[amelius]

> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money.

Ugh.

[philangist]

Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part.

> My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve worked all our lives.”

I guess her thinking comes from somewhere

[pr0zac]

I had the opposite reaction, that it was said with full self-awareness of the conflicting nature of those thoughts.

The entire article IS myopic, but that's the point. Its a self-exploration of the feelings and emotions experienced by someone in their 20s who just received a lot of money unexpectedly for reasons largely outside their control. In a lot of ways it reads like conversations I've had with my therapist about other (non-money related) topics.

She does a good job explaining her anxieties around finances and the power dynamics in relationships caused by money as well as explaining the personal experiences in her childhood (her friend's parents' and her parents' divorce, the financial collapse of 2008) and the shared experiences of her generation (the first to have less money than their parents) that created those anxieties. She literally says what your last sentence implies.

Yes shes humble-bragging and talking about feeling shes low-maintenance and frugal. She also talks about feelings of bitterness and imposter syndrome and concerns about the future and feeling like she needs to give it all back because she doesn't deserve it.

Shes being honest and open because most people aren't. I mean its titled "Confessions of". I think shes aware. The most important lines in the article are these:

> there are people who feel like they don’t know what they’re doing with the money, and what the money means, and they’re encompassed by anxiety. They don’t realize that nobody else knows what they’re doing either.

[throwusawayus]

Parents can be profoundly weird about this sort of thing.

I've had a couple meaningful equity events -- not as large as OP's but same order of magnitude in combination -- and have discussed this with my parents several times over the years. Despite otherwise being of sound mind, they're incapable of remembering it. It's the strangest thing.

I've been semi-retired since my mid 30s. My parents honestly seem to believe I'm unemployed and just can't get a job. They keep offering me money. Recently they keep mentioning how it's such a good time to finally buy a home since mortgage rates are low. This despite the fact I live in a large nice condo that I paid for in cash years ago. They've visited several times.

No matter how many times I try explaining my situation to them, they just can't retain it. It really bothers me. I've given up and just change the subject any time it comes up now.

Overnight windfalls are great, don't get me wrong. But they can certainly impact your family relationships in negative ways.

[throwaway0a5e]

The average apple rarely falls far from the tree. It can happen, but it certainly isn't the typical case.

[ajkdhcb2]

This part really disturbed me