Why rich kids HATE their parents....interesting read.
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Posted 6/28/2012 3:45 pm
Money is a magnifier, especially when it comes to family tensions. Just ask the Pritzkers or the Astors.
A new book by a Canadian wealth advisor says that the anger between kids and their parents is especially strong in wealthier families.
The book, "The Great White Elephant: Why Rich Kids Hate Their Parents," by Franco Lombardo, lays out the dark, intergenerational struggle that's playing out behind the mansion gates in many of today's richest homes.
Lombardo's starting point is the failure of wealth transfers and business transfers within rich families. Why, he asks, do 70 percent of family businesses fail to pass successfully to the next generation? The numbers for the second and third generations are even worse.
The question was especially puzzling since wealthy families hired so many sophisticated and expensive advisors and trust lawyers to help them along the inheritance path.
The answer, Lombardo found, was in the emotional issues and bad relationships that were brewing inside wealthy families.
"The emotional component just wasn't being dealt with," he told me in a recent interview. "The more money families have, the more these problems are magnified."
He said wealthy kids hate their parents for three common reasons. First, wealthy parents don't say "no" enough. "A child grows up with a sense that they get whatever they want," Lombardo says. "When they go out into the world and the world tells them 'no," they're angry. And they resent their parents."
The second cause is time. Wealthy parents are often absent parents, and the kids feel abandoned. When the parents try to make up lost time with money, the kids get even angrier. "Money is the wrong currency to pay back lost time. You make up lost time with time."
The third reason is society. The culture at large, Lombardo says, makes fun of rich kids. So parents tell their kids at an early age to hide their wealth. When the kids grow up, they feel that a big part of their identity has to remain hidden - and they blame their parents.
Posted 6/28/2012 3:47 pm
The second cause is time. Wealthy parents are often absent parents, and the kids feel abandoned. When the parents try to make up lost time with money, the kids get even angrier. "Money is the wrong currency to pay back lost time. You make up lost time with time."
-Oh Madison, hate to miss your recital. However Mommy must go to France for the month to have her finger nails painted
Posted 6/28/2012 3:58 pm
I don't know any families not completely fucked up by excess amounts of money (earned or unearned).
You want to strive in life to have "enough" money. No more, no less. I learned that the hard way, as once people know you have money they seem to completely fucking hate you and have a bone to pick with you.
Posted 6/28/2012 3:59 pm
Lombardo's starting point is the failure of wealth transfers and business transfers within rich families. Why, he asks, do 70 percent of family businesses fail to pass successfully to the next generation? The numbers for the second and third generations are even worse.
What I have seen is the wealthy views kids as an accessory to be raised as a status symbol. Not the love of raising a decent kid and without the proper nuturing required for small childern.
Posted 6/28/2012 4:05 pm
i'd probably simplify this. these kids are unhappy because they are constantly reminded of the virtual unattainability of happiness.
peoples' happiness is generally a function of their perceived competitive set. the guy in the biggest house in a working class neighborhood probably has more happiness than the guy with the smallest mantion at the country club. this is pretty well established stuff.
but one's family is ALWAYS part of one's competitive set. it is difficult to be happy if you are always and forever measuring yourself against ancestors who through some combination of hard work and good luck landed in the top 0.1% of net worths (where these mega-rich families are).
and in fact it is certain that luck has played a role at the farthest end of the distribution. having known lots of them, i believe the difference between self-made people worth say $5 million and $50 million usually comes down to luck.
so here you sit, constantly comparing yourself to someone whose accomplishments you can almost certainly never match, owing to the fact that you almost certainly can't replicate the luck they invariably had.
Actually I'm doing that now. If you are young and your neighbors aren't you will be hated and disliked like nothing you've ever experienced.
Doesn't have an affect right away. But after several years it does. and I place next to zero stock in the opinions of other people especially simpletons. However you are still a social creature, whether you choose to be or not.
I'll take the peasant house in a gated, exclusive community any day of the week. I'd prefer to be thought of as poor.
Posted 6/28/2012 4:16 pm
i can relate since i actually live in a country club area of 1.5 million or so houses in the lowest end neighborhood still attached. and we're by far the youngest family in the neighborhood. most couples are mid-40s to retired and we're mid-30s.
that and i'm taking 9-12 months off right now just to relax and recharge. people can't relate to that either.
so at neighborhood parties people are polite but i can tell they view me like a space alien. the 35 year old kid who just bought that fancy new car and hasn't been working for almost a year?
there is a point where you want to jump back on a similar life trajectory as your age cohort so you can just relate to people more easily.
It sounds interesting and I'd like to read more. I have one very rich sibling one at the low end of middle class and this seems accurate re their kids.
Once you aren't going to work like they are you are basically a freed slave among slaves. They don't like that, especially retired old faggots. They'd rather live beside rapists, thieves or gay serial killers like Jeffrey Dauhmer or John Wayne Gacy (both loved by their neighbors and community).
I do my best not to socialize with any of the neighborhood. There is literally nothing they could possibly do for me and either way it won't end well. I did my best not to be a creepy duckman, introduced myself where appropriate, etc but it doesn't matter. By being successful and taking a different path you make small minds feel their own size.
I goto hang out in the shit areas, 25 mins away, play sports there, get drunk there, and play in a band there. I am universally accepted, as long as no one finds out what size house I live in and how much it cost.
Posted 6/28/2012 4:34 pm
He's making it too complicated. First generation rich get rich because they're hyper competitive, and probably psychopathic. And often driven by inner-demons from childhood events.
That's the kind of thing they expect from their kids, except their kids are going to be like most people, laid back and happy just to eat and poop.
Posted 6/28/2012 4:50 pm
I like this emoticon theater ver much it works because the scale of Casey's head makes him look child size next to the big snob head
Posted 6/28/2012 4:57 pm
I think the hate comes from expectations and entitlements. Why family businesses mostly fail to make the transition from generation to generation (and I've seen a lot of this, it is my profession) is usually because the kids don't have the same feeling for the business as the parents who created it and built it up with decades of hard work. The kids often (not always!) feel that they are entitled to come into the business, and that it will support them in luxury, as it did their parents, without the same commitment, effort and work on their part as their parents expended. Also, parents who want to bring their kids into the business do a poor job of educating them about what it means to own and run a business. Instead of starting them out on the loading dock, they start them out in the executive suite, and that's a big mistake
Posted 6/28/2012 4:57 pm
I got lucky a while ago. I sold stuff to rich people and got to know them a little. It's kind of lonely at the top. I finally learned not to hate people who have done better than me. Why should I hate? I'm happy for them.
Posted 6/28/2012 4:58 pm
You can add overbearing parents to the list. Children are part of a family image that must be managed. To manage the image, you manage the child. A child's life is planned, every hour of every day. Your child must go to the correct school, possibly a boarding school away from home, and participate in image appropriate activities after school. The child does not have a choice. Don't like playing the chelo, piano, ballet, baseball, football, golf, polo, or cricket. Tough. A lack of talent in any given activity is met with a longer schedule of training. Don't like corporate house parties or charity balls... tough. You are instructed on how to behave and exactly what you may and may not say when socially representing the family. Any expression of disapproval or rebellion is punished with couch time with a "counselor." Continuous rebellion is met with very real threats of banishment to the real world, a disturbing place for which one is ill prepared.
From the outside, being the child in a wealthy family is the equivalent of winning the lottery, and the complaints of children seem petty or spoiled. Frequently though, life inside a wealthy family is simply a gilded cage.
I don't see why they should. It would be so much easier for them to buy a 24 unit apartment building and give that to their children. It's hard to fuck that up. It's an easy job, taking care of a building like that. Even on super cheap rent the kid would clear 150K which is enough to have a hell of a nice life, and enough to buy a 2nd building with a little hustle.
x209,881. Seen this played out many times
it works because the scale of Casey's head makes him look child size next to the big snob head