[green.tea]

(Original post by mimx)
Which in itself isn't so simply attained.

Perhaps it appears that way cos "they gotta learn that you dont get nowhere in life without doing a fair days work for a fair days pay! " makes people correctly conclude their parents are stupid.

[Fires]

(Original post by UCLEmily)
Will you be "theoretically wealthy" because of inheritance? Rather an odd attitude to take if so.

I am in the category of the group of people who have benefited greatly from parental wealth/income. I think (hope) that a combination of parental role modelling, good schools and personal attitude has helped me not be too spoiled by the situation. My parents don't hold back things from us if we want them but we have kind of learned not to be too demanding. It's a fine line with well-off kids not to spoil them. There were some spoiled girls at my schools.

I know it's easy to say this from a somewhat superior situation, but I feel for OP as I'm sure it can't be easy to see much better off kids swanning around her neighbourhood if her own background is v. poor. London can be strange that way - the upper classes live close to the poor in a lot of places. It's different in other parts of the country, where private schools and rich areas tend to be very separate.

You seem the thoughtful sort, but plenty of "rich kids" aren't, hence part of the problem.

At the Uni I went to, I noticed a lot that things well-off kids take for granted look incredibly spoiled to other people. Just to give examples: large allowances; nicer places to live; new cars; spare money for cool clothes; expensive holidays; exotic gap years; accessories. I realised over time that many of these goodies just seem normal to some kids, eg, those well above my social background. How many of those do you have Emily and hardly think about?

[Llamageddon]

Realise that spoilt brats turn into boring, vacuous sacks of **** when they grow up. In my experience half of them fail to become self-sufficient after university and end up in useless internships daddy patched up for them because he didn't want to have to say his daughter was unemployed at his weekly round of golf.

There's a huge wealth of difference between being wealthy and being spoilt. By all means be jealous of the former as the opportunities and enjoyment wealth can bring (or more accurately the distinct positive of not having your landlord send threatening letters because your student loan doesn't cover the accommodation cost) are huge, but to be jealous of people who are spoilt is to miss the massive amount of damage done to those people in the process.

[mimx]

(Original post by Llamageddon)
In my experience half of them fail to become self-sufficient after university and end up in useless internships daddy patched up for them because he didn't want to have to say his daughter was unemployed at his weekly round of golf.

Is this experience from trite cinema?

[Llamageddon]

(Original post by mimx)
Is this experience from trite cinema?

It's experience from going to a posho university filled with people who harp on about how their dad looks down peoples mouths or shuffles important bits of paper for a living as though this in any way would be of any interest to any person ever. You graduate, you endure their presence on your facebook, you find tons of them doing internships at the sort of places that would never pay for it.

[mimx]

(Original post by Llamageddon)
It's experience from going to a posho university filled with people who harp on about how their dad looks down peoples mouths or shuffles important bits of paper for a living as though this in any way would be of any interest to any person ever. You graduate, you endure their presence on your facebook, you find tons of them doing internships at the sort of places that would never pay for it.

Half of them though? How would you even know about the number of rich kids who don't reveal it or acted normal in order to judge the proportion?

Where did you go, Durham or something?

[Lust of a Gardener]

(Original post by green.tea)
I say get them selling rhino horn from rhinio that died of natural causes. Use the money to pay them wages for protecting the live ones with guns. Meaning more rhinos, more rhino horn, decent jobs. Win/win.

I'd imagine that the they would be pretty liberal in their definition of "natural causes".

[UCLEmily]

(Original post by Fires)
You seem the thoughtful sort, but plenty of "rich kids" aren't, hence part of the problem.

At the Uni I went to, I noticed a lot that things well-off kids take for granted look incredibly spoiled to other people. Just to give examples: large allowances; nicer places to live; new cars; spare money for cool clothes; expensive holidays; exotic gap years; accessories. I realised over time that many of these goodies just seem normal to some kids, eg, those well above my social background. How many of those do you have Emily and hardly think about?

Haha, I try and think about them all and be cautious about how I live, but at the same time not be shy about enjoying the comfort and privileges I get, knowing they are exactly that - privileges. But yes, I get the things on that list, along with lots of other people from my sort of background.

Look, wealth can come and go and disappear at the whim of markets, economies and jobs. Few people are as financially secure as they might like to think they are. I am most grateful for the very good education I've had, as it set me up I think to be independent-minded and try hard to succeed in most situations rather than just lie back and rely on parental money, at least I hope so.

[green.tea]

(Original post by Lust of a Gardener)
I'd imagine that the they would be pretty liberal in their definition of "natural causes".

Why? Its not like theyd be selling it as individuals. Theyd gain nothing from reducing the population.

[FrogInABog]

(Original post by tpxvs)
Not necessarily, a lot of people have inherited their wealth.

Considering the government immediately takes 40% of your money as a punishment for dying, I can't see this as being true

Seriously though, I can't offer proper statistics on the matter, but I don't believe that many people at all inherit their wealth. In terms of anecdotal evidence, I spent some time at a £30,000 a year boarding school, and the majority of parents there were just successful businessmen/women. There were one or two 'old nobility' families (mostly foreign, as a matter of fact) who probably had a great deal of inherited wealth, but not many. To be fair, many of the businesspeople will have 'inherited' contacts and useful friends from their families, but not a whole lot of real wealth.

[Llamageddon]

(Original post by mimx)
Half of them though? How would you even know about the number of rich kids who don't reveal it or acted normal in order to judge the proportion?

Where did you go, Durham or something?

The rich kids who don't reveal it or who act normal are not spoilt. The very word is the important bit here and I know boat loads of people who are well off and went to nice little posh £10k a year schools who are not spoilt. My cousin earns more than I, a scientist, waste on cocking up my experiments, yet she doesn't shove her wealth down her kids throat in a manner that would leave them without the faintest clue that money is a limited resource. Spoilt is the key here.

Oh and something.

[Llamageddon]

(Original post by UCLEmily)
Few people are as financially secure as they might like to think they are.

Scant few. Interest only mortgages, loans levied against assets, money tied into pieces of paper that only have value because some fickle entity beyond our understanding currently says that they do.

The only true investments are in knowledge, experience and property. My parents were brought down a peg or two when the crash hit because it meant the shares that were meant to pay off the mortgage weren't worth the paper they were written on, overtime was no longer an option and below inflation pay-rises the norm. By then however the investment they put into the university education of myself and my sister was paying off.

[InspectorSophie]

Don't think of the way you live now as permanent, think of it as something you can transcend if you set your mind to it and put in the hard graft.

[tazarooni89]

I'd say don't bother trying to 'cure' your envy, but rather turn it into motivation.
Channel it towards trying to become as successful as their parents have been, so that one day people will look at you and think "I wish my life was as good as hers".

[zara55]

(Original post by UsualStudent)

if people like that see me and my friends in the shops or whatever its like nose in the air time!

I know when I was 16 and at private school, there were pressures to look great and to kind of act a bit superior, girls are really competitive about how they look at that age especially and snobbishness is a bit of a feature. Luckily those kinds of attitudes get a bit less extreme usually as people get older.

When you are at Uni and then a graduate you will hardly remember this stuff, it will just seem a minor thing to you that you felt a long time ago. It won't matter to you that some girls when you were 16 acted snobbishly or looked very comfortable or wealthy.

[SleepySheep]

(Original post by Gjaykay)
Like everyone else has said: work hard and earn the cash, that way you can spoil your children.

I personally hate reading people who bitch about the rich, they had to work just as - if not harder - for their place in society. I see it a ton here on TSR, people complaining about 'toffs', grow up and work hard - it's what rich people did, to become rich in the first place -.-

Not necessarily. Also, I've never met a working class person who'd use the word 'toff'

[UsualStudent]

(Original post by SleepySheep)
Not necessarily. Also, I've never met a working class person who'd use the word 'toff'

I didnt want to bitch about it or be sad i was really just saying how it feels. I mean i'm 16 and my family have nothing really which isn't my fault although i will try and change it. Then i see these girls my age who have about a million times what we do and yes they are really spoilt so its hard not to be jealous they have such a lot more and so many advantages over me. I dont hate them and i suppose its really great and lovely for some of people are really spoilt but it bugs me is all the unfairness of it, but i s'pose there's nothing i can do about it other than work work.

[fuze-mo25]

BANKJOB??!!?

[Ravondo666]

think everyone feels it sometimes. I know I do In my circle of friends my mates seem to have a lot more than I do. I probs get a new shirt every 3 months and thats about it but they always seem to have new clothes, every time we go town they'll buy something from topman. I've had the same pair of trainers for about 2 years. people have commented i always wear the same clothes too :/ nothing you can do about it really!

[I.See.Numbers]

(Original post by UsualStudent)
I didnt want to bitch about it or be sad i was really just saying how it feels. I mean i'm 16 and my family have nothing really which isn't my fault although i will try and change it. Then i see these girls my age who have about a million times what we do and yes they are really spoilt so its hard not to be jealous they have such a lot more and so many advantages over me. I dont hate them and i suppose its really great and lovely for some of people are really spoilt but it bugs me is all the unfairness of it, but i s'pose there's nothing i can do about it other than work work.

My family comes from poverty in Pakistan and I'm pretty sure they all see you as behaving quite spoilt right now