Complaining of an unfair advantage from parents trying to make their kids lives better is another piece of the program to make everyone equally miserable.
By the same logic:
- I won't eat healthily because others aren't eating healthily.
- I won't exercise because others don't exercise.
- I won't make good decisions because others don't make good decisions.
- etc.
Do your best damn it, for yourself and your children. Don't block others, but you aren't obligated to stifle yourself because others fail to try.
Still, I grind my teeth when I watch our kids, with their children, take fancy vacation trips which they are able to do because they aren't sending the children to private schools -- ours never set foot in a public school until they went to university (their choice!). Third generation of the family to attend fancy prep school, yada yada. School-break visits to stay with grandparents in FL was as good as it got! Another important (to us!) thing was religious upbringing, Sunday school and regular church going. Nada for them. All sorts of sports teams busy on Sundays, dontcha know? Not sure the grands know the difference between the Old or New Testament;-) It doesn't help the situation that we live several states' distant from them. Not their fault, it's just the way life has worked out for us.
All you can do is know you did your best, as your kids believe they're doing also. Never forget how smart you were when you were younger and had all the answers, it's only when you get older that your realize you know nothing.
Thanks for this clarity; there’s a generally good presumption in American culture that the only success is the earned one and that assistance from family somehow detracts from that. The nepotistic exceptions don’t prove a rule that family shouldn’t help; otherwise what’s the point of working so hard as a parent? It is character formation that is critical.
Rob, I respectfully disagree. I understand your perspective from a position of deprivation or for those of modest means. However, I think you are not fully aware of the dangers of privilege, which has its own pitfalls. There are children who are given every advantage to get started in life and squander it. They feel no sense of duty, only entitlement. To continually rescue self-indulgent adults from failure to launch is enabling a person to remain immature. It is destructive to character.
It can be. I am personally a big believer in the third generation curse. But parental assistance in and of itself is not destructive of character. Rather it is the nature and extent of the help that determines if it is character building or character destroying. We have all seen spoiled toddlers. We see spoiled adult children too. But that is not new. It is just more available to the middle classes now. You know, the class of participation trophies and helicopter parents.
I concur that parental assistance in and of itself is not necessarily destructive to character. It depends on the context in which it occurs and also on the nature of the help offered. In psychology, there is a concept known as the neurotic rescue triangle, which is a victim/rescuer model of helping, versus the empowerment triangle which is more of a creator/ coach model of assistance.
I respectfully disagree. Who gets to define who is privileged and whose means are modest? We now have a society with a perverted morality based on a victim hierarchy where people like Jason Ardey secure reward from state-funded institutions.. Yes, parents may not always act in their children's best interests by subsidising their lives. But they have earned the right to choose what they think best. We have a right to hold a different opinion but not to decide how to spend their money.
I think we are on the same page. I made no claim as to what any individual parent should do, but only expressed an opinion on what may transpire if one enable someone who squanders opportunities by rescuing them from consequences.
No, I think we are disagreeing here. Someone who has money makes a decision to spend that money on their children because they see it as in their children's interests. They me be wrong but they get to make that call, not you or the government. And it is you/they who are doing the shielding from consequences in your scenario. The idea that other people know better than you how to spend your money is pernicious and destructive of a free society. Once you allow it, it increases without bound. There is no lower limit on how much cancer is good for is.
Just to clarify. I am not making a call on any individual's private decision. I am not a member of the government nor am I proposing government legislation or oversight over private decisions. Individuals are responsible for the consequences of their own choices. I did not argue against any of Rob Henderson's individual examples, Rob's work is always thoughtful and worth following. Rather, my intent was to point out a caveat that in certain circumstances, that there are times when helping hurts. I have raised the question of prudence and judgment under those circumstances, and it does not follow logically that by doing so that I am advocating for imposition or intrusion. Prudence and judgment are up to the individuals involved. Perhaps I erred in using the term, disagree, and created the wrong impression. I might have said I have a caveat to add. I hope this clarifies.
Would you agree that if they feel "no sense of duty, only entitlement" that they didn't actually get much of an advantage? Being very wealthy means more opportunities to get into trouble in a million different ways, being poor limits the ways to get in trouble. I'm sure Rob never had to worry about smashing up the BMW, and killing someone on his ski trip to Vail, but did worry about getting his ass kicked at the park.
The spoiled children are never just the parents fault, but the parents can always do more to try to rein it in, at least in my opinion.
I think you are correct that finances can affect the kinds of trouble people get into. Beyond that generalization, I don’t know how to objectively compare the likelihood of totaling an expensive car and accidentally killing someone while skiing to the likelihood deliberate rape or murder as a gang initiation rite, for instance. I agree with you that a child’s behavior is not exclusively the paren’t fault, and did not intend to imply that it is so. Rather, my claim is that under certain circumstances, financial support can enable continued irresponsible behavior. I appreciate you adding to the conversation by raising these other considerations.
Many families can only offer the humblest of support, i.e., roof over their heads and shared sustenance. I benefitted from the military draft and the GI Bill over my lifetime. I think many young people would benefit from a couple of years volunteer service.
Great writing, Rob! The lack of any intrinsic morality to the idea that the state should decide who deserves to be helped should be challenged more effectively and more often.
If reading to kids gives them an unfair advantage, so too does raising them in a two parent home, filling a house with books, giving them a quiet place to study, or feeding them vegetables rather than Cheetos. If that’s your argument, then the correct answer is to take all children at the age of one and raise them in group homes with identical resources for each child.
I started a family business to give my kids "help". It has been a money pit so far... thanks to COVID and other crap mostly from Biden Democrat and state Democrat small business hostility. The savings are gone. The kids will not get much after my death, unless they help turn the business profitable. We are learning together and working together, and our lives are much richer together with this family endeavor. I believe we will ultimately be successful, but then the money my kids will get will be from their own efforts... they earned it. I just seeded the opportunity instead of greedily accumulating wealth in my name that I would give them when I die.
Or else we will not be successful, and everyone banks the value of the life experience instead of having a fat bank account.
Don't forget the best part, you get to work alongside people you love. When I think back on my most vivid memories, they're all from when things went wrong, not when things went according to plan - I bet yours are similar. You're not just building a business, you're building memories your kids will tell your grandkids about.
Trying to equalize across everything, while perhaps having aesthetic appeal, is wrong-headed.
The notion of "unearned" privileges is nonsense, has no limiting principal and is damaging our society.
How are ones natural talents "earned" anymore than ones parentage and the support and nurturing that may offer ?
How is ones fortune or luck in any way "earned" ?
Why focus on one type of luck and ignore all the others ?
This ends in Harrison Bergeron and we will all fight in the streets before we get there.
While our luck or parentage or natural talents may be "unearned", we are entitled to their fruits nonetheless.
I recall when notions such as poverty were measured based on living requirements, and not distance from the mean ie inequality. This jump precipitated, through careful societal agitation by some, a change in the zeitgeist and we are now seeing its fruits.
If you stop telling people they need to be given the same starting point as everyone else, no one would feel hard done by, and would lower societal stress for everyone.
It is worth recalling that before reforms in the late 19th century it was not seen as the government's job to look after the individual welfare of it subjects/citizens.
That responsibility was first, the job of the family and second, the responsibility of the parish the person was baptized in, and only then (if at all) the political state. The legendary work houses of 19th century Britain were not government institutions, they were contractors paid by consortiums of parishes.
The modern welfare state was created when those older systems broke down during the early-middle industrial age. If you think that the modern welfare state is a great improvement over the family/parish model, be aware that the it was developed in parallel with the idea that a person's primary loyalty was not to family and parish, but to the political state. If the state was responsible for putting a roof over your head, food on your plate, and teaching you the skills you needed to make a living, it owns you.
Every middle-class parent struggles with this. We all think, "these young whippersnappers have it so easy compared to me." But, times change, and so do the hurdles.
I think the goal shouldn't be to not help, but to make sure the help given is valued and appreciated.
Just an hour ago, I was updating the insurance on our vehicles, and my 19 year old son asked what his rate was, "$1600... every six months." He stared back, slack-jawed. He's in school, and not a complete slacker, so we're happy to carry him along, but I could tell it actually hit him, and he tucked it away in the back of his head.
Hopefully the old age home he puts me in will be nice ;-)
Ideally, we would tax only people, not institutions. For example, if we eliminated the corporate income tax, many corporations would move here from overseas. That's how Ireland got rich.
Complaining of an unfair advantage from parents trying to make their kids lives better is another piece of the program to make everyone equally miserable.
By the same logic:
- I won't eat healthily because others aren't eating healthily.
- I won't exercise because others don't exercise.
- I won't make good decisions because others don't make good decisions.
- etc.
Do your best damn it, for yourself and your children. Don't block others, but you aren't obligated to stifle yourself because others fail to try.
Still, I grind my teeth when I watch our kids, with their children, take fancy vacation trips which they are able to do because they aren't sending the children to private schools -- ours never set foot in a public school until they went to university (their choice!). Third generation of the family to attend fancy prep school, yada yada. School-break visits to stay with grandparents in FL was as good as it got! Another important (to us!) thing was religious upbringing, Sunday school and regular church going. Nada for them. All sorts of sports teams busy on Sundays, dontcha know? Not sure the grands know the difference between the Old or New Testament;-) It doesn't help the situation that we live several states' distant from them. Not their fault, it's just the way life has worked out for us.
All you can do is know you did your best, as your kids believe they're doing also. Never forget how smart you were when you were younger and had all the answers, it's only when you get older that your realize you know nothing.
Thanks for this clarity; there’s a generally good presumption in American culture that the only success is the earned one and that assistance from family somehow detracts from that. The nepotistic exceptions don’t prove a rule that family shouldn’t help; otherwise what’s the point of working so hard as a parent? It is character formation that is critical.
Rob, I respectfully disagree. I understand your perspective from a position of deprivation or for those of modest means. However, I think you are not fully aware of the dangers of privilege, which has its own pitfalls. There are children who are given every advantage to get started in life and squander it. They feel no sense of duty, only entitlement. To continually rescue self-indulgent adults from failure to launch is enabling a person to remain immature. It is destructive to character.
It can be. I am personally a big believer in the third generation curse. But parental assistance in and of itself is not destructive of character. Rather it is the nature and extent of the help that determines if it is character building or character destroying. We have all seen spoiled toddlers. We see spoiled adult children too. But that is not new. It is just more available to the middle classes now. You know, the class of participation trophies and helicopter parents.
I concur that parental assistance in and of itself is not necessarily destructive to character. It depends on the context in which it occurs and also on the nature of the help offered. In psychology, there is a concept known as the neurotic rescue triangle, which is a victim/rescuer model of helping, versus the empowerment triangle which is more of a creator/ coach model of assistance.
What you describe is not two different modes of action but two different lenses through which the same action can be viewed.
I respectfully disagree. Who gets to define who is privileged and whose means are modest? We now have a society with a perverted morality based on a victim hierarchy where people like Jason Ardey secure reward from state-funded institutions.. Yes, parents may not always act in their children's best interests by subsidising their lives. But they have earned the right to choose what they think best. We have a right to hold a different opinion but not to decide how to spend their money.
I think we are on the same page. I made no claim as to what any individual parent should do, but only expressed an opinion on what may transpire if one enable someone who squanders opportunities by rescuing them from consequences.
No, I think we are disagreeing here. Someone who has money makes a decision to spend that money on their children because they see it as in their children's interests. They me be wrong but they get to make that call, not you or the government. And it is you/they who are doing the shielding from consequences in your scenario. The idea that other people know better than you how to spend your money is pernicious and destructive of a free society. Once you allow it, it increases without bound. There is no lower limit on how much cancer is good for is.
Just to clarify. I am not making a call on any individual's private decision. I am not a member of the government nor am I proposing government legislation or oversight over private decisions. Individuals are responsible for the consequences of their own choices. I did not argue against any of Rob Henderson's individual examples, Rob's work is always thoughtful and worth following. Rather, my intent was to point out a caveat that in certain circumstances, that there are times when helping hurts. I have raised the question of prudence and judgment under those circumstances, and it does not follow logically that by doing so that I am advocating for imposition or intrusion. Prudence and judgment are up to the individuals involved. Perhaps I erred in using the term, disagree, and created the wrong impression. I might have said I have a caveat to add. I hope this clarifies.
Would you agree that if they feel "no sense of duty, only entitlement" that they didn't actually get much of an advantage? Being very wealthy means more opportunities to get into trouble in a million different ways, being poor limits the ways to get in trouble. I'm sure Rob never had to worry about smashing up the BMW, and killing someone on his ski trip to Vail, but did worry about getting his ass kicked at the park.
The spoiled children are never just the parents fault, but the parents can always do more to try to rein it in, at least in my opinion.
I think you are correct that finances can affect the kinds of trouble people get into. Beyond that generalization, I don’t know how to objectively compare the likelihood of totaling an expensive car and accidentally killing someone while skiing to the likelihood deliberate rape or murder as a gang initiation rite, for instance. I agree with you that a child’s behavior is not exclusively the paren’t fault, and did not intend to imply that it is so. Rather, my claim is that under certain circumstances, financial support can enable continued irresponsible behavior. I appreciate you adding to the conversation by raising these other considerations.
Many families can only offer the humblest of support, i.e., roof over their heads and shared sustenance. I benefitted from the military draft and the GI Bill over my lifetime. I think many young people would benefit from a couple of years volunteer service.
Great writing, Rob! The lack of any intrinsic morality to the idea that the state should decide who deserves to be helped should be challenged more effectively and more often.
My parents paid for my college.
21-yr-old me: “How can I ever pay you back?”
Parents: “You pay for your kids’ college.”
21-yr-old me: “ok.”
55-yr-old me: “Didn’t realize I was gonna pay out at 10 to 1, but it still worked.”
If reading to kids gives them an unfair advantage, so too does raising them in a two parent home, filling a house with books, giving them a quiet place to study, or feeding them vegetables rather than Cheetos. If that’s your argument, then the correct answer is to take all children at the age of one and raise them in group homes with identical resources for each child.
Pete, I was with you right up to the Cheetos ;-)
I started a family business to give my kids "help". It has been a money pit so far... thanks to COVID and other crap mostly from Biden Democrat and state Democrat small business hostility. The savings are gone. The kids will not get much after my death, unless they help turn the business profitable. We are learning together and working together, and our lives are much richer together with this family endeavor. I believe we will ultimately be successful, but then the money my kids will get will be from their own efforts... they earned it. I just seeded the opportunity instead of greedily accumulating wealth in my name that I would give them when I die.
Or else we will not be successful, and everyone banks the value of the life experience instead of having a fat bank account.
Don't forget the best part, you get to work alongside people you love. When I think back on my most vivid memories, they're all from when things went wrong, not when things went according to plan - I bet yours are similar. You're not just building a business, you're building memories your kids will tell your grandkids about.
Agree.
Trying to equalize across everything, while perhaps having aesthetic appeal, is wrong-headed.
The notion of "unearned" privileges is nonsense, has no limiting principal and is damaging our society.
How are ones natural talents "earned" anymore than ones parentage and the support and nurturing that may offer ?
How is ones fortune or luck in any way "earned" ?
Why focus on one type of luck and ignore all the others ?
This ends in Harrison Bergeron and we will all fight in the streets before we get there.
While our luck or parentage or natural talents may be "unearned", we are entitled to their fruits nonetheless.
I recall when notions such as poverty were measured based on living requirements, and not distance from the mean ie inequality. This jump precipitated, through careful societal agitation by some, a change in the zeitgeist and we are now seeing its fruits.
If you stop telling people they need to be given the same starting point as everyone else, no one would feel hard done by, and would lower societal stress for everyone.
It is worth recalling that before reforms in the late 19th century it was not seen as the government's job to look after the individual welfare of it subjects/citizens.
That responsibility was first, the job of the family and second, the responsibility of the parish the person was baptized in, and only then (if at all) the political state. The legendary work houses of 19th century Britain were not government institutions, they were contractors paid by consortiums of parishes.
The modern welfare state was created when those older systems broke down during the early-middle industrial age. If you think that the modern welfare state is a great improvement over the family/parish model, be aware that the it was developed in parallel with the idea that a person's primary loyalty was not to family and parish, but to the political state. If the state was responsible for putting a roof over your head, food on your plate, and teaching you the skills you needed to make a living, it owns you.
👏👏👏👏👏
Part of reality is to accept that life, reality, is not fair.
This unfairness of reality is different than an injustice due to some human action, so it’s not subject to repair from any possible justice system.
Every middle-class parent struggles with this. We all think, "these young whippersnappers have it so easy compared to me." But, times change, and so do the hurdles.
I think the goal shouldn't be to not help, but to make sure the help given is valued and appreciated.
Just an hour ago, I was updating the insurance on our vehicles, and my 19 year old son asked what his rate was, "$1600... every six months." He stared back, slack-jawed. He's in school, and not a complete slacker, so we're happy to carry him along, but I could tell it actually hit him, and he tucked it away in the back of his head.
Hopefully the old age home he puts me in will be nice ;-)
Ideally, we would tax only people, not institutions. For example, if we eliminated the corporate income tax, many corporations would move here from overseas. That's how Ireland got rich.