Says Being Rich Is The ‘Hardest Thing’ About Parenting
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Anonymous
So many kids of all income levels end up messed up. It’s just more notable when they had other options and made the wrong decisions. I mean heck I’d imagine most drug dealers and people in gangs aren’t from the 1%. |
Anonymous
DP. One of my friends nannied for one of their kid’s friends family and he is in fact not bright and just a textbook dumb jock. Although she did say that he and Giselle are very nice. That said there’s nothing wrong with being dumb! I hate how everyone assumes that every successful person is also intelligent. |
Anonymous
Our culture venerates the rich, and endows them with intelligence, hard work, good taste, and every virtue. It's part of faith in the "meritocracy." In fact, lots of rich people are dumb, mean, dishonest, selfish, lucky, tacky, or whatever else. They are just people, not superior beings. I mean, good on him for recognizing that kids raised in wealth often end up entitled, messed-up people, and at least trying to counter that. |
Anonymous
Yes, but when they are rich people wonder at what went wrong. Obviously money can add different challenges to parenting. How to keep the kids grounded, not entitled, teach them empathy and gratitude, as well as recognize their enormous privilege etc. Given how some of these kids turn out obviously it's not that easy. It's a wonder OP didn't realize this before the silly post. Tom is aware of these challenges and wants to do right by his kids. Why fault that? |
Anonymous
It's almost as if having the highest SAT score isn't a guarantee of success and wealth. Who woulda thunk it? |
Anonymous
| He sounds myopic, wealthy people/including celebrities have often voiced this concern and there are various ways to handle it, if you are serious about wanting to stack your odds to help create grateful, unentitled, motivated and balanced people there are things that can be done. He doesn't have to invent the wheel. He's talking about it like it's a unique dilemma. |
Anonymous
| He himself doesn't do a lot beyond his career which is his main life focus so yea, he's not really likely to be modeling life skills. It's a problem |
Anonymous
He was asked so he gave an honest answer. Is he supposed to make up something to make it sound more profound or should he just answer honestly? When asked how he keeps his kids grounded, he said, “It’s probably the hardest thing for us as parents, you know, with myself and my wife.” What do you think he should have answered? |
Anonymous
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I think it is always hard for people who major character flaws, maybe even personality disorders, to raise kids. It's confusing. Do as I say, not as I do, doesn't work.
I used to think about this all the time when my kid was in preschool. We were at preschool where a lot of the parents were very wealthy -- finance, law, inherited money, etc. Some of them were greedy jerks. It was an interesting juxtaposition because preschool is pretty much the opposite of that lifestyle -- early childhood education emphasizes caring for others, sharing, emotional regulation, and kindness. It was interesting to watch people who have gotten very, very wealthy by violating all of the "rules" of a preschool education try and parent their kids. How to tell your 4 yr old to share with his sister, because she is younger and smaller, if your ethos at work is to take advantage of weaker actors for your own gain? How to teach your children to listen and play by the rules when you job is premised on working the refs and skirting rules in order to gain an advantage? It's no wonder this is hard for Brady and many parents who simply have low moral character. Sure, you can point to their "work ethic" to justify your admiration for them. But parenting isn't about work ethic, and if you just emphasize work ethic with your kids, to the exclusion of other things, you mess them up. You actually have to teach them how to be functional citizens, and some rich, successful people are not functional in that sense. They are good at making money but not good partners, friends, or neighbors. And your kids are going to pay more attention to those aspects of your life, which will be more relevant to them during childhood, than how you perform at work (work is boring to kids). Of course, some wealthy people actually do have good moral character, and my sense is that they don't feel that being rich inhibits their ability to parent. It's interesting, isn't it? |
Anonymous
Completely agree.... i think gisele and tom are woefully tone deaf on lots of issues but they seems to make reasonable choices about their kids and their environment. |
Anonymous
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Sorry not sorry.
They can’t cook form themselves? They can’t clean their own home? Maybe get a smaller home. They can’t take a taxi/Uber to the airport? There are things they can NOT do to keep their kids grounded. And let’s keep in mind, people with jobs requiring 40 plus hours a week do them. And many are single parents. |
Anonymous
Maybe he and his family should try and get involved with helping those less fortunate to teach empathy and how to do good with what you have. |
Anonymous
| First world problems, truly. |
Anonymous
| Tom Brady should have a chat with Warren Buffet. |
Anonymous
I not generally a fan of the Kennedy family but I remember an interview once with Maria Shriver where she talked about how this was drilled into her as a child and it's something she drills into her own kids and she's grateful for it because she thinks when you are born into money and privilege, it has a tendency to demotivate and make it hard to identify a life purpose. But charity work and helping people who are less fortunate is an endless enterprise, and it's hard. No matter how much money you have, doing that work will always pose challenges. It gives wealthy people something to really try at, and it contains actual hard-won victories instead of the often easy successes that the very privileged get used to acquiring. Again, too a Kennedy fan generally but this did make me respect Shriver a bit and this seems like a smart way to deal with the problem Brady is talking about here. Most of the roadmaps for parenting assume lots of built in limitations on kids and families. The very wealthy and privileged don't have those, so you need to find ways to create them without feigning poverty (obnoxious, insulting, will backfire) or giving you kid a personality disorder (real risk). Focusing on charity and volunteer work as a familial duty and calling is a good way to do that. This is also how British Royals handle a similar problem, and you can see how the people who embrace that calling tend to do better as people (mentally, in relationships, etc.) than those who don't. A lot of the dysfunction in that family is due to people who don't know what to do with their privilege. |