Many Sheltered Rich Kids Are Set Up For Failure

[Jgirl532]

A freshly cut, golf-course green lawn and a newly painted, sparkling facade is exactly the kind of deceptive architecture you can find in my town, hiding the battles we fight on the inside.

I am from the kind of white-picket-fence, affluent neighborhood that defines white suburban America. My small town is one of the most sheltered, safest towns in the US, where diversity dies. In my middle school class of 150, there was one black kid, period.

The kids in this town have always been horrible. Many of my former grade school bullies would torment me with the fact that I, a young christian girl, would never go to heaven because my mother was jewish. Now, as most of us enter our junior year of high school, they are junkies, party animals, and alcoholics.

Thus bringing me to my point: many sheltered rich kids are set up for failure.

Freshman year, my best friend and I were sitting next to each other on the bus ride home. It was just a normal day: the freshman boys in the back of the bus were tormenting the entire vehicle with their loud, mocking representations of female sex noises. As one of them--a guy I went to middle school with--went to get off the bus, I caught a fragment of a conversation I thought I would never have to witness.

"I'll probably drop out when I'm sixteen," Sean--that was the chubby kid who played baseball's name--told Danny, one of the boys moaning in the back.

"Wait, really?" Danny said that with the kind of fascination and acceptance that all teen boys had of these kinds of things.

As Sean said he was really serious about this, my best friend and I shared a look, almost a cunning smile, like we knew we were going further in life than him, and the mistake he was making was so dumb that he must have had a rock for a brain.

Sean was just like us. His family was relatively well off given they could survive the disgustingly high property taxes of the area. Everyone that attended my middle school hovered near the upper middle class when it came to income anyway, so I understood exactly what was going through his mind.

This boy had never experienced poverty. Both of his parents probably attended college and grad school, like almost all of the other doctors and lawyers in the town. He was used to a household income of like $600,000 a year. And there was some idiot inside of him that was telling him he could live as comfortably as he has for the rest of his life even if he just dropped out of highschool.

How dumb is that.

Many sheltered rich kids are set up to fail because they don't know what it is like to struggle. They think everything will continue to be handed to them just as it has been in the past. What kids like Sean fail to realize is that they can't live with their parents forever. One day, that income will dry up. They need to graduate high school. They even need to go to college to enjoy the same fruits they did as a child, but they don't know that. All they know is that thus far, they haven't had to focus on their education for a second or try to move up in life, but they have been pampered just the same.

The excess of money thrown in their faces has led many of my neighbors down the drain. As drugs and alcohol prevail in even the safest, 'nicest' towns, so does failure.

[Jack_L_andTurn]

All sheltered kids are set up for failure. As an extreme example, my late wife's siblings are 63 and 55 and still live at home. They are not disabled, not mentally ill, just lazy. Their mom is 86 and such an enabler, but if she dies before they do they are screwed because she took out a reverse mortgage to support them so six months after she dies they are homeless.

[meowcow]

You don't need to be a sheltered rich kid to be set up for failure. Just a sheltered kid.

It is a parent's job to do things for their children... when they are babies. Because babies cannot do anything themselves. As they grow up, parents need to stop doing things for their kids. This means... stop cleaning up after them. Stop putting on their clothes. Stop doing their homework. Stop making excuses for them to their teachers.

If parents do all these things for their children, they are simply raising their children to become adult babies.

[CallMeDave]

My opinion is that depends on the attitude of the parents and what values they teach their children.

I think the ones that like to flaunt their wealth, look down on people that aren't wealthy, give the kids basically whatever they want, and don't make the kids do any chores because they pay someone to clean the house, mow the lawn, shovel the snow and anything else that seems like work are much more likely to raise spoiled kids that don't function well in the real world, aren't motivated to work hard or try hard, and are unhappy when not everything goes exactly the way they want. Not every kid raised that way will be like that, but I think a lot will.

On the other hand, I think that wealthy kids that don't get everything they want, have to do work around the house to earn things, and are taught good money management skills (like evaluating the relative worth of things, buying only things that you really need and not everything that looks nice or someone else you know has, and saving for big things you really want) can grow up to be responsible members of society and be able to deal with things not always going their way and still have happy lives.

[simplyaramdomgirl]

I completely agree, but I do think that it has to do with the way that their raised, not necessarily with their income. Though it's the minority I know many rich people and affluent people that don't live in a bubble, and know that hard work is required in everything. They do want to do something with their life, and they strive for greatness. It's all about the mindset that you're on and the goals that you want to achieve. By the way Sean can talk all he wants, but I'm pretty sure that his parents aren't going to let him drop out.

[EnglishArtsteacher]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "failure."

"Sheltered rich kids" have the highest rates of high school graduation, and college graduation (wealthy students in general, not just "sheltered" rich kids). They also have the highest paying jobs after graduation. There is a strong correlation between your parents' income, and your income when you become an adult.

Now, I will say they could be set up for "failure" in other ways. Perhaps emotional maturity? Perhaps social skills? However, substance abuse is correlated with permissive parenting in poverty-stricken households.

[IlyaTheImpaler]

I am a sheltered kid, never experienced poverty, never had to work a day in my life, and my struggle is more along the lines of how to find a fast algorithm to fill the missing values in correlation matrix of stock returns
investexcel.net/correlation-matrix-excel-vba/
Right now I'm looking at this paper www.personal.soton.ac.uk/hdqi/REPORTS/simax_06.pdf

So you see how it tickled my ego when I read this

[Anonymous]

rich kid here...
i inherited a few hundred k when i turned 25 and didn't have to pay a dime for college. I have no debt and even own my house free and clear.

the impact on me? well... have you ever heard the expression: heavy is the head that wears the crown?

I have trust issues: No one knows about my financial situation and no one ever will.
I work hard: i have a strong burden of guilt and responsibility and what might be considered very successful to some people just isn't enough for me. I should do more because I was given more.
Nothing has much meaning: Life kinda seems like a joke. I don't much get the point of it and nothing really holds any value. I come off as a bit emotionless because of this.

Was i set up for failure? Na. Don't think so. At least, not the type you would consider to be failure.

[winterfox10]

I don't know if it's fair to say that they are set up to fail... it's more like they've been given everything they've ever wanted, and so they aren't hungry the way you and I might be. My girlfriend/romantic interest/crush is this obscenely rich, beautiful immigrant from Panama. To give you some idea of how rich: her parents give her and her sister each a $100,000/year allowance. Now... her sister... is one of the sloppiest, most poorly organized, undisciplined people I've ever met. My girl, however, is so disciplined that you'd think she was raised by the military to be an officer from the age of 6.

[EnglishArtsteacher]

Wealthy kids often grow up to be well-disciplined, and well-mannered, even the "sheltered" ones. This myTake makes no sense at all whatsoever. I guess they can be failures from a social standpoint, but the kids who are set up for failure are from poverty-stricken households.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

I grow up poor with my grandma by USA standards and was a sheltered brat from birth well into my 20's, not working and living off her sweat.

I can personally testify living a sheltered comfortable life will ruin a person's mind and emotions.

You just lose all motivation to self improve and become super lazy, weak and a non productive citizen in society.

Here is Biblical proverb about being too comfortable and too satisfy.

Proverbs 1:32:

For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

[Temporal_Ice]

Well, it comes down to the nurturing. A wealthy family can make their kid work at a fast food place for money. And stuff like that.

The drugs and alcohol, that's everywhere. Its gonna happen, the only difference is probably that wealthier kids are getting the better stuff. But still bad.

[goaded]

Not to mention proper legal support when they're caught.

They may even get a slap on the wrist for running down four people in a car.

[jennifer_bloom]

I don't believe this story. You expect me to believe you are in a super rich neighbourhood and can't find a single Jewish person there other than yourself? You expect me to believe that rich people are more likely to get drunk and do drugs? Pic or it didn't happen!

[baseballnerd24]

i live in one of thoose sheltered rich white subaran communities like the one she is talking about and there was only like one jewish kid there. My best friend there was half jewish if that counts

[errorgoodnameunfound]

Wtf? Stereotyping much? Aren't you the one who wrote that mytake about "how to be a good christian?" H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E. Showing your true "Christian" self now aren't you? I specifically remember you cause I found irony in you promoting christian things meanwhile, you are the only person I know with the last name of Bloom who isn't Jewish. I wonder if you came from an originally Jewish family who then turned into "born again christian" nut-jobs because they are in america and wanted to fit in that badly.

[jennifer_bloom]

@errorgoodnameunfound I choose the name bloom because I was thinking of flowers and the word bloom reminded me of flowers. My real name means Clean Water Understanding in Chinese.

[Demised]

Very good. Although, I dont think that it has to do with the way that their raised, not necessarily with their income.
Parents shouldn't spoil rm by giving handouts.
You need money, go out and earn it by working your ass off.
Just like Brooklyn Beckham.
Agree?

[Surely]

You said it all as far as I am concerned.
Just like that drunk rich boy that killed those people and wouldn't had to serve a day in jail, if he hadn't left the country and stayed off social media.
I know you will do a whole lot better than most of those kids you talked about. Good luck!

[EnglishArtsteacher]

But drunk driving is correlated with poverty, so that is just using an exception.

[Surely]

@EnglishArtsteacher That is just an excuse in my book.

[WhereAmI]

They may be set up for failure, but many still have their path in life paved for them by their parents. A good example is a rich kid who goes to school and does nothing but party and graduates with passing grades.

You'd think they wouldn't get anywhere in life. Not true. Many go into the family business and continue the family wealth. I've seen it personally with those I've graduated with a few years back.

[Logorithim]

That's true, but they also have access to resources to climb out of the hole and their parents can help them get a decent job. It's much worse for kids that don't have the family resources yet have the substance abuse.

[VIVANT]

If he’s rich he can drop out of high school start a business and never look back with no student debt. You don’t need high school if your parents can support a start up business.

[pooper89]

In my experience, they just don't grow up or put in any effort. Because they essentially don't have to. They live at home and mooch off their parents pretty much their whole life.

[AriesMale]

This article... the same could be said for poor people, or those who are actually homeless or even suffer in war torn countries.

We’re all given our crosses to bear, don’t judge those without having experienced their own struggles.

[jacquesvol]

No problem. Dad will give them a job and they'll inherit a lot.
Yes, drugs would be problematic. But poor and middle class people get on drugs too.

[EnglishArtsteacher]

Poor people have the highest rate of drug use in the country.

[JimRSmith]

Yeah, entitlement on that level isn't exactly going to help them...

[dolemite68]

Kids that are handed everything are some of the most delusional and screwed up people I’ve ever met