel for a false narrative.
- aksss 3y ago
  Yeah, Gates is leaving couch money to his kids, but realistically those kids are set for life unless they have catastrophic lifestyle failure. For all intents and purposes, his kids are and will remain extraordinarily wealthy.

cheeseomlit 3y ago

"Trust fund kids" are a real phenomenon that many of us have experienced personally. People who never have to work a day in their lives usually end up as insufferable spoiled brats when they grow up, and its not hard to see why

rybosworld 3y ago
That's almost entirely down to how they are raised. And as with anything, a few examples do not make for a trend. There are lots of people in this world who have grown up wealthy and aren't anything close to the spoiled brat you are describing.
- cheeseomlit 3y ago
  I agree, thats why I didn't say 'wealthy' but 'never work a day in their lives', there's a big difference
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
It's worth pointing out that those kids are merely a very visible minority of wealthy kids, typically born to nouveau riche families. The majority of wealthy families, especially those who have had their money for a couple generations, are basically invisible to the proletariat. The kids go to prestigious private schools, where they get a better education than you, then get propelled into jobs that simply aren't available to most, like politics, or non-profit boards, and the like. Some will end up taking jobs basically recreationally, like my billionaire highschool teacher. They might be somewhat entitled, in the sense that they don't feel that their life of largely leisure is undeserved, but in our current economic system they're regularly told they're not wrong. These are the terrifying rich, and the ones that are actively running the world. They're effectively checked out from the money economy, and spend their time primarily in the power economy. The illusion that "oh, rich kids grow up to be spoiled, ineffectual brats" only works to their benefit.
cykros 3y ago
You can pay for school, but you can't buy class.

Hermitian909 3y ago

Having grown up around a bunch of ultra-wealthy kids the thing that is being grappled with is that knowing you will never have to do anything from a young age is corrosive to most (but not all) children. It's noticeably distinct from the feeling of "you can never truly fail" which is more common with the upper middle class and seems be significantly better for your long-term mental health. I don't think this means you need to actually not leave your children gobs of money, but in my experience it certainly helps to act like you're not for the duration of your kids' childhood.

danaris 3y ago

Let me flip that around on you: There's this really insidious meme that just because their parent(s) made astronomically absurd amounts of money, children should be able to spend their entire lives doing nothing productive, treating regular people like shit, and wrecking the environment all in the name of enjoying themselves. I genuinely believe that every human being should be given the means to survive without having to work for it—even a bit more, because psychological needs are a thing, too. The vast majority of people have an innate drive to do something, to contribute to our world, to make other people's lives better, to create something real. Being given enough money that you can just pop from NYC to Paris on a whim on the family private jet—or even just buy a new jet to do so, because the other jet is in use—is entirely different. Being disconnected from work, and from people without enough money to treat other humans like animals, is genuinely an unhealthy thing.

cykros 3y ago

This goes back to at LEAST 19th century socialist thought, if not beyond. Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin writes about the evils of inheritance in his works.