Kids with "entitled" attitudes -- are they the result of ... ?

Parent Cafe
81

Well, UCB, the way you have defined your terms, I was an entitled brat. I could have gone to a local college for free but wanted to go to a top school with no financial aid. I was lucky. My parents made the sacrifice. I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me for the first time how much money he made and how much college would cost. I started quietly sobbing. I thought it meant I couldn’t go. My dad looked at me and said “It really means that much to you, doesn’t it? I had to let you know how much of a sacrifice it will be for us and make sure you understood that. I know now how much you really want it and we’ll make it work.” I am grateful. I can’t explain just how grateful.

My mom sewed most of my clothes while I was in college–they looked home made.(Back then, fabric was cheap, especially at mill outlets. Now, it can cost as much to make as to buy a dress.) I wore the same winter coat all 4 years–and it wasn’t new when I started college. I can’t remember ever ordering a pizza in college. I only went to an off campus movie if a young man invited me. I never took a trip over spring break. I read voraciously during the summer–and every book came from the library. I never got a professional haircut–my older sister trimmed my hair during vacations.

When I graduated, I went to law school. I got some money, but my parents paid for most of it. One of my closest college friends, who was on full financial aid, commented how lucky I was because her family couldn’t afford that. I couldn’t help myself. I said “The difference between the money you’ve spent on clothes the last 4 years and the money I’ve spent would pay tuition for at least one year of law school.” (Back then, law school was about $2000-2500 a year.) She was taken aback, but she knew it was true.

So, let me just voice the opinion that some of the kids who complain on CC have a perfect right to complain. They have parents who could pay, but won’t–and they know it. They see mom and dad buy new cars every other year, take expensive vacations, remodel the kitchen, spend copious amounts on gyms and personal trainers, hair salons, weekly manicures, jewelry, etc.

Now, it’s the parents’ money and the parents get to spend it as they see fit. And there are lots of parents who don’t think Stanford is worth a lot more money than SUNY Geneseo or Notre Dame is worth a lot more than U of Illinois. I understand that.

But I suspect there are some kids venting about their parents on CC who were like me. They aren’t “entitled” in the general sense of that term. They just really, really want the experience of going to a top college and they would gladly pass on having a car, mom and dad paying for a future wedding, vacations, etc. to have the experience. They simply have different priorities than their parents do.

My kid went to a law school in the YHS group. A female classmate there attended a mid tier public U where she had excelled and then got into top law schools. She had gotten into Princeton for undergrad and really, really wanted to go, but her parents said no.

Fast forward a few years after law school. Young woman is making a good salary. She falls in love with someone a few years older who is making lots more. They decide to marry.

Mom and dad’s financial circumstances hadn’t changed. They threw a storybook wedding. I’m sure it cost well over $100,000. It was more for them than for her. Why do I think that? She told my kid "They just don’t “get” that I’d rather have gone to Princeton and gotten married at city hall. "

I don’t think she’s entitled.

82

To me, “entitled” attitude in OP’s context means you think you deserve something without having earned it. Birthday gifts don’t qualify, because their purpose is to celebrate the fact that a person was born and those who are happy about that celebrate it by giving presents to the birthday person in appreciation of having them in their lives.

83

Alternatively, they may have parents who can’t pay because their long-term pattern of these types of spending precluded accumulating any savings for college. So the “could have but won’t” thing was in the past, not the present.

It hurts to know that your education is not a high priority for your parents.

84

Couldn’t the long term pattern of “these types of spending” also include spending a lot on the kids (including, but not limited to, expensive extracurriculars, private schools, $6,000+ SAT preparation mentioned in another thread, lavish clothing and gifts, etc.) that leaves the high income family unable to afford to contribute to the kids’ college costs?

85

@ucbalumnus, of course it could.

I wonder if the student’s feelings would be different if the other spending had been for his benefit instead of for the parents’ benefit.

86

Sure it can @ucbalumnus . But when kids who come from families that don’t qualify for need based aid “whine” about not being able to go to their dream college because mom and dad won’t pay for it, we don’t know why their parents won’t pay. So I don’t think we should assume that the kids are “entitled.”

it may be that mom and dad just have different priorities for spending their money than their kids have. We don’t always end up with the same attitudes regarding which things are important as our parents.

87

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Well, UCB, the way you have defined your terms, I was an entitled brat. I could have gone to a local college for free but wanted to go to a top school with no financial aid. I was lucky. My parents made the sacrifice. I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me for the first time how much money he made and how much college would cost.
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@jonri I’m not sure how comparable this is with today. How much was your dad earning back then? How much was this school? What year was this? did your parents have to take on debt? did they have to stop funding retirement or dad dad have a pension?

Also, the dependent tax deductions were so meaningful back then that many middle class families paid little to no fed taxes.

While I agree that your parents sacrificed, but some kids expect too much from their parents.

88

The first post in this thread says:

@mom2collegekids Sure, some kids may expect too much from their parents. Once again, my point is simply that when kids “whine” on CC that their parents won’t pay for a top school, we don’t know the particulars of their circumstances .

I believe that some of the kids who post on CC complaining about this don’t have an “entitled” attitude towards life in general–it’s just that they honestly and sincerely believe that, IF their families can afford it, it IS worth paying a lot more to go to MIT than Case Western–but their parents don’t. If the kids won $250,0000 in the lottery tomorrow and it was their decision, that’s how they’d choose to spend the money. They wouldn’t buy a car or take a trip around the world. If other kids won the lottery tomorrow and had received merit money to go to Case Western, they’d STILL pass up the chance to go to MIT and spend $250,000 on something else. I disagree with the premise that the kids in group one are “entitled” and the kids in group 2 aren’t.

I also believe that if the parents who won’t pay won the lottery tomorrow and suddenly had an unexpected $250,000 some of them would pay for MIT but some would NOT because they don’t think a MIT education is worth $250,000 more no matter how much money you have. Sometimes kids who are in group one have parents who don’t think it’s worth spending $250,000 on college no matter how much money they have.

Note this post above:

[quote]
S1 asks for a Ferrari, in jest. But is entitled when it comes to spending the $250k on college. S2 says mom can pick the school and he’ll just go there. He could care less. He asks for vintage video games (collector) and doesn’t care to spend a fortune on college.
[/quote ]

Could it be that S1 HONESTLY cares a LOT more about going to a top school than S2 does? Could it be that he values education more? Could it be that where you go to college matters more for his dreamed of future occupation than it does for S2’s? Does that make him more entitled than S2–or does he simply have different values?

89

How do you define “too much” M2CK? What you consider too much, might not be what I consider too much". My H and I value higher education and wanted our kids to be able to go to schools that were strong academically–price wasn’t an issue. We worked hard to be able to afford them choices that weren’t limited by finances. Our kids appreciated what they received. Are they entitled?

My folks paid for me to go to college; they were incredibly frugal, but even they were willing to spend money on higher education. My husband’s parents, on the other hand, saw no value in college when H could get a job in the steel mills just like his Dad. My H had no interest working in the mill and went into the military, which paid for his college education once he was finished with his service.

Is a kid entitled when he/she sees that his parents spending lots of money on non-discretionary items, but tell him “college is on you?” I don’t think the kid is entitled. He’s confused, especially when parents never discuss this early on and tell the kid when he starts looking at colleges. A surprising number of parents don’t discuss finances and college with their kids until late in the game. Is the kid who learns his parents won’t spend $$ on his education entitled, when he’s disappointed in that decision? I don’t think so. I think he’s confused and upset. Some kids give up–other try to make the best of the situation. My H did what he could given the fact that his parents didn’t think he should go to college and didn’t think they could afford it.

Anyway, my point is just that there are hundreds of individual scenarios and it’s hard to make blanket statements about what’s an entitled attitude.

90

One of my kids is pretty frugal, really doesn’t care what he wears, doesn’t want much except occasional video games. But he really wanted to go to a “more prestigious” college. The other wanted a nicer car, has many pairs of shoes, dresses much better, and recognized our state school as a great value and a very good school. Is one more “entitled” than the other? They both seem to appreciate what we give them, most of the time. mu kids are used to getting everything they need, and much of what they want. It’s my belief that we as parents have contributed a lot towards the entitled attitudes of our kids. We do say no sometimes.

91

“Couldn’t the long term pattern of “these types of spending” also include spending a lot on the kids (including, but not limited to, expensive extracurriculars, private schools, $6,000+ SAT preparation mentioned in another thread, lavish clothing and gifts, etc.) that leaves the high income family unable to afford to contribute to the kids’ college costs?”

You really perseverate on this notion that wealthy people are stupid in their money habits and produce entitled kids. You seem to always want everyone to agree with this premise - as if parents are outfitting their teens in Chanel and Prada and then not having $ for school.

92

You know how entitled I was? When my parents sat me down at age 16 and said - if you get into Princeton (my then-dream school), we can afford it - I cried and cried, I was so grateful.

93

Pizza, I said the same thing to my kid regarding MIT and Princeton. They didn’t cry, ungrateful kids, I know I know. :stuck_out_tongue:

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How do you define “too much” M2CK?


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Expecting too much would be:

Expecting parents to borrow an amount that not only would be risky, but doesn’t take into acct that there are younger kids to put thru school.

Expecting parents to pay an amount that would prevent them from contributing to their retirement accts that need the contributions.

Expecting parents to cosign large loans.

Expecting parents to pay an OOS public rate when they have a much less expensive instate rate at a similar school…but the child just wants to OOS and is just dismissive of their instate school because it is instate.

95

My kids were taught to give back from the earliest opportunity. They each had little boxes (like banks) that they built and in which they put change to be given to the poor. They participated in fundraisers, walkathons, you name it. They worked for years in a homeless shelter. Both are very humble and very appreciative for what they have. They have never taken it for granted.

96

Ucb, WHY would a family spend $6000 on SAT preparation and then say to kid -oops, sorry, we have no money for college?

97

I also had to chuckle about high income family spending all sorts of money pre-college and had nothing left to pay for college. I would think most high income families are pretty savvy with their money.

I knew for a long time that D2 wants to go to law school, so I have set some money aside to pay for some of it. Even with the divorce, I made sure the money was intact. Over the summer, D2 told me that she may want to go into public service (DA office), and some schools give full scholarship for students going into public service. She also emailed me to let me know that she could do with less food/allowance in anticipation of law school applications. This is a kid that grew up with a lot more material goods than D1 because she is a lot younger than D1.

Money, gifts, vacations do not spoil our kids or make them feel entitled. It is family upbringing and core values. I am also a firm believer of teaching our kids to enjoy life and able to give (gifts) to others. If you never give them any gift and it is always “frugal is virtue” then it is very likely they will be like you when they are adults. My father was not a giver and my mother is. My mother has a lot more friends than my father.

98

Paradigms have changed over the years - there are some on CC that experienced some of the changes over the years - and some also had immigrant parents/grandparents, the depression experiences, lack of information, etc to deal with. After the GI bill and after WWII and into the 1950’s, college became possible for many - also many were getting out of their hamlets as transportation improved. How many GI’s would never have left their small town and farming communities? Look at the migration into cities. Machinery meaning more efficient farming and less labor for output. The industrial revolution and all the labor changes.

In many fields, if one goes to CC, local college - they will use their abilities to advance. Scholarships have helped many doors open.

The whole concept of debt and school debt is something that clearly needs to also be considered in the changing paradigm.

Adults are living longer. LTC insurance has now just about become un-affordable so people have to ‘self insure’ - yikes, even an abbreviated policy is way too rich for my pocketbook (Kiplinger Personal Finance article Oct 2015).

Some people are ‘sandwiched’ between taking on responsibilities for aging parents while trying to get their kids through school and funding retirement.

Sometimes kids’ entitlement attitude is naivety, young people looking at what one person has at the upper end of parent income and compares to themselves instead of looking around and seeing that they have things OK. Or they think that because they are very smart and some of their siblings less so, more education resource money should be used on them? They may not realize that parents cannot jeopardize financial security for the family in order for the student to attend their ‘dream school’.

Some families have had circumstances that children grow up with more awareness. Sometimes even if things are the same between two kids, one kid will ‘get it’ and another will not.

99

Back to gifts. My son is an awesome gift giver. In the last few years he has given -

  1. a personalized Build a Bear to his sister when they left for college. Press one paw and it’s his voice saying hello (using a pet expression they use to greet one another). Press the other paw and it’s his voice saying goodnight, I love you (again using a pet expression they use for each other). This way she could hear him say hello and goodnight to her while they were 1000 miles apart.

  2. for their 20th birthday, a Shutterfly style photo album called “memories of growing up with you as a twin” with pictures and sweet anecdotes as well as encouragement through some rough times.

  3. for me and H, personalized CDs containing not just snippets of songs we like, but other sounds that reflect who we are (commercials for products I used to work on, TV theme songs for shows we watched, YouTube snippets of jokes, etc)

If this is what our habit of giving bday / holiday gifts has created, I’m good with it.

100

“I also had to chuckle about high income family spending all sorts of money pre-college and had nothing left to pay for college. I would think most high income families are pretty savvy with their money.”

It makes the have-nots feel better to think that the haves behave this way. Clue: the ones spending $6000 for test prep have the $ for college.