from Hacker News

Why Affluent Parents Put So Much Pressure on Their Kids

by b_emery on 7/4/21, 6:08 PM with 32 comments

• by ElViajero on 7/4/21, 7:36 PM

  > In part, this is because of what sort of people make up America's elite today: not the owners of family businesses but professionals with impressive educations. Family businesses are heritable; education, by contrast, is not.

  It seems that by 'rich' the article referred to professionals with high salary. I am not sure how much I will call rich someone that needs to work on a job to continue having an income. 'Prosperous', 'well off' sounds more accurate, but English is not my mother tongue.

  My point is that the rich, the ultra-wealthy, can pass assets and business to their descendants and can pay their children's way into exclusive institutions.

  I prefer a society were everybody have a minimum well being guaranteed and better off people just have some more luxuries.

• by sharadov on 7/4/21, 8:26 PM

  Palo Alto is an anomaly and an outlier. There were a spate of teen suicides at the area's high schools, with a lengthy report by the Atlantic. If Silicon Valley schools are a pressure cooker then Palo Alto is 5X that. Parents working in high-pressure jobs who think the entire world revolves around tech and consciously and unconsciously passing on those messages to their kids. A couple years back I was at this place called Hacker Dojo, it is a co-working space, an older, nerdier WeWork, and has a storied history in the Valley. There was this startup camp for kids - teaching 13 year olds how to pitch companies, are you kidding me? Let kids be kids.

• by pmorici on 7/4/21, 8:40 PM

  While I totally believe that undue pressure from parents would cause kids to be unhappy the narrative that follows to justify that pressure is total non-sense. I mean they are literally claiming that anyone that doesn't manage to go to an ivy league school for college will be destine to live in poverty.

  It's almost like this article is a subtle dig as merit based admissions. Back in the day you you could get into an ivy league school because of who you are now those poor kids have to work for it, and it makes them stressed, poor them. Surprised they didn't advocate for getting rid of standardized testing.

• by locallost on 7/4/21, 8:58 PM

  On raising kids, Vonnegut wrote: "you have to be kind".

  Economic reasons might be a large factor, but they are not the only one. There is a lot of this even in places where there is much less competition. People want to see their kids succeed, and that alone can trigger a lot of things. I am not completely innocent, although nothing egregious because I know that reacting to your fears will mostly end up being a self fulfilling prophecy. But even knowing this it can get the best of you if you see them failing at something out of laziness too many times. If I have a "job" with my kids, it's to give them an opportunity to find their passion, but this is much more than shipping them off to some practice. On the other hand looking at it as a job is highly likely the wrong way.

• by TrackerFF on 7/5/21, 2:04 AM

  People that work in these "elite" sectors (consulting, finance, tech, law, medicine, etc.) know that the competition is fierce, and that even with _a lot_ of help, there's really no guarantee to get your kids there.

• by GianFabien on 7/5/21, 2:22 AM

  Affluent people earn big incomes but have correspondingly big expenses. Big houses, flash cars, eating at fancy restaurants, etc. All those behaviours are status competitions. e.g. my car is faster, more expensive, etc.

  Thus in turn, their children are also part of their status as success. Having a child who went to an Ivy League and works at a top NY firm is accorded far more allure of success than somebody who dropped out and travels with a backpack painting landscapes. Even if the latter leads a far happier, healthier, more sustainable life.

• by heavenlyblue on 7/4/21, 8:38 PM

  I kind of know (and believe) that inequality is growing. But reading this article makes me actually think the opposite: isn’t that actually a good example the equality is there? That is, the “affluent” simply realise that their place in life isn’t fixed and that if their kids wanted to have the same life as them those kids would need to work their butt off? In such a case I am very much not disappointed with the fact that affluent kids are also trying to work for that “space underneath the sun”.

• by watersb on 7/5/21, 4:46 AM

  In my town, the high school kids are more likely to die from suicide than from automobile crashes.

  It's a high pressure environment.

  Everyone trying to fix this, but the perception of everything riding on getting into the good university is a message that is difficult to push against... in this zip code where half of the adults have master's degree or PhD.

• by MilnerRoute on 7/4/21, 10:27 PM

  [2015]

• by runawaybottle on 7/4/21, 7:44 PM

  Well, it’s always easier to just make someone else do something to attain you things in life. Not that high up on the status totem pole? Make your kid climb it. It’s just easier. Not that rich for that house? Make sure your kid brings you in on that new house. Never went to college, but always wanted to be a doctor? Make your kid do it. Force them to, drop all your bullshit onto them.

  A boss is a boss, dominance is dominance.