[mkautzm]

It's great that a wealthy family tries to instill good values into their kids, but the idea that this kind of model could translate to everyone is a prime example of socio-economic ignorance.

The thing that actually sets kids up to succeed are a stable home life and financial security as a family. 'Doing Chores' and focusing on education and extracurriculars is nice, but there are a couple really important things:

Being able to focus on education and being able to encourage your kids to do extracurriculars is a privilege that is borne from money in the first place. If you can't afford extracurriculars and the various expenses they incur, or you don't have time to monitor and enforce a 'no TV/Computer/Games' time because you have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, then I guess you make a sacrifice there. If you don't live in a neighborhood when your kids can safely go outside unsupervised, then that's a sacrifice there. In a lot of places, community support services don't exist.

This shit right here:

"When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car....Here are the repair manuals. Tools are in the garage. I will pay for every part, but will not pay for LABOR.”

A garage, a manual, tools, any kind of car, the parts. This is a ton of money for one kid, let alone several. To think that this somehow teaches anyone a lesson about the real world is the definition of socioeconomic privilege. That is an entirely insurmountable expense for most people.

This entire article is just that though: It's a wealthy baby-boomer piece written from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for anything. Their idea that you can project their methods onto other kids is unbelievably ignorant of the economic climate of working class America and is so disconnected from the real world as to be painful to read.

You want to raise kids that can pay for college by themselves? Be wealthy in the first place and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it.

[ciconia]

> the idea that this kind of model could translate to everyone is a prime example of socio-economic ignorance... It's a wealthy baby-boomer piece written from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for anything.

Nowhere in the article does he claim any such thing. It's just a guy telling how he raised his kids up. What's bugging you?

actually, I think a lot of the points he makes about raising kids are applicable to less-fortunate families. Doing chores, their approach to schooling, food, family vacations, community service, backpacking and camping and in general self discipline do not require having lots of money. It just requires that parents be attentive.

[mkautzm]

> actually, I think a lot of the points he makes about raising kids are applicable to less-fortunate families. Doing chores, their approach to schooling, food, family vacations, community service, backpacking and camping and in general self discipline do not require having lots of money. It just requires that parents be attentive.

What?

In what world do Vacations and Backpacking and Camping require little to no money? Those are expensive activities in both time and raw cash. When you don't have a lot of money, food is also not something you get to be picky about because you don't have a choice -- You can eat what's on the table or you can literally starve. That is the real circumstance for people living below the poverty line in this country of which there are plenty (http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html).

What bugs me is there are a non trivial number of people, yourself included, who are entirely blind to the circumstances of the poor and struggling. These are the people who insist that if you 'just work hard' you can make it, or that education is some kind of great equalizer. These are the people who also generally have a lot of influence in politics, both locally and otherwise, and proceed to campaign against what little social safety net we have because they couldn't be bothered to give up a fraction of their disposable income so millions of people could have food to eat and running water.

[jimnotgym]

I'm with you mkautzm. During my upbringing I went on holiday twice, we simply could not afford it. My Dad worked so many hours including weekends in a physical job, and was exhausted when he got home, being attentive was not really an option. I spend all the time I can talking to and playing with my kids, but it is at a real premium, so I don't waste it running a stupid rulebook.

Growing up we used to service cars ourselves but didn't have the kind of tools to do major jobs, as they cost money. Nobody bought be a car neither.

Personally I would never make 3 year old do cleaning jobs. I think the guy in the article is weird. I also didn't see where he actually paid for college.

Btw I don't have a weird feeding regimen for my kids and they eat just fine. In fact he youngest massively prefers fruit and veg. Perhaps I should force feed him meat because I have a puritanical rule book.

[rtpg]

The implication is that this is the way to go as a parent. The underlying thesis is that if you don't do things like this as a parent then you cannot complain about how your kids turned out (exaggerated paraphrase)

It's like if I wrote a post saying "How I started a company, grew it to $10 million and sold it in 3 months" and it started with "I put in my $5 million trust fund as capital for this company". As a story it might be interesting. As an entry in the "advice post" genre (hinted at by the title), not so great

[Tycho]

I knew the top rated comment would be something like this.

You completely skip past the family's achievements, ascribe some agenda that was not stated anywhere in the piece, and immediately start ragging on about privilege and focus on the most unfortunate people in society (cause they're the only ones that should be talked about, right?).

It's just creepy how some people's minds work.

[mkautzm]

The family's achievements are 'having lots of generational wealth'.

If you are suggesting that having a lot of money growing up, whether or not you have direct access to it, isn't a Very Big Deal, then I will gladly present you an endless body of research that suggests otherwise.

Edit: Just to be totally clear, the biggest determinant in financial success for an individual is their parent's wealth. This isn't an opinion -- This is a well-studied fact. It is of critical importance to understand that the way my mind works is one that is based on evidence and study. I do not sacrifice my research rationale at the alter of bootstraps.

[Tycho]

I think I understand now why this type of article hits such a nerve with people like you. The idea of personal responsibility and individual decisions leading to better outcomes is anathema to your politics. You dismiss the achievement of a 16 year old girl fixing up an old car from the scrap yard and put everything down to "generational wealth", apparently not drawing any connection between the family's ethos and parenting and said generational wealth. But you might want to ask yourself if you've gone too far when you attack an article like this which does nothing except offer some guidelines (backed by real experience) which at least millions of parents could consider.

[mkautzm]

If you think 'millions' of parents have that kind of wealth, you are sorely ill-informed of what the socio-economic state of the country is.

What irks me, like I said before, is that so much of this is attributed to 'individual decisions' and 'responsibility', and no doubt a non-zero amount of one's 'success' is determined by these things, but the political agenda I push is one of rationalism.

Consider this: Imagine a olympic athlete -- This person has been training since a very young age, has had private lessons and has competed all around the nation in top teams. Some would say this person is truly 1 in a million because of the talent they demonstrate, but I ask you, "how many people have the resources to even realize that kind of potential?"

The lessons, the travel, the time parents need to take to ship their kids to these things and competitions. The costs of coaching and training. These things are all very expensive in terms of raw money and time. To say that everyone has access to them, or even 'a lot' people have access to them is mistaken. The truth is, that only families with wealth have access to the kinds of resources that give a person the best chance at being a world class athlete.

This applies to nearly every aspect of life -- Whether it's a sport, or career, or an extracurricular in some other field, if your family has the resources to commit to your success (time, money, connections, 'i know a guy who...), then you are more likely to succeed there.

There is a comic here that explains the idea much better than I ever could:

http://www.upworthy.com/a-short-comic-gives-the-simplest-mos...

[Tycho]

The median household income for white families in the US is $60k. What parts of the article do you think describes activities not possible for the millions of families above that threshold?

The type of success that the author celebrated was things like raising healthy children, having them earn good degrees and start a good career, be financially independent, finding a spouse they deserve etc. Things which millions of parents surely feel is within reach, or even expected (but not guaranteed). It's not about raising an Olympic medalist. Trying to draw that equivalence is just an excuse to dismiss good advice/ideas.

I agree that the Olympics is an elitist sham.

[detaro]

I honestly don't understand where you get the idea from that Tychos post is suggesting anything like this. I don't think the article is all that useful either, but you seem to argue against things that aren't there, using facts nobody has disagreed with (but which aren't the only relevant thing about the story, and don't invalidate it as a discussion topic).

[protomok]

"A garage, a manual, tools, any kind of car, the parts. This is a ton of money for one kid, let alone several. To think that this somehow teaches anyone a lesson about the real world is the definition of socioeconomic privilege."

??? Buying tools for car repairs is a one time cost and these tools would be shared by the kids. Car parts are actually not that expensive (can even be almost free if getting a part from a junkyard), much of the cost is in the labour.

Teaching kids problem solving and how to fix things is a critical skill that is lacking badly in our society and applies regardless of the wealth of the family.

If your argument is that some families are not able to afford cars or garages period then they can teach some other skill to their kids...I really don't see how the author is being ignorant, he's just sharing his experience.

[madmaniak]

This is what the author wrote in the very beginning. "I have always had a very prosperous job and enough money to give my kids almost anything". Where do I missed the claim it translates to everyone?

[mkautzm]

Then why write it at all?

The entire piece is structured as a piece to inform. It's not written as a piece to entertain -- That structure would include things like anecdotes, stories, little events that happened that reinforce or express a point, e.g. "This one time Sam really did a bad job fixing his car and...".

The piece is clearly a piece to inform. Yes, he acknowledges his affluence at the very beginning, but that doesn't mean he's aware of what a 'normal' income is and the problems and struggles that entails or his circumstance is wildly different than that of the average family.

[s_m_t]

Maybe they are writing it for other affluent families? Plenty of affluent families manage to mess up raising their kids, this one seemed to do something right.

[madmaniak]

That's how I see it.

[tomcam]

> from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for anything.

How do you know this?

[cosmie]

   > You want to raise kids that can pay for college by themselves? Be wealthy in the first place and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it.

Or be poor and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it. I came from a low-income, single parent household and was a first generation college student. Every single bit of that played in my favor when I applied to schools - from waived application fees to great fodder for compelling admissions essays. I actually had a higher acceptance rate at prestigious schools than state schools due to how under-represented my background is at that type of institution (since so few disadvantaged people apply there to begin with). The bar for being considered "above average" seems to be relative to your peer group, and luckily my socio-economic background played in my favor in that regard too. As a white male who had mediocre grades, decent-but-not-great test scores, no sports, no clubs, and no extracurriculars (except a job), I never would have gotten accepted at many of the places I was had I been from a wealthier family.

And those same prestigious schools all tend to have sliding scale tuitions, where an expected family contribution of $0 means a tuition bill of $0.

    > This entire article is just that though: It's a wealthy baby-boomer piece written from the stance of someone who's never wanted or struggled for anything. Their idea that you can project their methods onto other kids is unbelievably ignorant of the economic climate of working class America and is so disconnected from the real world as to be painful to read.

I wouldn't go that far. Yes, a lot of the particular examples he gave came from a position of socio-economic advantage. But there are several that can be generalized and scaled to any socio-economic standard. Instead of getting a car at 16, I was given a junky bike at 10. I got it as cleaned up and working as I could, then made a list of everything that was still wrong with it. My mom took me to the store to pick out parts. She only had $20 we could spend on it, so I picked out innertubes, a chain, and replacement spokes (instead of new rims). It taught me to fix things rather than replace them, and properly prioritize nice to haves vs. must haves. Yes, it was done out of necessity rather than the privilege of artificial and arbitrary constraints (like giving someone a Mustang and unlimited raw materials, support, and tools to fix it). But in the end, it instilled similar habits of appreciation for my belongings, defaulting to fixing things myself instead of replacing them or outsourcing it, and to better evaluate the value in things that aren't readily apparent (i.e. see the bones instead of the veneer). By the time I was 23 I made more in three months than my mom ever made in a year (and raised three children on). And those habits are every bit as translatable to my life now as they were when I learned them before.

[VLM]

I guess I'm in the demographic the article was written for, although my kids and I are a good decade too young to be the parents while also too old to be the children. I read the whole thing and I didn't see where it specified it was advice for working class America. I specifically did a text search on some common words and phrases and still don't see where its being mistargeted. Have to take your word for it, I guess.

I didn't think it would be terribly difficult to switch gears, for example I'm so old we didn't have "Advanced Placement" classes we had an equally trendy older name for the same concept. Likewise as a kid I got worn out yard sale bicycles and an infinite supply of parts and toolbox access. Same general idea. Or both myself and my kids are expected to upgrade desktop computers not cars, although I have no driving age kids (barely, yet)

There are indications that the story is completely imaginary. I never had any trouble affording an old beater of a car as a teen, the absolutely killer expense is insurance, and now that most "teen kid jobs" have been taken over by illegal alien laborers I'm not sure how anyone, parent or teen, could handle the immense cost of automobile insurance for a teen boy.

Likewise you can harumpf and preach all you want about who should pay for what part of school, but financial aid forms used to assume a certain $$$ from the parents and if you didn't get that $$$ you simply didn't go to college, it really is that simple. I had Army GI Bill money, whatever, but most people don't have many options.

Another false aspect is the peculiar sleep schedule of 10-5, that just doesn't sound realistic. Maybe the author was thinking of older teens going on dates rather than little kids. Little kids sleep like 10 hours per day, and their pediatrician thinks nothing is wrong about that.

Paying for weddings also sounds weird, even assuming its a boomer. Everyone in my cohort got married well after leaving the nest and having whatever passes for a career started. It must be very awkward for a older singles to ask mom for money to get married. The days of everyone got married at 18 or 22 seem like WWII generation or even older. The $250K wedding seems very nouveau riche and not really culturally acceptable outside hollywood movie sitcoms, although I suppose it depends where (and when) you live. Generally if it costs more than the divorce will, you're probably living in a hollywood movie.

Yet there are indications the story was written by an actual parent. The old trick of providing the false choice is probably as old as parenting.