These posts are the most honest, touching, thought-provoking pieces I've read in a long time. Bravo. Meg contemplates how her life would have been different if her family weren't rich. This question (well, in reverse) has occupied my thoughts my entire life.
As a child, I didn't know we were poor. It was normal to put back things at the grocery store check-out. I didn't know any different. As a teenager, I saw but never spoke to the rich people in the big city. And then the new-fangled Internet brought all kinds of information.
I knew I had to get out of that town unless I wanted to manage the Walgreens, so I fought tooth and nail. The thing Meg doesn't understand (because it just wasn't her experience) is how truly hard it is to overachieve your whole family and your whole town. Everybody else thinks managing the Walgreens is pretty darn good. To go to college, elite private college at that, was far outside everyone's comfort zone and life experiences, and still is. It took a whole lot of cojones and drive (and loans!). It's still awkward around my family.
When I got to college, my roommate had a maid for our dorm, a cell phone, got her laundry delivered, and called her dad's assistant for flights to London and movie times. I was years behind her in math, I didn't speak Chinese. I didn't know the ballet or the opera or which Four Seasons in Europe is the nicest. To say culture shock is an understatement. (Today, kids are exposed to this kind of wealth, well the materialistic part, like it is normal.)
Since I got to college, I have constantly wondered what my life would be like if I had gone to a Sidwell-like school, if I had learned Chinese at 12, if I could play golf convincingly, if I had taken calculus in 11th grade. If I hadn't been limited by my family's poverty. I like to believe that people with personalities like mine from rich families leverage it for greater things (Hillary, Donald Trump). But I've seen the dark side of those spoiled rich kids too clever for their own good (think Spitzer). I often wonder what happens to the laziest, least ambitious kid at Sidwell...
Since I saw the power of those private school educations, I have believed that my kid must go to a Sidwell-like school, learn Chinese at 12, and take tennis and golf and calculus. I would have done all of that -- and more -- if it were in front of me. But I wonder if my personality, if my drive, comes from poverty??? Maybe if I had been born rich, I wouldn't care about my Chinese lessons.
In truth, I don't know what happens to kids from Sidwell-like schools. My idealized view from my childhood says they have everything, that they can do anything they want, that they can coast into careers, into connnections, into more money. But I just don't know.
As for my roommate, she married an equally rich guy she met in B-school, the same one her dad went to. Now, she's on charity boards and such in Manhattan. Sounds like a great life, really.
Friday, January 9, 2009
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11 comments:
But a lot of them end up feeling lost, empty and they just don't know what they're capable of in terms of drive and ambition.
I feel the same as you, and reading Meg's posts, I am not sure I would have grown and learned so much if I had come from money.
I like that I'm scrappy, ambitious, and I'm willing to do what it takes if my back is up against the wall. And not just financially - in ALL parts of my life.
But on the other hand, if I grew up rich and not having to worry about money, it may make me a bit lazy, and not really understand what I could be capable of, which would lead to a different sort of personality development.
My brother has always said that if my parents won money, he didn't want any of it because he wanted to earn every penny of it.
I've since adopted that motto.. it's something I'm immensely proud of, and I wear my debt battle scars with pride.
Fabulously Broke in the City
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver...
Oh and my last point is that I'm even more grateful for everything else because if I get a chance to tour Asia, I will absorb everything with the kind of pleasure that comes once in a life time.
Whereas if I could jet off at any time and not worry about a budget or the cost of it, I wouldn't appreciate it as much, I think.
Who knows?
Fabulously Broke in the City
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver...
Thank you so much for your kind words about my posts.
I think that all people - especially all parents - worry endlessly about whether they are giving their kids enough or too much to be as successful and happy as they can be.
The truth is that character and values are built on a lot more besides just whether you come from a rich or poor family.
Besides which, just because you have money doesn't mean you have to spoil your kids. My dad talks to me now about how they had to learn to say no to things even though we had the money, which is hard for parents to do.
I did get the piano lessons and calculus at 16 and taken to plays in the city. But I didn't get cable TV, internet, video games, or designer clothes. I got to travel to Europe, but I didn't get a car when I turned 16.
If you live a value driven, nonmaterialistic life then your kids will too - no matter how much money you have in the bank.
I'm a product of an elite private high school(tuition > 25K), but my parents didn't pay tuition like everyone else. I was the lower/middle class kid going to school with the sons and daughters of CEO's. I received a scholarship and saw both types of rich kids: those who were spoiled and those who appreciated their wealth. Meg sounds like the latter and you sound like me. In high school, I envied the wealth of my peers. But as I grew older, I realized that money didn't make any of them happy. It's the people that have goals(financial, etc.) and reach them that are happy. One of my goals is to be financially independent, not extremely wealthy, and then I'll be happy. Thanks for sharing!
I think a lot of my character and drive come from my middle class background, I've always had to work for what I have. I often wish I had been born wealthy, but then I wouldn't be who I am today. Also, if my grandfather wasn't such a compulsive gambler it could have happened! He once owned an art collection that today would fetch hundreds of millions of dollars. He died practically penniless last year.
Mr M is an interesting study, he's lived both extremes. His parents were fabulously wealthy, the maid and the mansion, but after his dad died his mom kicked him out at 16 and he lived under a bridge until he was placed in protective services. His mom is still very wealthy but I've never met her, they are estranged. Mr M is not as driven as me and I personally feel it derives from his more priviledged background.
I certainly would be wealthier if my parents were rich. But would I be happier, more fufilled, or truly have a "better" life? I don't know. Maybe an easier life, and I wouldn't have to work so hard to save. But I feel plenty happy, fufuilled and satisfied with my life. Yes, money would give me more freedom, but once you move from the true poverty into middle/upper middle class, money has diminishing returns on happiness. Or so I think I read once upon a time.
I say it all depends on the parents. I've gone to private school all my life, lived all over the world, traveled everywhere, and then went to a private university. But I know I can't just sit back and relax and let everything come to me. My parents forced me to work hard to get whatever I wanted. Even though they could afford to get me the car I wanted in college, they got me something less. They purposefully gave me a little less allowance than all my friends so that I would have to watch what I spent it on. In middle and high school, I got the horse I wanted, but I had to get a tutoring job to pay for lessons because they always remembered to tell me that life isn't easy.
My brothers on the other hand...one of them got his dream car as a freshman. They think everything is easy and balk when they have to do work.
Having money and being wealthy opens a lot of doors for you, but it can't buy you ambition, determination, and intelligence.
And now that i'm off my dad's payroll, i'm still happy. Of course I always strive for more and to be better, and I don't mind working hard for it.
I'm not sure, I have to think a bit more.
I too have wondered if my ambition was birthed out of the lack I experienced in childhood. Similar to you D.A.M.F, I did not know I was poor growing up but I always knew I wanted more opportunities than what I saw around me. I'm not sure. Hopefully when I have children (who will surely grow up upper middle class at a minimum) I can balance the act. Hopefully ambition's only source is not a poverty experience. I'll have to start an entirely new blog once I get to that point.
I agree with Meg. It's all about what your parents value. Yes, I believe that it requires some restraint on the part of parents who are well off in order to give their children valuable opportunities without spoiling them. This is what I hope to do with my children. Give them some opportunities that I didn't have but keep them from becoming selfish and shallow. Sometimes I think the Amish are on to something... do you think they are more or less satisfied with their lives than we are?
"I did get the piano lessons and calculus at 16 and taken to plays in the city. But I didn't get cable TV, internet, video games, or designer clothes. I got to travel to Europe, but I didn't get a car when I turned 16.
If you live a value driven, nonmaterialistic life then your kids will too - no matter how much money you have in the bank."
I agree with Meg wholeheartedly. I had an extremely privileged childhood and am undergoing a tad bit of culture shock here at college. I got DSL for my 16th birthday, though, and I've never had cable TV or video games. The designer clothes come out of my own money; they aren't provided magically by anybody else.
My parents are really humble people, despite the money. My sister is what you'd expect of an genetics-degree-bearing cheerleader from the best private school in the city. In contrast, I'm the minimalistic finance geek who does not have a TV, has a free computer, and had to be forced to have a fridge and microwave.
It's more about shaping the kids than the actual money. I would be absolutely fine with very little money; my sister would not be. My parents are not materialistic, but they've ended up with two spoiled girls, one materialistic, one not.
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