<p>For anyone interested:</p>
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<p>[Bill</a> Gates’ house - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates’_house]Bill">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates’_house)</p>
<p>Warren Buffet bought his eldest son a farm worth about $1million in today’s dollars. Apparently, he charged his son rent for the farm, but I have been unable to discover how much in rent he paid.</p>
<p>[Howard</a> Graham Buffett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett]Howard”>Howard Graham Buffett - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>According to Forbes magazine, none of the three Buffet children graduated from college:</p>
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<p>[Who</a> Is Howard Buffett? 60 Minutes Gives Glimpse - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/12/11/who-is-howard-buffett-60-minutes-gives-glimpse/]Who”>Who Is Howard Buffett? 60 Minutes Gives Glimpse)</p>
<p>Gates’ house has a heated driveway to melt snow. That made me envious.</p>
<p>It sounds like these folks enjoy their lives and their wealth, but also give much back. Hard to argue with. Buffett’s investments in American companies have certainly helped the economy over the years, (probably more than a new car every year) and the bulk of his fortune will be left to the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation, which is doing wonderful work to enhance healthcare and reduce world poverty. The rest is being spread out among other charitable foundations, which some of his kids will run. </p>
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The problem comes in when one is so wealthy that one doesn’t have to “do well in life” in order to continue living in the style they were raised. Parents in this situation often do exactly what the Buffetts are doing- tying their inheritances to foundations where they actually have to be productive members of society in order to have any personal benefits from the fortune. </p>
<p>It’s easy to see the advantages of being born with a silver spoon, but unless parenting is front and center with values being directly taught, born into great wealth can turn into a disadvantage.</p>
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<p>I agree that inheritance is a huge issue, but it is a different issue from giving your child a concierge service in college, and one that is a topic for another thread.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, I researched the kids of Donald Trump (Mr. Ostentatious). Two graduated in finance and market or economics from UPenn, the other with a finance and marketing degree from Georgetown. Not too shabby. He has two other children from later marriages.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t have the wealth of Gates and Buffett. Just enough money to spoil my kids into thinking they are entitled to a standard of living that DH and I were able to provide for them just until they got through college. I was aware the entire time what the pitfalls were by the way, and still fell into them.</p>
<p>I grew up in a lower middle class family that could not possibly pay for private college for me or my siblings. My parents handled their money well, and we wanted for nothing in terms of necessities, and had a host of the extras too, but all of us seemed to understand that my parents had very little extra, and we were careful not to ask for things they could not provide. I had absolutely no expectations of my parents providing for me once I went off to college and focused on staying independent and making a good living for myself. DH was of the same mentality.</p>
<p>Having gone to a private school where a goodly number of the students came from families that were better off than mine, far better off, in many cases, I really did want to give my children the advantages those kids had. No money worries , travel, no scrimping. Yes, some of them were a bit spoiled, but most of them were highly driven and did well in college, going into high paying careers. The money did not seem to be a detriment for most of them, and the lack thereof did make things rougher for me those years. I had to struggle to barely meet the mark for things that were a given to them. A trip to somewhere for a weekend. No problem. Just call in at the job, if there even was a job in the picture and go. For me, it would be an agonizing decision to make as to whether I could afford losing the hours and the pay from them even when the entire expenses of the trip were paid for by my better off friends. I could write pages on all of this. </p>
<p>It wasn’t just the difference in money, either. My parents had no clue about the world I was in. it did not occur to them to visit me at college, few packages, just no idea about anything in my world. I think they would have paid more had I asked for the money, but I didn’t, and they never offered anything. They had no idea what to offer.</p>
<p>So, I wanted my kids to be those kids who were born to go to such schools, whose worlds were so much richer than mine, and those kids could focus on their lives without having to worry about paying for this or the other. I never had skating lesson, piano lessons, had none of the graces that they did, and I wanted my kids to have it all. And they pretty much did. All accomplished athletes and musicians; they got all of the culture and fun and things I never had. But something was lost along the way, and I worry. Because they are much younger, unaware, naive, and just not as strong or responsible as i was at that age. I had hoped to make them stronger and more able and I don’t think it has turned out that way. </p>
<p>And driving an old car, a token move on the part of Buffet, a cost saving one on our part is but a drop in the bucket in terms of leading a life where the kids need to contribute to the workings of the family, and I don’t mean monetarily. THings like taking out the garbage, keeping the laundry flow going, knowing how to fix a broken this or that, how to get a line on a good mechanic and shopping for prices. To much of those things are in place already when you have a certain standard of living. We don’t have a lot of help in the house ( a cleaning lady once a week and yard person the same), but I had everything down pat as my kids were so busy with school and ECs, that thousekeeping was not something i put a lot of emphasis on for them. It’s showing up terribly now. Also my desire for not having them want for things has turned into them feeling they should not have to do so. Not quite what I had planned. Actually not what I had wanted at all.</p>
<p>Don’t worry too much, cpt. As I shared earlier in this thread, I grew up in an ostensibly middle-class family not knowing how to do basic chores, and it worked out just fine.</p>
<p>Haven’t read every response but did read the article. While it’s tacky to be a college student outsourcing your laundry, party planning etc., it seems like most in that article are international students. To send a student to school in the U.S., chances are the parents are uber-wealthy in their own nations, and in most nations around the world, there is a lot of cheap labor. Thus, parents and kids are used to every single task being outsourced, and it does not occur to them that their kid should undertake a lowly task like laundry – think of countries like India, where even the middle class has some hourly hired help while the upper class (which is typically the one sending kids to the U.S.) tends to have multiple live-in maids. </p>
<p>As for whether they “need” to learn these skills, most wealthy internationals I went to school with never did – because they had every intention of returning to the family business back home either right after college or within 5 years of college; so they outsourced everything while in the U.S. and then left. The ones who stayed/intended to stay typically made some efforts to acclimate to American life and thus were less resistant to going to the grocery store, doing laundry etc. because they knew that if they graduated with a 50-100k job (optimistically), they could not afford in the U.S. the creature comforts they had back home. And yet for this set of kids, staying the U.S., making it on their own, or having some independence from their families was key – so they learned; I saw some very spoiled rich kids who begrudgingly learned to cook/clean etc. because they had no choice in the U.S.</p>
<p>These kinds of businesses are good for our economy though. I have no problem with lazy/spoiled rich kids putting money back into our economy.</p>
<p>cpt - I feel your pain in your posts. I get the sense that one of kids (or maybe all of them) are disappointing you RIGHT NOW, but I want to tell you that you have done nothing wrong in raising your kids. Sometimes even when we have done everything right, things don’t always turn out as we expected at this moment. I am pretty confident your kids know how much you love them and how much you have done for them. Maybe you are not going to see the fruit of your effort right away, but life is long. What your kids decide to do with all the privileges have been given to them is up to them now, you no longer can be their source of success or failure. They are lucky to have a parent like you.</p>
<p>cpt–I don’t think there is a parent alive who doesn’t look back and say, “I should have…” about something, and most of our kids disappoint us in some way at some point in their lives, because parenting is a learning process. And as oldfort said, life is long, and they are still young. Most importantly, you are no longer responsible for their successes and failures.</p>
<p>It they are in their early 20s now, it’s just the beginning of their independent lives. If you step back now, they will learn. They may struggle a bit, they may complain, and you can listen and tell them that you have faith that they will do the right thing, or figure it out, or find the best path- whatever is appropriate. It most certainly is not too late to help them take those steps to independence. What’s hard is shaking off the feeling that we are responsible for what happens to them. Like oldfort says, not anymore. We have to get that though our own heads before they will believe it.</p>
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<p>Ivanka was in my son’s graduating class and he shared a few classes with her. He described her as being curious, bright and participated in class discussions. She was a transfer student from Georgetown in her jr. year and had a real estate concentration.</p>
<p>At their graduation, the Donald never acknowledged Ivana who sat apart from him.</p>
<p>cpt, I hear you. I, at times, am glad my two kids never came back home to live after graduation because they HAD to become independent. They now live 3000 miles away. When they come home, they still ask “What’s for breakfast?”, “What are we going to do for lunch?” As long as they are home, they become “kids” again.</p>
<p>moonchild, very good advice.</p>
<p>I think it must be very hard to know when and how to step back from supporting one’s kids, if one is able to continue contributing to their support. We want them to live well, with the basics of a comfortable lifestyle (however we define that). At minimum, I expect that most of us want our kids to have a decent place to live in a safe neighborhood, food security, health insurance, and to be able to see the dentist regularly. The question is what to do if they do not earn enough to pay for these things … or if they cannot earn enough to pay for these things.</p>
<p>My own kids haven’t reached that stage yet – my eldest is a college freshman. I have no idea what I will do when/if we get there.</p>
<p>We will probably get to that point soon. D is supposed to graduate college in months. As far as we know, she doesn’t yet have anything lined up. We will be seeing her for Easter and see if she has any plans to earn or intern after graduation. She has done a log of networking in her field.</p>
<p>mihcal1</p>
<p>You have expressed it perfectly. One+ years after college graduation, we are still supporting our son in a basic lifestyle while he is working on starting up a non-profit. H and I are proud that he is heading in the non-profit direction, but we both wonder when to withdraw support. Of course, the answer would be “never” when it comes to emergencies and he would always be most welcome to move back home if he needed to. It’s a work in progress.</p>
<p>The concierge is actually a good idea. The college my kid is starting out in the fall has a high number of rich international students. In speaking to girls already there, who have roomed with the rich international students, they either end up asking to change rooms or waiting on them hand and foot. One such international student had her kind American roommate peeling her boiled eggs. </p>
<p>After hearing that my daughter promptly picked a roommate and removed her request for an international roommate. She can get all-international in the classroom. She doesn’t need to by anyone’s maid. Let them hire help like they do at home.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thread, so apologies for redundancies, but I agree that its not my place to opine about how someone spends their money, as long as they are living within their means. There have been maid services available for college students for eons. This is nothing new. One of my s’s attended a summer program at a college that did the students laundry. When someone wastes money they don’t have for something they can easily do themselves, that sticks in my craw.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that if any rich parents have college kids in the Atlanta area that need help, look me up. I’d gladly take that job. I’m done mothering my kids. I might as well mother someone else’s.</p>
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<p>Okay, maybe I’m harsh, but the American roommate was under no obligation to peel those eggs. In fact, it was a free lesson in the importance of saying “No”. (If that’s too hard, you could say, “Sure, I’ll peel your eggs while you make my bed,” then enjoy the shocked look on your roommate’s face as she realises that you are her equal, not her college-provided maid.) </p>
<p>What is it that Eleanor Roosevelt said about people not getting away with treating you badly without your consent?</p>
<p>^^ Yes. That was harsh. (kidding mostly)</p>
<p>Anywhoo. You are right, the girl could have said no, but these kids willingly go into an international rooming situation willing/ planning to be a help. It is on the roommate form. However, it seems that some international students expect too much. If you are giving and kind hearted, you can quickly find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Because my kid is the maternal type, she decided she didn’t want to start out in that kind of a relationship, as it would be hard to watch her roommate struggle without stepping in.</p>