Making SAHM get job to pay for private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

I'm not saying you are envious. You certainly seem defensive. I'm just saying you don't get what real generational wealth means for a family. And so your advice on how to make that choice is completely baseless. Your own views on how you want to raise your kids is irrelevant, too. No one cares, and you don't have the choice anyway.

OP is operating from a fundamentally narrow scarcity mindset focusing on the ROI of public schools. That's fine for him, but there is no evidence he is motivated by "which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults." He is focused on retirement age and ROI.

You started your whole rant because you wanted to grandstand about you've figured it all out based on having preschoolers.

Neither you or anyone else on this thread who has chimed in has been able to break this down whatsoever beyond saying “oh you wouldn’t know, you’re obviously not part of this group so you couldn’t possibly.”

There is a reason that the only notable remaining Vanderbilt is Cooper whatever his name is. There is a reason that the families who were wealthy 100+ years ago are not still wealthy today by today’s standards. It’s because any individual’s life outcomes have much more to do with that individual’s character (and yes opportunities) than it does with being born with a complete security net, which is known to produce week and ineffectual children.

It sounds like you have a fantasy about some magical place where a bunch of rich people live in a magical land of perfection and superiority, but data about wealth across generations in low or moderate corruption societies just doesn’t bare this out, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

I'm not saying you are envious. You certainly seem defensive. I'm just saying you don't get what real generational wealth means for a family. And so your advice on how to make that choice is completely baseless. Your own views on how you want to raise your kids is irrelevant, too. No one cares, and you don't have the choice anyway.

OP is operating from a fundamentally narrow scarcity mindset focusing on the ROI of public schools. That's fine for him, but there is no evidence he is motivated by "which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults." He is focused on retirement age and ROI.

You started your whole rant because you wanted to grandstand about you've figured it all out based on having preschoolers.

Neither you or anyone else on this thread who has chimed in has been able to break this down whatsoever beyond saying “oh you wouldn’t know, you’re obviously not part of this group so you couldn’t possibly.”

There is a reason that the only notable remaining Vanderbilt is Cooper whatever his name is. There is a reason that the families who were wealthy 100+ years ago are not still wealthy today by today’s standards. It’s because any individual’s life outcomes have much more to do with that individual’s character (and yes opportunities) than it does with being born with a complete security net, which is known to produce week and ineffectual children.

It sounds like you have a fantasy about some magical place where a bunch of rich people live in a magical land of perfection and superiority, but data about wealth across generations in low or moderate corruption societies just doesn’t bare this out, sorry.

Lol - what? There are plenty of living members of the Vanderbilt family. And there are lots of families with great wealth going back more than 100 years. The fact that you don't think so is exactly what the posters are talking about. And I am curious about your "data". I get that you feel insecure about your decisions about where you plan to send your preschoolers (lol), and you think that churning out people who put their head down like good worker bees is the key to great success. But don't mistake that for moral superiority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound so coarse OP-- just like the public school plebe you are.

I went to public schools AND state college, and this is what I took away from OP’s posts too, hehe.

LOL! I love your honesty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

I'm not saying you are envious. You certainly seem defensive. I'm just saying you don't get what real generational wealth means for a family. And so your advice on how to make that choice is completely baseless. Your own views on how you want to raise your kids is irrelevant, too. No one cares, and you don't have the choice anyway.

OP is operating from a fundamentally narrow scarcity mindset focusing on the ROI of public schools. That's fine for him, but there is no evidence he is motivated by "which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults." He is focused on retirement age and ROI.

You started your whole rant because you wanted to grandstand about you've figured it all out based on having preschoolers.

Neither you or anyone else on this thread who has chimed in has been able to break this down whatsoever beyond saying “oh you wouldn’t know, you’re obviously not part of this group so you couldn’t possibly.”

There is a reason that the only notable remaining Vanderbilt is Cooper whatever his name is. There is a reason that the families who were wealthy 100+ years ago are not still wealthy today by today’s standards. It’s because any individual’s life outcomes have much more to do with that individual’s character (and yes opportunities) than it does with being born with a complete security net, which is known to produce week and ineffectual children.

It sounds like you have a fantasy about some magical place where a bunch of rich people live in a magical land of perfection and superiority, but data about wealth across generations in low or moderate corruption societies just doesn’t bare this out, sorry.

Lol - what? There are plenty of living members of the Vanderbilt family. And there are lots of families with great wealth going back more than 100 years. The fact that you don't think so is exactly what the posters are talking about. And I am curious about your "data". I get that you feel insecure about your decisions about where you plan to send your preschoolers (lol), and you think that churning out people who put their head down like good worker bees is the key to great success. But don't mistake that for moral superiority.

Very true. Nice to come across someone who *gets it*.

The majority of Americans are horrible at understanding class and socioeconomic status. Some of the comments throughout this forum regarding this topic surprise because this forum is filled with UMC so I assumed they understood class and wealth in a more in-depth way.

[Anonymous]

To the people prattling on about ensuring us proletariat understand the difference between class and wealth, you may have the latter but you lack the former.

Just another reason to avoid the elite private schools. They produce an echo chamber of obnoxious navel gazers who turn to drugs and affairs to console the lack of meaning and challenge in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the people prattling on about ensuring us proletariat understand the difference between class and wealth, you may have the latter but you lack the former.

Just another reason to avoid the elite private schools. They produce an echo chamber of obnoxious navel gazers who turn to drugs and affairs to console the lack of meaning and challenge in life.

Some do, some don’t, similar to public school. One thing I hate is blanket statements. And one thing I can guarantee you that private schools focus on more than publics is empathy and emotional health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

30K * 6 = 180K
180K * 2 = 360K

Not 700K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can I force this issue or am I in the wrong? I am sole breadwinner, make about 500k so money isn't an issue but wife wants our 2 kids to go to private school for middle and high school. The school is about 30k per year. That's about $700k I'm pre tax money and not counting college.

I went to public school my whole life, including a good state school so my tuition from kindergarten through end of grad school was about the cost of one year of this middle school, combined. I think private school is a waste, unless you are in a bad school district or your kid has unique needs.

Leaving aside I could retire several years earlier if we sent the kids to the good, local public school, I feel my wife has lost the sense of what a dollar is. She isn't a spendthrift on other areas. I feel like if this is so important, then she can work with basically every penny she earns going to pay tuition.

How do I raise this without blowing things up?

30K * 6 = 180K
180K * 2 = 360K

Not 700K

700k is pre tax. You have to make almost double $360k to have it to spend. Do you work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the people prattling on about ensuring us proletariat understand the difference between class and wealth, you may have the latter but you lack the former.

Just another reason to avoid the elite private schools. They produce an echo chamber of obnoxious navel gazers who turn to drugs and affairs to console the lack of meaning and challenge in life.

Some do, some don’t, similar to public school. One thing I hate is blanket statements. And one thing I can guarantee you that private schools focus on more than publics is empathy and emotional health.

Not really. I have seen it up close. Only difference in “focus” is smaller class size. Otherwise they talk about this and that but where it counts is in peer to peer interaction, and honestly kids can be nasty everywhere. There are just fewer in privates, and unclear if that’s always better from a social standpoint as there are fewer to choose from for friendship.

[Anonymous]

Your family has an HHI of $500k. You can easily afford 60k/year for private school. The only question for you and your wife is whether private school is a better option for your kids.

Also, keep in mind, if you force your wife to get a job to cover this expense, you will be buying yourself a lot of resentment for $60k, and will probably also have to hire someone to do the work your wife is currently doing at home. If you want your wife to work and continue to do all the SAHM stuff, then consider how much you will be paying for a divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

I'm not saying you are envious. You certainly seem defensive. I'm just saying you don't get what real generational wealth means for a family. And so your advice on how to make that choice is completely baseless. Your own views on how you want to raise your kids is irrelevant, too. No one cares, and you don't have the choice anyway.

OP is operating from a fundamentally narrow scarcity mindset focusing on the ROI of public schools. That's fine for him, but there is no evidence he is motivated by "which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults." He is focused on retirement age and ROI.

You started your whole rant because you wanted to grandstand about you've figured it all out based on having preschoolers.

Neither you or anyone else on this thread who has chimed in has been able to break this down whatsoever beyond saying “oh you wouldn’t know, you’re obviously not part of this group so you couldn’t possibly.”

There is a reason that the only notable remaining Vanderbilt is Cooper whatever his name is. There is a reason that the families who were wealthy 100+ years ago are not still wealthy today by today’s standards. It’s because any individual’s life outcomes have much more to do with that individual’s character (and yes opportunities) than it does with being born with a complete security net, which is known to produce week and ineffectual children.

It sounds like you have a fantasy about some magical place where a bunch of rich people live in a magical land of perfection and superiority, but data about wealth across generations in low or moderate corruption societies just doesn’t bare this out, sorry.

Lol - what? There are plenty of living members of the Vanderbilt family. And there are lots of families with great wealth going back more than 100 years. The fact that you don't think so is exactly what the posters are talking about. And I am curious about your "data". I get that you feel insecure about your decisions about where you plan to send your preschoolers (lol), and you think that churning out people who put their head down like good worker bees is the key to great success. But don't mistake that for moral superiority.

Very true. Nice to come across someone who *gets it*.

The majority of Americans are horrible at understanding class and socioeconomic status. Some of the comments throughout this forum regarding this topic surprise because this forum is filled with UMC so I assumed they understood class and wealth in a more in-depth way.

You are very obviously sock puppeting, and it is truly sad. You are also offering absolutely nothing of substance to the discussion.

And no one said there aren't living Vanderbilts dumb dumb, just that they are no longer rich.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2014/07/14/the-vanderbilts-how-american-royalty-lost-their-crown-jewels/?sh=435c5596353b

In fact, 70% of families lose their wealth in the 2nd generation:
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth%3A-why-do-70-of-families-lose-their-wealth-in-the-2nd-generation-2018-10

90% lose it by the 3rd generation:
https://www.kineticconsulting.com/2019/05/why-wealthy-families-lose-their-fortunes/

So what am I not "getting" exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is a little ridiculous to both not work and insist on private school.

Agree. I’m a SAHM and private school would be a non-starter with my husband. He doesn’t quite make $500/k but it wouldn’t matter to him if he did. He is focused on college and retirement savings and generational wealth building. Private secondary school is just a badge like a luxury car or country club (we don’t those either.)

This kind of thinking is why you will never generate true generational wealth.

This isn’t true as well.

A lot of people don’t know or understand what generational wealth is.

A lot of people also don’t understand the difference between generational wealth and generational assets. Sure, buy a few rental properties and pass them down to your kids. But that’s not real generational wealth.

This!!! Thank you!!!

OK. So enlighten us what "real generational wealth" is. I'm guessing it somehow involves sending your kids to a tony private school.

Isn't it about being able to live off the interest of investments?

NP. Why would anyone want their kids to loaf around living off of interest? How is that doing them any kind of service?

I am working on leaving my kids a great inheritance, but my main priority is teaching a kid to fish. My children are preschool age, but whether or not they go to private school will be completely based on to what extent the education and culture of the school contributes to self-reliance, curiosity, a bit of competition, and hard work. In my area, the public school's math team sends 10+ kids to HYPSM every year. The fancy private sends kids to rando liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of. I really do not care that the parents of these kids are high profile and my kids to get access to that "network" because it turns out it is a network to spoiled nowheresville.

My guess is that you don't know people with that kind of wealth if that is your idea of how it works. You can give your kids both a work ethic and drive to succeed and a steady stream of income that gives them so many more options in life.

My guess is that your reading comprehension was not fully developed at your private school. I clearly wrote that I value leaving my children money but that ensuring work ethic was simply a higher priority; without it, wealthy heirs and heiresses do loaf around and quite unhappily. This is well documented, and while most of the people I know are working slobs like me, I do know a handful of high net work families with extremely unhealthy family dynamics where siblings in the families have vastly different levels of competence and mental health. If you have to choose between a high quality education as well as giving your children time and attention and leaving your children money, you should pick the former.

I'm sorry, but you still don't get it. Notwithstanding the "handful of high net work" families you've been observing with your nose pressed against the glass, people who have truly generational wealth are not choosing between that wealth and having successful, motivated children. Maybe you tell yourself that to feel better about your life choices, but that's not how it works in real life. It's ok though; I'm sure you are doing the best you can with the mental and material resources at your disposal.

Despite your best efforts to shame me over "having my nose pressed against the glass" between me and rich people, it's not working because I don't think a person's value comes from the class they are born into.

If you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd realize that I didn't claim that extremely wealthy people have to choose between wealth and having successful, motivated children (although I do believe they might have to work harder at it because it is a truth of human nature that motivation is often born from lack - this is why most family businesses fail by the 3rd generation).

What I did claim is that IF someone has to make the choice, they should choose prioritizing the development over their child over accumulating wealth to pass on later. Why did I make that point? Because that is what is being debated in this thread; the trade-off between paying for very expensive school and building generational wealth. OP is wondering if the cost is worth it because he has limited resources, unlike these irrelevant rich people you keep mentioning whose butts you live inside.

OP needs to do his own analysis together with his wife about which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults and go from there.

I'm not saying you are envious. You certainly seem defensive. I'm just saying you don't get what real generational wealth means for a family. And so your advice on how to make that choice is completely baseless. Your own views on how you want to raise your kids is irrelevant, too. No one cares, and you don't have the choice anyway.

OP is operating from a fundamentally narrow scarcity mindset focusing on the ROI of public schools. That's fine for him, but there is no evidence he is motivated by "which environment is going to help his kids become functional adults." He is focused on retirement age and ROI.

You started your whole rant because you wanted to grandstand about you've figured it all out based on having preschoolers.

Neither you or anyone else on this thread who has chimed in has been able to break this down whatsoever beyond saying “oh you wouldn’t know, you’re obviously not part of this group so you couldn’t possibly.”

There is a reason that the only notable remaining Vanderbilt is Cooper whatever his name is. There is a reason that the families who were wealthy 100+ years ago are not still wealthy today by today’s standards. It’s because any individual’s life outcomes have much more to do with that individual’s character (and yes opportunities) than it does with being born with a complete security net, which is known to produce week and ineffectual children.

It sounds like you have a fantasy about some magical place where a bunch of rich people live in a magical land of perfection and superiority, but data about wealth across generations in low or moderate corruption societies just doesn’t bare this out, sorry.

Lol - what? There are plenty of living members of the Vanderbilt family. And there are lots of families with great wealth going back more than 100 years. The fact that you don't think so is exactly what the posters are talking about. And I am curious about your "data". I get that you feel insecure about your decisions about where you plan to send your preschoolers (lol), and you think that churning out people who put their head down like good worker bees is the key to great success. But don't mistake that for moral superiority.

DP. Off topic but I don’t know that any of the other living Vanderbilt’s really have big money though. Anderson’s mom had shockingly little in her estate.

[Anonymous]

I think DW needs to either go back to work or cut expenses elsewhere. The expenses will only go up once you get to private school so you at least need a plan for tuition. Other kids will have nice cars when they turn driving age, they’ll be going on winter break to Whistler and summers in Europe or whatever. And if you have girls they will want to dress how the other girls dress and that will cost money.