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Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

The article meanders, but I think it does land on a point. There are tons of 'self made' people out there that have had unending support from their parents, every step of the way. That support gets you a huge leg-up when you're competing against peers raised without it. Failure is of no consequence when your safety net is a trampoline.

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I don't think the group described is so much the "self-made" crowd so much as the "longsuffering, chronically underemployed millennial".

I personally have a lot of friends to who fit this description to a T - they will complain about living paycheck to paycheck but then also tell you which island in Hawaii is their favorite. And when you wonder why they are still turning down good paying jobs in their 30s you realize they eventually have a house and a sizable inheritance they are looking forward to one day.

Anecdotally, I have a friend. His parents have bent over backwards to support him, and he stands to take over his father's business when he can no longer tend to it. The dude is smart, but he completely lacks any drive to push himself. I feel like it's sucked the wind right out of his sails, but he lives a chill, easy going life and I can't exactly hold it against him.

It’s never good to make assumptions about the future that result in you prematurely cutting off potential opportunities, particularly in terms of inheritance. Anything can happen.

In this regard, this is almost a warning about the "stealth wealthy" - people who talk about poverty and show up statistically as impoverished, but are really just role playing as poor people.

I think that millenials are probably _better_ as a whole on acknowledging the role their privileges have played in their success. At least in my cohort, the odds of someone who had a great upbringing telling you unironically to pull yourself up from your bootstraps is basically zero.

Also, I think calling it roleplaying is a little misleading because it implies they could stop if they wanted to. You can have a gigantic parental safety net and still have no great job prospects. It’s infinitely better than actually being poor, but there’s enough overlap to commiserate I think? People want to be self sufficient and can’t.

Personal experience has jaded me a bit on this. On 3 different occasions, I offered friends an almost guaranteed well-paying job at companies I was working at. All three of them turned it down:

- One was morally opposed to working at a software company

- One didn't want to get a drivers' license

- One started then quit after an internship because they didn't like the industry (it wasn't video games) and did not want to put up with a learning curve.

So while I commiserate who benefit from from a parental safety net (I would have loved to have had more rent-free years if I could), for my relationship with my friends it is often very frustrating. And it's easiest mentally if I treat them as someone enjoying the luxury of choices rather than chronically enfeebled.

I think this is much more reflective of your relationship and friends than you think it is.

There really isn't.

There is a huge gap between someone who lives frugally and is under employed while the "figure it out" and someone who works two jobs because they must. The former will eventually have the problem solved via inheritance, while the latter must deal with the existential risk that they work two jobs until they die or become homeless.

Maybe we’re talking about different demographics? This is true of trust fund kids, but there’s a huge range of parental support. Most people I know have moving home as a safety net for homelessness, but they would be waiting until their parents die at 90 to get their first house if they were banking on inheritance.

Edit: It occurred to me that’s probably my fault from saying “enormous parental safety net” which maybe does imply trust fund kids. I really meant “people who have any parental support at all”, which seemed to be the net the author was casting. Even top quintile probably isn’t “financially support my children forever” money, is it?

With the direction housing is going relative to all other expenses, having a spare bedroom and a mortgage free home to inherit is becoming the equivalent of trust fund money.

In Boston, The value per bedroom to be ~300-600k dollars depending on location. This value is appreciating at ~8-20% per year in the current environment. If this trend were to continue for 30 years, a parent owning a 2-bedroom stands to impart 5 million+ to the child inheriting that property.

Obviously (hopefully), this trend can't continue - but having a free place to sleep is becoming a massive financial leg up. In many cases, this has become equivalent to the classic example of a "trust fund kid" from prior years. With most home owners earning money from their primary residence on paper for the last decade, simply providing the down payment for a child's home will yield a million dollar+ asset difference over 10 years compared to renting.

They aren't just role playing as poor for fun. It allows them to get undeserved political support from the actually less privileged. In NYC, HDFC properties are largely purchased with family money. High income earners are disqualified, but actual median income earners are priced out.

It took me a long time to realize that even in Tech, the reason many choose the founder/startup track is simply because their basic middle class lifestyle and retirement were assured from the day they were born. Otherwise it simply would never be financially wise to take a job at a hot startup, or start your own business. Meanwhile there are many engineers who actively choose this lifestyle.

I was naive and blind to this fact for way too long. I just assumed that everyone that founded a startup had a cast iron constitution and could somehow stomach the risk of destitution if it failed. It only later dawned on me how little risk these people were taking. It was almost all 'opportunity cost' for them.

Look at any field that’s somewhat prestigious but oversaturated enough that owners can pay poverty wages and you’ll find a ton of rich kids trying to live their dream! See art, film, journalism, architecture, political staffers. Can you blame them?

I think it’s important that young folks see this and internalize it so they’re not caught with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt in a field that ultimately depends on time and luck. You’re risking a lot more than many of your peers, and you’re going to have less freedom and energy to make it work.

Is any of that news though? This article seems like it’s trying so hard to point out something unique, but other than shifting tastes it seems the same as it ever was.

People with wealthy parents are more likely to be wealthy later in life. People who perform wage labor and do not have inheritances will not have as much wealth.

More news at 11, thank you for attending my TED Talk.

Does having supporting parents undermine any success a self made person might have ?

Of course not but it’s an easy target for this kind of articles. Like the natural wine.

Only if they (or others) imply that "everyone could have done it" and use their "self-made" success to argue against social safety-nets like unemployment benefits and healthcare for all.

Well said.

Only if they don't acknowledge they would have accomplished less (or nothing) without it.

Absolutely not, but that person is in no position to then turn around and judge those who are struggling, or more subtly, refusing to support policies that would help those that are struggling. There isn't the blatant 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' admonishment but there is absolutely an empathy gap between the haves and have nots.

And they shouldn’t be held up as role models in the media.

> supporting parents

> self made

The two concepts cannot coexist. Someone who is supported by others is not self-made.

Turning wealth into wealth is not an accomplishment. It was already there.

> Turning wealth into wealth is not an accomplishment.

Where do you draw the line?

How is the work of doubling the wealth received as inheritance different from doubling the wealth of a client?

Yes, truly, unless you have been raised by rabid wolves or alone in the void of space, you are not self made.

Is there a point in even having this word, if it is literally impossible for it to correctly(according to you) be used in any scenario?

My comment got kind of far from its context, visually. By "supporting" I'm really referring to significant amounts of financial support, beyond what normal people would be able to give to their children.

I do think it's possible for a person to be self-made. But I think the much narrower concept of the "self-made American millionaire" does more harm than good, as a mythological idea in US politics.

Edit: Before you reply to this, read a little more of the thread I'm saying this in, where other people are making this point more eloquently.

I'm curious, who is more "self-made" in your opinion, someone with unsupportive parents who provide money, or someone with supportive (emotionally) parents without money?

What about someone that had neither, but due to the country they grew up in or the colour of their skin they have access to government funded incentive programs, or bank loans?

What if you benefited from colonialism hundreds of years ago, or the establishment of infrastucture such as roads or telephone lines? Are you self made?

This weird privilege check doesn't make much sense to me. The "self-made" test to me is "did you put in the work and do the grind?". That's it.

It does very much undermine the claim of being “self made”.

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