People who are born on third yet act like they worked "so hard" for something

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The other annoying thing I've people say is they're only buying because it is a better financial move than continuing to rent and this way their roommates will pay their mortgage for them. The implication is the rest of us renters are idiots because nobody gifted us a down payment.

Rent in the DMV is the same amount as a mortgage payment elsewhere. If you choose to rent vs move or buy a condo, that’s all on you.

You're forgetting the part about the down payment. Some have to save for it. Others receive one from family. Big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish people were just transparent about how they come by their good fortune. No, you did not buy a mansion on a nonprofit salary due to hard work. Just own it!!

Hear hear!

My spouse and I are in this position and are not shy about volunteering how much help we received to buy our house (obviously only in conversations and contexts where it makes sense). I think transparency is refreshing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

Yes, it is. Unless your definition of "enough" is narcissistic materialism.

Your experience is too narrow. You are thinking of some middle class person from a stable-but-not-rich family who, through hard work can become UMC. Okay, yes, that can happen.

And there are people from poor and working class backgrounds who can make it up the ladder as well. But they are exceptions. Most people born poor or working class will die poor or working class, and they may were very hard in the interim. But working hard if you don't have a college degree is usually not going to get you a substantially better life.

Plus all the people born into abuse and neglect, who have to overcome the impact of that in order to function at a high enough level to actually achieve the kind of security and comfort we are talking about here. Sure, some do but most do not. I say this as someone who DID make it out of an abusive family with substance abuse issues and mental illness, but has many family members who didn't. It's not so straightforward. One of the things I had to do in order to make it where I am was essentially turn my back on my family -- I moved far away and keep a lot of emotional and physical distance because I know getting drawn back into that world would make it all but impossible for me to give my own children the kind of life I never had.

So no, hard work alone is not enough. You need luck, and help. If you were born into wealth and privilege and can't even recognize your good fortune or want to try and convince people that your position in life is solely the result of your hard work, go ahead, but I know the truth and so does every other person who was born into worse circumstances.

I agree with this. I was born into a stable but not rich family. I am black and a woman. I did okay in school but had a lot of additional help (tutors, SAT prep etc, camps). I ended up going to college and after I landed in the corporate world. A lot of my friends that are similar to me sort of haven't even cracked six figures. I do think I was lucky in a way and somehow the stars aligned...though my parents did push me into a lot of things some of my other friends didn't do. Now I make good money and am living a nice stable life. I do think most people don't move up the ladder as much without help or some kind of major luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

Privileged people don’t have student loans & don’t need to “live at home” to save money. Their parents pay their rent or buy them a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

+1000 rich kids aren’t living at home or commuting anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you were born in the U.S. you’re already on third base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because its as hard as they worked and thats all they know. Most of us are blind to our own privileges. My parents are immigrants from eastern Europe. Came with nothing and a kid at 35. But they also had free PHD educations that were able to be translated and used as credentials, foreign language skills, a community they tapped into for support and they are white. Very different than immigrants from subsistence farming villages in central america for example. They all work hard but started with very different decks of cards.

This is pretty much me, minus the community. And yes, I think of myself as self-made. Granted, getting free education was amazing, but nobody paid for getting me admitted to Harvard and my European degrees did not come with a rolodex of useful contacts. I did work hard for everything: my PhD, my academic job, my industry job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The other annoying thing I've people say is they're only buying because it is a better financial move than continuing to rent and this way their roommates will pay their mortgage for them. The implication is the rest of us renters are idiots because nobody gifted us a down payment.

Rent in the DMV is the same amount as a mortgage payment elsewhere. If you choose to rent vs move or buy a condo, that’s all on you.

This is patently false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

I mean having that safety net is higher than people in poverty but it's not a privilege that people born on third would view as a privilege. It's more like a perk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

Privileged people don’t have student loans & don’t need to “live at home” to save money. Their parents pay their rent or buy them a house.

I’m privileged and had student loans and lived at home to pay them off.

There are levels of privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

I mean having that safety net is higher than people in poverty but it's not a privilege that people born on third would view as a privilege. It's more like a perk.

that's literally the point. It is a privilege to know that you have a safety net for so many things in life

[Anonymous]

working hard and privilege are not mutually exclusive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can be born privileged and also work hard. The two are not mutually exclusive

Of course. You can also be born NOT privileged, work even harder, and wind up with a lot less.

That's why it's obnoxious for people to emphasize their hard work as the reason for their success and glide right over an inheritance or a job they got through nepotism or even the gift of graduating from school debt free due to parent contributions or being able to live at home. Hard work alone is not enough for most people.

When they say that they are probably comparing themselves to their peers, folks who started off with similar level of privilege. Like, I’ve never thought about it before this post, but I did better than many of my HS classmates and the children of my parents’ friends.

Being able to live at home is a privilege? I thought being able to afford to live away from home was the privilege. Silly me.

Yeah, having a good relationship with your parents and them having the space to house you so that you can save money, pay off student loans, etc without paying rent is absolutely 100% a privilege.

Privileged people don’t have student loans & don’t need to “live at home” to save money. Their parents pay their rent or buy them a house.

Do you really see privilege as a binary instead of a continuum?