[TheMerovingian]

I don't think you need to win the lottery to be in this situation. Imagine having a cushy job in a FAANG company, where your base salary is probably more than what your parents make combined. It is in my case.

I made the mistake of telling them (roughly) what I earn and it definitely has changed the way they interact with me. I get remarks about my 'wealth' and that I can easily drop $10K on something frivolous. I get other remarks that compare their hard job to my 'easy' job that has catering and long lunch breaks. No one asks how my mental state is. No one asks whether I take my work home with me at the end of the day. No one asks how many hours I put in. All they see is a family member that will drop a ton of cash on a nice vacation or a larger house.

Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.

[mbesto]

> Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.

YMMV. I don't have any immediate family members who are at risk for monetary issues (luckily) and I have not had any issues with them knowing how much I earn. I'm also lucky that my family has been taught the value of a dollar since I was little. Not everyone has that advantage so I can definitely see why the default advice should be "don't tell them".

My dad's sisters and some cousins on the other hand...ya...they don't need to know.

[edgyquant]

Yeah I told my parents when I started making six figures and the only thing that changed was now my dad doesn’t pay for all my food when I’m visiting.

[donretag]

My parents still insist on paying everything, and they earned relatively little in their lives.

[exolymph]

They get pleasure out of treating you <3 I hope you can find ways to return the favor and spoil them without embarrassing them.

[jzb]

Before my father passed he still grumbled about me buying a meal and he was retired!

[murph-almighty]

My parents will still try to pay for me sometimes, but my mom has venmo now so I can at least fire her whatever my costs were.

For all the weird shit I put up with in my family, at least money doesn't really come up as an issue in that sense.

[ChefboyOG]

Which, admittedly, is a real loss.

[version_five]

What you describe is true of many successes I find. Lots of people look at it as if you got some unfair or lucky break. Maybe that is true for the lottery, but for things like good grades, good job, wealth, or even access to leisure time (for example having time to exercise), many get defensive instead of being happy for the success. I've done it to, to some extent it's human nature, but it's something to try and avoid.

[throwaway528645]

I disagree. Dropped out of community college, couch surfed late teens to early twenties, worked night stocking at grocery stores, phone support for Wells Fargo, and DSL tech support.

I suffer from ADD and depression(some anxiety). I drink too much too often as self-medication.

Yet somehow I'm grossing just over 300k this year not working for a FAANG company. It's incredibly easy for me to get a job and offers and has been for nearly a decade. I've received multiple offers after passing interviews quite hung over(hey, when your interviewing at a few companies interviews are bound to collide with drinks nights haha).

I consider my self extremely lucky that I'm somehow successful career wise despite myself. And it's a trope that people who are successful monetarily but have a lacking family situation look at those with a great family situation and believe them to be lucky. And vice versa.

Some people are able to quit smoking relatively "easy". Some people are not able to, or need to be exposed to the right method of quitting. Some never get exposed to the right method, and some try everything and still can't quit.

Sometimes I feel like we are all just riding out life experiencing something we have little control over. And what we believe we have control over, we don't actually have control over having that control. This outlook doesn't take away from trying to maximize my personal experience, but it makes me think more than twice before considering the difference between myself and others as "hard working" vs "lazy".

Just because it may be human nature to be jealous of those with success doesn't mean they weren't actually lucky. The best or worst luck anyone will ever get is probably the parents they were born to and the genes they inherited from them..

[jjj123]

Totally agree! I make far more than my harder working, smarter friends outside of tech.

People with greater wealth don’t necessarily “deserve” it, whatever that means.

[brailsafe]

Ya, if you don't acknowledge the luck involved in things like getting that good job, it can offen imply everyone else is just lazy and it's hard to be congratulatory when most people just don't have the circumstances work out for them.

It could come down to your first job working out super well, paying well, and maybe you also happen to not find it extremely depressing. It helps if you're parents are still together and didn't have their own mental health issues, or less likely it helps of your family is so screwed that you had no other option than sacrificing yourself fully for money. That carries you forward. If however anything happened to impair that, you could be screwed.

[bradlys]

Meh. I have $1.5mm by 30. Make $400k/yr.

Parents at their peak earned maybe $60k together. Most of life they earned less and our house we got when growing up was only $120k. (They didn’t have a house until they were in their 40’s btw)

They have no envy. They still pay for dinner if I visit. You know why? Cause they know how hard I worked for it - they saw how many years I spent grinding. They’re proud more than envious by a large margin. They’ll brag to their peer group while still conveying that it wasn’t them that made it happen.

I think if you worked hard for it. I think if it’s apparent how much effort went in and that you’re not a person who is callous to others then people will treat you with respect.

This is one area of my life that does differ from some. I’m very upfront with how much I’ve struggled to get where I am. Extremely upfront. No one has a single ounce of envy for my life. I’ve professed many times that if I end up being a billionaire - I’d never relive my life even knowing I’d be a billionaire later because no amount of money will make up for the pain, suffering, and agony that I had to endure. Even now, it’s not like things are fantastic. I still don’t have what I want because what I want requires 10x what I have for SFBA. If I moved to BFE then it’d be no problem but then I wouldn’t have a job or a hope of a social life.

[tw600040]

This is very cynical. If you can't even tell your family how much you make what's the point in having a family? What is a family for in your opinion then?

[bityard]

Maybe you feel you can trust everyone in your family, but this is far from universal. Many, _many_ people have family members who are self-entitled moochers who think that everything bad that has happened to them was because of other people instead of a lifetime of own poor choices. When they find out that someone close to them has come into some money, they feel (and act) like they "deserve" some of it and will try all manner of tactics to get at it, including pity and made-up stories, all the way up to blackmail, threats, and physical violence. In a word: toxic. Sometimes it's just one family member, sometimes it's the whole family.

If you have none in your family, consider yourself extremely blessed. Most of us are not so lucky.

[dragosmocrii]

people are fast to judge based on what they see on the surface, most are superficial, very few have an interest in diving into the details. too bad when family is in the first category. hope you're doing alright

[dvt]

> Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.

Your advice is cynical and unhelpful.

I have a healthy relationship with my family where talking about wealth, money, and unexpected windfalls is not a problem. Or, conversely, talking about death, disease, unemployment, or breakups. Of course, a healthy non-toxic relationship needs years of hard work and maintenance.

The kind of work most people don't want to put in.

[ohazi]

> Of course, a healthy non-toxic relationship needs years of hard work and maintenance.

By all parties involved.

You only have control over what you put in, but if the other side isn't interested in playing by the same rules there's often nothing you can do.

I also have a good relationship with my family, but I didn't realize how good I had it until I went to college and met students who were on bad terms with their families, weren't on speaking terms, or were completely estranged. It shocked me at the time, but this is the reality for a lot of people.

[amanaplanacanal]

No matter how much work you put in, you can’t choose your parents. Or your in-laws.