<p>Guess that’s why I thought kids getting cars for graduation was normal.</p>
<p>[Giving</a> big: Hoping for a new car this Christmas? It’ll probably be a nice one - NWautos](<a href=“http://blog.marketplace.nwsource.com/nwautos/2009/12/giving_big_hoping_for_a_new_car_this_christmas_itll_probably_be_a_nice_one.html?cmpid=2696]Giving”>http://blog.marketplace.nwsource.com/nwautos/2009/12/giving_big_hoping_for_a_new_car_this_christmas_itll_probably_be_a_nice_one.html?cmpid=2696)</p>
<p>barrons, thanks for posting - I saw this in the morning paper. Don’t you love the fact that the kid is still 15? ;)</p>
<p>When a teen in my hood got a hand-me-down IS from his dad, H and I started researching where we could get some road spikes.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, working my first job in fast food for spending money, there was another kid whose parents were making him work in order to teach him the value of a dollar, etc. He drove there in his BMW. In hindsight, he wasn’t a bad kid, but his parents did him NO favors in the peer-acceptance department. And he was even more scorned by the folks who were working there not for extra cash, but to support families.</p>
<p>DANG, Lucky boy, I got my aunts 1996 Honda Accord. My sister is now driving it to school now that I’ve moved out. He’s only 15, this is something you would see in MTV’s Teen Cribs. I’m outraged his parents would spoil him like that–why not let that be his graduation gift?</p>
<p>I thought this was scary in the article "Ronnie received a 2010 Lexus IS 250, a “built to race” dream machine with a base price of $35,475. Just what a teenage boy needs is a “built to race” car. What are people thinking…</p>
<p>What is he going to get for his 16th Birthday—a vacation home or maybe an all-inclusive trip to a Carribean resort for him and a few of his friends?</p>
<p>I suppose we shouldn’t judge. It’s their money and the parents can spend it as they wish. Maybe this is the way they grew up so they don’t see anything wrong with giving such an extravagant gift to a 15 year old. It must be nice to have an extra $35,000 to spend on a nonessential item.</p>
<p>Brandoiscool, my D did go to school with somebody from teen cribs.</p>
<p>[Southern</a> Oasis | Video | MTV](<a href=“http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/373271/southern-oasis.jhtml#id=1609186]Southern”>http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/373271/southern-oasis.jhtml#id=1609186)</p>
<p>The Lexus looks like a clunker compared to this.</p>
<p>must be nouveau riche- fancy cars for 15 yr olds are fairly tacky.</p>
<p>I’d bet my house that these parents are going to complain about not getting enough need and/or merit aid.</p>
<p>Gotta keep up with those “new Russians” living on the East Side 
</p>
<p>My biggest problem with this is not that the parents splurged on the car, it’s the fact that a very immature driver is getting a sporty car that he will be racing down the quiet neighborhood streets.</p>
<p>Nice car. Too bad it’ll only last 6 months before he totals it.</p>
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<p>Now that would be a first on CC.</p>
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<p>I was thinking the same thing, EK. Actually, “obscene” is more the word that comes to mind…</p>
<p>For high school graduation I got a Honda Prelude with 130K miles. Cost about $4.5K.</p>
<p>Before that I was rolling in a 1986 Toyota Tercel (I bought for $1000).</p>
<p>Someone who went to S’s high school got a brand new Hummer to drive his senior year in high school. S felt lucky to be driving my 15-year-old ordinary Mercury.</p>
<p>While most of the kids at S’s public high school were not wealthy, some definitely were.</p>
<p>As a bankruptcy attorney, I’m sad to say that I see the unfortunate results of this sort of extravagance all too often. Astonishing the sense of entitlement that some folks have . . .</p>
<p>I knew a nice young man in college. He didn’t have a car, and rode his bicycle everywhere. I didn’t have a car either and took the campus bus everywhere. He sacked groceries part time during college, and worked a similar type job during the summers. I just figured he was from a similar background as I was. This is how people like us paid for college: a little help from parents, a student loan, perpetual part time jobs.</p>
<p>A few years after college, I was reading People magazine and saw his sister mentioned because she was dating a celebrity. It noted that she came from an “oil family” worth roughly 200 million dollars. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I admired his parents for insisting that he got a taste of how the real world works and made sure he wasn’t spoiled or imbued with a sense of entitlement. I wonder how rare this philosophy is in today’s wealthy society.</p>
<p>Does having one’s parents be able to pay for one’s college tuition out of savings necessarily make a person ungrateful and spoiled?</p>
<p>^^^^^Nope. We are paying for our DD’s college education. She thanks us profusely fairly often.</p>
<p>I think that paying for one’s own college education back in the 80’s was a lot more “doable” than it is today. It would be hard now for any student to pay for his education even at a state school simply by working part time jobs and obtaining modest loans.</p>
<p>I think not expecting children to contribute to their needs at all makes them come to the conclusion that either they are not competent to address their own needs/or that those demands are so base & below them- that " someone else" will take care of it, is dangerous unless you are looking for a totally self absorbed offspring.</p>
<p>I know families who are extremely wealthy, that don’t work, for money per se, unless you count going to family stockholder meetings as work, but they fully have expected their kids to participate in chores while growing up, to earn money and take out loans for a small part of their college and wouldn’t have considered gifting them as a minor with an expensive car. ( they also do a great deal of community service besides *just *donating money)</p>
<p>You would never realize they were wealthy, they drove a mini van like every one else, they certainly did not dress like they had money and their house- while bigger than mine ( but then they had a billion kids) wasn’t anything gaudy.
Of course if you considered that it was only ONE of their homes, well then you might put two and two together, but none of them were ostentasious</p>