Poor little rich kids: Upper-middle-class kids now an at-risk group?!

[KamaAina]

http://news.yahoo.com/column-poor-little-rich-kids-173011492.html

This power spending on the children of the economic elite is usually — and rightly — cited as further evidence of the dangers of rising income inequality. Whatever your views about income inequality among the parents, inherited privilege is inimical to the promise of equal opportunity, which is central to the social compact in Western democracies....

Kornrich and Furstenberg warn that social mobility is in jeopardy. "In the race to the top, higher-income children are at an ever greater advantage because their parents can and do spend more on child care, preschool, and the growing costs of postsecondary education," they write. "Thus, contemporary increases in inequality may lead to even greater increases in inequality in the future as advantage and disadvantage are passed across the generations through investment."...

They are right to worry. But it turns out that the children being primed for that race to the top from preschool onward aren't in such great shape, either....

"I was looking for a comparison group for the inner-city kids," Luthar told me. "And we happened to find that substance use, depression and anxiety, particularly among the girls, were much higher than among inner-city kids."

[GeorgeGist]

1. They're kids for chrissake.

[marions ghost]

2. interesting article

With dwindling opportunities, the payoff for all the financial and emotional investment in the education of children--may not be guaranteed. Even for the rich.

Yes the implications are

[RainDog]

3. The primary issue, however

is that even elite children with substance use, (what kind, I wonder, cause this matters), depression and anxiety STILL have a better chance of having their problems treated and having better outcomes for their lives because BASIC survival issues are not at stake.

Maybe the anxiety comes from recognizing the inherent inequity of the current system and the stress to maintain elite lifestyle expectations at all costs impact health and happiness.

Maybe everyone is happier when all are happier.

[marions ghost]

5. "Everyone is happier when all are happier"

--this is what the rich never seem to understand as they continue to squeeze and exploit everyone else.

[RainDog]

6. The statement makes no sense, but it does

as in, anyone can read it and know what I'm getting at.

Recent studies have indicated that there's no "saturation point" for money bringing happiness... i.e. some people, at least, will never say, "enough." And those in elite circles who compete based upon the size of their assets will not voluntarily chose not to be in that game...which is why wealth redistribution via taxation is the only way to level the playing field... a little bit... because kids in bad situations are still going to be around and kids who have advantages are still going to be around.

but we can make a commons of public good through laws that help increase social mobility and have a safety net for those who are falling, oftentimes through no fault of their own, but merely b/c of the way current society is structured.

[marions ghost]

8. For most rich people I think

there is no such thing as enough. It becomes an addiction. to power and status and influence, as well as to things.

I hope we can still "level the playing field" in this country.

[surrealAmerican]

4. Income inequality is bad for everyone.

The lack of a functioning safety net is a source of anxiety, and limits the choices available to children growing up here.

[YoungDemCA]

7. Very much so.

Look at how many trust-funders crash-and-burn.

Not saying they have it worse off, but they aren't immune to the negative effects of America's increasingly cruel and inhumane social system.

[tabbycat31]

9. I can believe this

I know of many affluent communities where there is a drug problem too.

[Igel]

10. "Because."

There's the problem. "Because."

It's an assumed "because." It's an assumption that's easy to make, but harder to demonstrate.

I see too many kids with the same schools, the same textbooks, the same tutoring opportunities, the same schedule, sitting in the same classes in elementary school. They have had same everything, except that one group had free daycare while the other group often had no outside-the-family daycare.

The ones with no-outside-the-family daycare did better.

The difference was locked in before high school. By then the parents' education had helped set attitudes, passed along skills and culture, and also a lot of information. Even the brilliant poor kids were worse off than many of the rather dull-witted better-off kids, and that is *before* college or even SAT prep.

That's the kind of thing that can't be readily quantified. So it's not studied. So you look at all the possible quantifiable causes, and you pick the most likely. The one that suits you.

For many, that's money.