Dear [Mentat],
When one examines why people historically tend to achieve the same levels of success as their parents, he finds that yes; some of the limitations come from oppressive governments, little available funds, lacking religious freedoms as well as disenfranchisement. But removing these environmental and governmental barriers would still not completely obliterate all limits on a person’s destiny. Provide for a person the best schools, the most stable, free-thinking government, the most advanced and stable infrastructure, and the fairest laws, and you’d still observe that by and large, children would still tend to approximately duplicate their parents’ success levels.
Why? Because parents are a child’s most potent teachers; the child acquires most of his basic beliefs. values, and life expectations from his parents. This assumes of course, that the family is healthy, not broken, and participates fully in the child’s raising. This may not be as true when a child is removed from his biological parents when very young, such as occurs in broken homes and other situations where foster care is applied. But given a healthy nuclear family, one in which the parents are actively and fully involved in the rearing, these children will most often achieve approximately equal success levels. Even when not externally imposed, castes still appear.
Further, your comments imply that you feel that a person rarely has good reasons to be resigned to his fate. When people defend their lifestyles by making comments like “That’s the way it’s always been, and we can only hope for incremental improvements” particularly in oppressive countries, as noted above, often their resignation is logical and easily justified.
Those college students you site who have their own computers, cars, cell phones, and such, also carry more debt than pupils from previous generations. It’s common for a student these days to have $10,000 to $15,000 in credit card debt by the time he graduates from college, not to mention his student loans. The ubiquitous availability of credit makes it easier for these people to at least appear to be doing better than their parents.
But the race of life is long, and it would be interesting to see, when it comes time for these students to pay their debts, if they’ll be able to maintain that life style. Large numbers of them cannot, as proven by the rampant bankruptcies seen these days.
Credit makes it difficult to accurately ascertain a person’s social standing. Because of it, you can’t merely examine their conspicuous consumption anymore. Thus, they may appear to live higher on the hog than their parents. But if you were to average their financial advances and setbacks out over their entire lives, I believe you’d find that these students finish far closer to where their parents did than one may suppose. In fact, I’d say that most of us, at least for short periods of time, can achieve higher levels of financial greatness than our parents. But maintaining that over an entire lifetime? That’s much harder.
I’d also suggest that apparent consumption isn’t the only measure of success to be considered when determining how much more success the child has attained, as compared to the parent. These college students you cite, unlike their parents, are much more likely to suffer skyrocketing depression and suicide rates, due to the increased stresses of this “better-than-their-parents’” life style. Many can’t go a semester without seeking professional help to cope with the highly competitive and fast-paced academic and work environments of today. In addition, they’re suffering higher rates of numerous health problems, driving the consumption of drugs, both legal and illicit, through the roof.
On the other hand, the parents of yesteryear rarely sought counseling, and seemed to have a greater capacity to be content with the status quo, and so could forego opportunities that might be excessively stressful. They abused credit far less, and one could get through life without ever knowing anyone who filed for bankruptcy protection. Today however, bankruptcy occurs about as often as new businesses appear. I know perhaps ten people who’ve filed it, including one of my brothers in law.
No my friend, in actuality, most people aren’t nearly as successful as they appear, and I fear that our society is headed for a mass correction. Living beyond one’s means has become a mainstay of the American life style. However, it cannot be maintained indefinitely. Lawmakers have already made the bankruptcy rules tougher, and the credit counseling agencies are less able to get creditors to forgive consumer debts. The correction has already begun.
Finally, it’s likely that the folks you see attending college with all their gadgets are doing so, not so much because they have a burning desire to, but rather, because in order to live here and enjoy America’s finest material trappings, one must have a college degree. They desire the educations due to the good life it affords, not so much to learn just for the sake of learning. Indeed, some of them are doing it because they love it. But many others are going because they know they must if they’re going to live well here.
Again, I don’t see the idea of doing better than their parents as the supreme motivator here, nor is it obvious to me that these people are in fact, in a sense of totality, doing much better than their parents. They may have more material goods. But are they doing better over all? I’m just not sure.
Actually, [I believe] Dr. Phil’s father was an alcoholic psychologist, but successful nonetheless. I don’t know about his mother. He grew up in middle-class America; not in a ghetto.
Yes, superstitiously holding to the status quo may explain some of the stagnation that has happened throughout our history. I’m not sure however, that it’s a major reason. But it is _a_ reason to be sure.
Indeed, the standard of living has risen, particularly in America. I’ve never contended that such a rise cannot be accomplished; only that these improved standards do not disprove the idea that the natural order of things is for children to accomplish approximately the same caliber of success as their parents.
Then too, there’s indeed a significant hardship for the child who wishes to make his own way in the world, without exploiting any advantages his parents offer him. See my Pressure To Minic Parents’ Success piece for further discussion on this point.
Shifting gears a bit now: The Civil Rights movement as well as female suffrage was motivated by people seeking to escape oppression and to acquire a voice in decisions that affected their lives. It was not simply to gain success superiority over their parents, though admittedly it did enable people to accomplish this as a side effect.
You are correct that these days, people are less likely to follow in their parents’ footsteps. I’d offer however, that this is largely due to technological advances. They have a much greater selection of occupations to choose from; not necessarily because they’re hell bent on outperforming their parents.
Finally, as noted at several other points in this letter, I don’t deny that people possess the capacity do better than their parents. I’m just saying that the natural order of human development tends to favor a person’s achieving roughly the same success levels.
It’s certainly possible to buck the system, yes. As a result, we’re enjoying numerous amenities that came about because our forefathers did just this. However, this bucking has downsides that we’re starting to feel, some of which I’ve discussed above.
So I suggest that choosing to break with family tradition is not always the right answer. While I agree that people who wish to do this should be allowed to, and perhaps even encouraged, I must say that doing so subjects them to hardships that can totally negate the positive effects of this effort. We need not always go against our grains to achieve maximal happiness.
Tom Hesley
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