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Comment by g_z_m | Hacker News Reader

I can't understand the tone of this article-- is there something inherently wrong with receiving parental help? What's wrong with family members helping each other? It's part of being in a family, people of your own blood helping, protecting, and lifting each other up. In an article slighting millennials for claiming to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps", it's even weirder to look in the NYT comments section filled with boomers talking down at struggling millennials while bragging about how they themselves worked 8 jobs, saved 10 years for a Honda Accord, trekked 5 miles in the snow to get to work.

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I can think of one negative angle--family money perpetuates inequity. If "more than half (53 percent) of Americans ages 21 to 37 have received some form of financial assistance" then 47% have not. These two halves have completely different options for housing, work, etc.

> “But she wasn’t considering the fact that she graduated without any student-loan debt, came from a two-income household, as opposed to me. I am starting with negative wealth because I have loans to pay off and was raised in a family with only one income.”

Whether something is "inherently" wrong depends entirely on your own moral philosophy, but one downside to parental dependency is that it perpetuates and exaggerates class division.

Because it replaces meritocracy with oligarchy if wealthy parents are required to get a foothold in life.

I disagree, but what do you suppose people do then? I'm afraid it's unrealistic to expect a society to collectively agree on donating to charity any excess money originally intended for helping their offspring.

I expect society to severely tax and regulate wealth, and also the most harmful methods that the wealthy use to game meritocracy. Eg. for private education - tax the hell out of it, legislate that each next stage somewhat accounts for the last one being rigged (eg. colleges forced to push down people from expensive schools) and seek to promote meritocratic alternatives (eg. online education).

If there's one thing there needs to exist non-government alternatives to it's education. The government shouldn't get a near monopoly on telling the youth what to think. FWIW your median "private school" is usually church run, not some elite prep school CEOs send their kids to.

Church-run schools that exist to indoctrinate children into religious beliefs and refuse to teach basic science in favor of their doctrine should absolutely pay for the externality of the rest of us having to interact with those children later in life.

Government-run schools that exist to indoctrinate children into nationalist beliefs and refuse to discipline children who make school unpleasant and poor learning environments should be shut down.

Lol. Discipline that would expose a likely financially-struggling teacher or school to an overtly litigious public? I forgot it was the schools' responsibility to raise our kids.

You tax the ultra wealthy.

The easiest thing would be to increase progressive tax brackets (why does it stop at 600k?), raise taxes on inheritance over $10 million, establish new multiple payroll taxes to help SSA (why do the brackets stop at 500k?).

The rich are destroying the earth through greed and society by destroying the middle class.

They had their fun, it's time for 99% of other people to enjoy the government.

It's called "government" and "progressive taxation" and "labor laws" and not only does this coordination as a society level reduce inequality, it also increases GDP over time as everyone benefits from investments in the commons.

Yes. In a market economy it is wildly unfair to take family assistance because many people do not have access to it.

Family assistance is more than just cash though. If my mother helps me look after the kids twice a week for free, that frees up hours I could use to "get ahead" in life (study, prep for interviews). Should that not be allowed?

Life IS unfair.

Recognizing that fact, many people spend quite a lot of time, thought, and energy to make it less so.

Yes. But even so, that doesn't make it immoral to help your children of for children to accept that help.

Being in favor of a better world tomorrow doesn't mean that you can't play by the rules of the world today.

Every election, I vote for policies that will considerably increase my taxes, but at the same time, I expect my CPA to make sure that I only pay the taxes that I'm legally required to pay.

Recognizing that fact, you adapt, utilize all the cards you have been dealt with, turn your disadvantages into advantages.

For example, when you are born poor, you develop skills that someone who is wealthier does not have the opportunity to learn.

If make it less so means reducing personal freedom to the point of regulating how much time a grandmother can take care of it's grandchildren, I really strongly disagree with that vision.

I believe the solution is probably more along the lines of taxing everyone fairly, and using some of the funds to provide free or affordable childcare to everyone who wants/needs it. Likewise with other forms of family support/advantages. Provide alternatives for people who don't have things by birth-lottery.

So you can still have grandma watch your kid all you like, while the person who has no living relatives can still have a kid and hold a job by taking advantage of subsidized daycare.

And under that system grandmother could be paid for the value she provides.

No one is suggesting that.

Equal opportunity is good. Preventing or even suggesting a family cannot help their own children is ridiculous.

I don’t give a shit whether it’s fair or not. I’ll do whatever I can to help my children just as most parents would.

One of the things I realized watching the tv show Revolution was that every time someone had a choice between "my child might suffer, even a little" and "destroying the whole world" the parents on the show chose the destruction of the world every time.

Maybe parents shouldn't get to make decisions.

Parents should not make decisions about their children?

I am not liking where this thread is going.

Parents routinely choose selfish outcomes at the detriment to their children and society.

Not vaccinating your children not only affects your immediately family, but everyone's children around you. That is the most obvious example, others include indoctrinating children in religion is another.

Not vaccinating your children isn't selfish, it's the opposite because they are at greater risk of contracting disease.

If this just boils down to "it's unfair", then I don't know what to tell you. Very rarely does anything in this life boil down to pure meritocracy.

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