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One of the clearest moments I've ever had of not realizing my privilege was a conversation with someone who, once they started earning money, had to give money

• syntaxing 2y ago
  Were they Asian by any chance? I’m Asian American and it’s a cultural norm. We have a saying for the money we give to our parents (“family usage” in direct translation). It’s quite a financial burden for some of my friends. Some parents expect their kids to buy them a house and you can imagine how brutal it is in the current housing market.
  • charlie0 2y ago
    I don't think it's strictly an Asian thing. A lot of first generation Americans have this expectation. It's very common to see their parents remunerate money back their parents in foreign countries.
    • MisterTea 2y ago
      It isn't. This is typical of most 1st gen immigrants. Growing up in NYC I have friends who were Sri Lankan, Polish, Italian, and Guyanese who's parents came here and worked their asses off to provide a better future for their kids while sending money back home.
  • otoburb 2y ago
    >>Some parents expect their kids to buy them a house and you can imagine how brutal it is in the current housing market. Yes, but you left out that in most Asian-X cultures, first generation immigrant parents typically sacrificed almost everything they had, including in many cases the parental-filial relationship, to provide the children with enough education to claw their way out of their current situation and give them an extra leg up into a higher socioeconomic circumstance. My parents had this expectation, and my wife and I gladly and willingly obliged on both sides as only children. This expectation/obligation became even more poignant when we had our own kids and realized belatedly just how much our parents had sacrificed for us. Whether driven by cultural norms (or not), we appreciate what our parents did for us so that we can "pass it on" now that we're on better footing than either side ever was. While not always convenient or logistically possible, multi-generational housing (where one or both sets of parents live together or very close by) can go a long way to addressing astronomical housing costs at least until they need more intensive daily care due to aging.
    • entropi 2y ago
      Kudos to you if you appreciate the moves your parents made in their lives and you have achieved a working relationship with your parents. But I don't think this is a fair expectation from the parents' side, at all. As a child, you did not ask to be burdened with this. If this is a contract, it was signed not by you, but by your parents unilaterally.
      • coldtea 2y ago
        Life is not a contract.
        • entropi 2y ago
          Exactly! In my opinion, one of the implications of this fact is that you cannot make trades like "I am sacrificing x now, so you will buy me a house/whatever when I am older" with your unborn children.
          • recursive 2y ago
            How about "I am sacrificing x now, in the hopes that you will buy me a house/whatever when I am older" Or what about "Sorry, kid, I technically provided you with food, water, and shelter. You can walk to soccer practice, as I have no legal obligations in this matter" Which fits into your world view better?
            • sangnoir 2y ago
              > Which fits into your world view better? For some people, the answer may rest on whether the child is younger or older than 18. That said, I don't think people from collectivist and individualist cultures can ever agree on what the obligations a child has - if any - to their parents and extended family.
      • noufalibrahim 2y ago
        A signed contract is one way to frame it but this is informed by a religious/cultural world view. My own view is that it's at least a responsibility and at most a privilege to take care of my parents in any way that i can.
  • lambdasquirrel 2y ago
    That much is complicated. In the SF Bay Area, predominantly South Bay, I knew Asian families (all of them well-to-do, because South Bay), whose parents and extended family helped the new grads buy a house after a few years out of college. Then those kids were expected to help the next generation, when the time came. It was like a multi-generation, extended-family economic collective of sorts. I didn't know what to make of it. On one hand I admired the effort, on some level. On the other hand, I think it really gimped the kids as far as pursuing entrepreneurship goes. But hey, at least they can afford the "rent" in South Bay, I guess? I have never wanted to live there, so I can't say I envy the arrangement.
• astura 2y ago
  >One of the clearest moments I've ever had of not realizing my privilege was a conversation with someone who, once they started earning money, had to give money to their parents to support the household. This was a ubiquitous practice in the circles I grew up in - Once a child was old enough to work they were expected to get a job and help the family with the bills. Coworkers would talk about it at every job I worked at as a teenager and my parents talked about having to help their parents out with the bills as a teenager. It was so common I felt pretty lucky that I got to keep all the money I made.
  • bombcar 2y ago
    There's a substantial difference between "once you're making money we treat you somewhat like a boarder" while you're living at home and "you remit a tithe to your family every month for your life". The second, if done well, can be incredibly powerful, however. If the family is strong enough and trusted enough, you can get outsized economic benefits from it.
    • pyrale 2y ago
      > The second, if done well, can be incredibly powerful, however. If the family is strong enough and trusted enough, you can get outsized economic benefits from it. That is also how you cultivate nepotism. It feels powerful if your family does it and others don't, but once everyone starts doing it, it's a caste system and everyone's worse off.
• geodel 2y ago
  I mean it'd be reasonable thing to do even outside parent-children relationship. If someone helped you, you may want to pay it back in same proportion when you have a chance and means to do so. Now the west so rich and govt support for old/retired folks is very-very decent it does look totally out of way to support parent's household expenses.
• culopatin 2y ago
  I do this, but my parents don’t expect it. I just make 10x their income and would never let them buy their own ticket to come see me, or not help them change the car when needed. But my parents never want it. Never implied I had to. I just do it because l am where I am because of their own sacrifices. Now I have to convince them to have some fun in life because all they know is work. (For perspective, I’m low income in SF).
  • sangnoir 2y ago
    I'm not discounting what you do, but having to support a household as a child is materially different to what you do for your parents. It sounds like if you don't chip in - no one will go to bed hungry, and bills will still be paid.
    • culopatin 2y ago
      I have done both. And any time my own expenses go up or their expenses go up and I don’t feel like I’ll have enough to send my stress spikes. What I was trying to say was that there are cases of selfless parents out there that don’t want any money back. My parents have gone without eating to feed me. We’ve struggled to pay the bus fare to go to school, but they never asked for anything in return. That doesn’t mean I don’t help them.
• dyauspitr 2y ago
  Pretty much any Indian you meet in the US is in this situation.
  • apwell23 2y ago
    no most indians that come to US are from middle upper strata of indian society. They don't "have" to send money to parents for sustenance, maybe for luxuries.
    • coldtea 2y ago
      You'd be surpised.
    • blackhawkC17 2y ago
      Not true, many of those middle to upper strata parents sell significant assets to send their kids abroad. Middle and upper class is much different in India than the USA There’s an unwritten expectation for the kids to reciprocate.
    • screye 2y ago
      The Indians who come for undergrad are different from those who come here for grad school. Undergrads are rich, grad students less so. A significant section of my grad school class sends around ~$1000/ month back home. Also, the upper-middle rung of Indian society (top 5 - top 15%) is still pretty poor by western standards.
    • dyauspitr 2y ago
      That depends. Indian parents, even from the upper middle class don’t always save enough for retirement. They’re fine while they work but a significant number rely on their kids once they retire (with the exception of pensioners and entrepreneurs). I would say a good 80% of Indian immigrants I know send money back to their parents every month.
    • deodar 2y ago
      Definitely untrue. Like everywhere else it's a wide spectrum. You'd be surprised how many Indians come to the US from modest means. Parents sunk their savings into educating their kids and sending them abroad. It is not uncommon for these parents to now rely on their foreign resident children. A lot of Indians (and I am sure it's true for other nationalities) owe a lot to the Tech industry for absolutely transforming their standard of living in the last 1-2 generations. Tech was also remarkably egalitarian since anyone with the inclination could learn it with a relatively modest investment in a computer or even unimpeded access to a computer at school. I wonder if future generations will see the same lifestyle transformative effect. Or perhaps the new bar is access to an H100 GPU.
• organsnyder 2y ago
  > I've been able to capitalize on so many opportunities because of that. This is so true for me as well. I started and ran my own business for a number of years, and I've resigned from jobs multiple times before I had something else lined up. Being able to take those risks has absolutely helped me in my career, and there's no way I could have taken them if I didn't have an implicit safety net beneath me.
• thevillagechief 2y ago
  If you come from Africa, this is just the reality. Makes it hard to get ahead, or take risks, but it is what it is. Most of my generation's goal is to end it, and not have to pass that burden to our kids.
  • blackhawkC17 2y ago
    And it’s because poor countries provide virtually no safety net for retirees and pensioners, so parents have little choice but to depend on kids for survival. The solution to this issue is good governance, which translates to good economies and better social and welfare systems, but that’s kinda a pipe dream for African nations at this point.
    • lotsofpulp 2y ago
      The irony of it is that in a few decades, you end up with sub replacement fertility rates in all the societies with good governance and social and welfare systems, resulting in those social and welfare systems (eventually) failing. While I am not suggesting eliminating financial/logistic independence between generations within a family, but it is an interesting side effect. Edit: to respond to vkou’s comment below, I don’t see any empirical evidence for this to be true. For one, the work involved in supporting old, disabled people is highly undesirable (meaning high prices for labor). And second, I do not see automation advancing quickly enough to change all those bedpans. Also, the more resources a country spends on healthcare and defined benefit pensions (far and away the most expensive part of caring for old people), the less resources a country has to spend on other stuff (that benefits younger people). This is evident in the fact that nursing facilities cost $10k to $20k per month for round the clock care, and the common adage is you don’t want to be stuck in a $10k per month facility. There is, of course, truth to some of the productivity surplus being eaten by rentiers, but from what I can tell, nowhere near enough to make up for the economic boost that fertility rates of 4+ give.
      • vkou 2y ago
        Given productivity gains in industrialized society, there is no reason for why high QOL can't be sustained with a smaller percentage of the population working at any particular time. The demographic implosion narrative is just a nativist distraction from the investment class eating all the productive surplus.
• throwaway22032 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I do this, and don't particularly see it as being a handicap. By contrast, it's a sign of a healthy family where everyone chips in for the common good. As a man I feel that my first duty is to provide stability for myself and my family, both upwards and downwards. The real handicap is when family members are degenerates, i.e. absent parents, feuding, self destructive behaviour, etc. That's harder to climb out of because even if you escape, you now need to build a new structure by yourself.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  Yeah, I had to drop out of school and work fulltime from 15 to support my family. It's an absolutely devastating burden. I am currently in the top 1% of my socioeconomic cohort but I'd trade all that hard work, effort and application of intelligence over 20 years to have started in a slightly better cohort. I've mostly untangled myself from that period of life but it's taken far more work, self discipline, sacrifice and willingness to live in degradation and homelessness just to sidle up to an easy peasy upper middle class peer group.
• mlindner 2y ago
  Talking about one's own privilege is a form of self-defeating nonsense that serves no purpose. It only harms your future potential. There's no reason morally to frown on having more potential from your starting point versus someone else. At best it's a form of "humble brag" that just makes you look silly.