'NY Times' Columnist Laments Woes of Rich Kids

[n2doc]

Are you sick and tired of the poors getting all the attention and sympathy? Are you afraid you might end up living near scary, thuggish brown people? Then don't miss New York Times columnist Ron Lieber's work!
Let's start with the travails of those woebegone rich people and their kids, using the murder case of Thomas Gilbert, the 30-year-old trust-fund baby and Princeton grad who murdered his father when his father cut his allowance.

Twitter responded as Twitter does. He was a “trust fund kid.” The “most spoiled brat.” The whole affair was “morbidly disgusting.”
But at the same time, parents all over my own social media feeds and in out-loud discussions throughout the week were having a more searching conversation.

So uncouth Twitter was making fun of the situation, but his rich friends were like, "woah, that's just like us!"

Before you roll your eyes and mime the playing of violins, let us dispense with the nasty term “rich people problems.” The well-off are human, too, and if some of their children are hurting, it’s indecent to mock or ignore them.

Ha ha, no, it's not. When your 30-year-old Ivy-League grad is living off mommy and daddy and getting an allowance, that's perfectly mockable, no matter how much that asshole moocher and his idiot-enabling parents are "hurting." Ignoring them would be too kind.

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http://www.alternet.org/media/ny-times-columnist-laments-woes-rich-kids

[GreatGazoo]

1. those who believe that money solves or avoids all problems are kidding themselves

We could dismiss the problems that the children of rich people have by blaming the children and calling them "spoiled" but what does growing up rich really mean?

1. Very limited contact with your parents -- nannies, tutors, boarding schools, military boarding schools, summer camps -- everything BUT parents.

2. Money as false substitute for love. They send you money at boarding school because they can't/won't visit or have you come home. If you need love, attention and guidance you get money, therapists and medications.

3. Pressure to be perfect, to be seen and not heard. To be groomed and dressed and paraded like a little show pony if and when your parents do want you around.

4. To have those who don't know what your life is really like tell you that you have no right to complain about anything because you have money and then make themselves jealous of the life they imagine you are living.

That the rich are exceedingly happy is a myth.

[Igel]

2. Last fall there was a research paper published that was utterly ignored.

It violated some sacred precepts in ed psych.

The assumption is that since extreme penury triggers very high cortisol and other stress hormone levels, poverty levels are a proxy for stress hormone levels.

Stress hormone levels are inversely correlated with learning. The more stress, the more difficulty students have in learning of basic facts and in focusing on higher kinds of thinking.

Therefore, poverty accounts for lower levels of academic achievement and just giving money, all by itself, would solve the problem.

Somebody questioned that first assumption. The researchers actually took blood samples to measure stress hormone levels, in addition to giving the usual surveys and questionaires. What they found was dismaying.

Cortisol levels spiked for those in extreme poverty. The homeless, those who miss meals on a regular basis because of lack of money, etc.

After you get out of that segment of American society--and we're talking just a few percent of kids--stress hormone levels statistically flatline. Not a big difference between a kid in poverty, "working poor", middle class, and upper class. Some kids in poverty may have short-term spikes, but so do those in other classes. They may spike for other reasons, but that wasn't the claim--the claim was it was *stress hormone levels*, a marker for stress, that mattered. Not the reason for the stress. Breakups, family disruptions, envy, bullying, illness, etc., etc. all had the same levels of effect on the kids in general.

This is entirely analogous to the food and calorie-intake studies. Those in extreme poverty--not the "food insecure" but those who regularly cannot get enough to eat at home--need free/reduced meals. Otherwise they're seriously hurt in school. But once you're past that group, the merely "food insecure" don't regularly miss meals any more often than middle and upper-class kids do. Sometimes for the same reasons, sometimes for different reasons.

In both cases, a couple of data points + a few easy-thinking assumptions not only = lots of published papers, but also calls for massive intervention programs. Which serve not only educational needs, the basis, but more often than not the demands of social justice in general. Now, I can see the point of trying this kind of ploy--although usually those doing this are entirely sincere and just can't see a reason to question an assumption that serves them so well. The problem is that having solved the problem on paper and throwing billions after it, the problem's not solved but we've said we solved it. So finding the real reason is difficult because so many are invested in *not* admitting the problem's not solved or the solution was mostly irrelevant to the problem proposed. Then, if the non-solution continues for a while, the entire affair reeks of cynicism and corruption to opponents and is the object of mind-numbing reflexive defense by supporters. (And still the problem remains.)