<p>:BB scurries to the online ST edition to see what the wise tongues of its readers had to say about the family in the article:</p>
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<p>I don’t know.</p>
<p>I don’t know what makes a person feel entitled, and what makes a person grow up thinking that this world isn’t about tough work. I don’t know where the line can be drawn between keeping your kids safe or helping them succeed, and indulging them and making them unappreciative of material privileges. I’m really not sure whether we can quantify achievement. Do your child’s high grades and other non-newsworthy achievements mean you’re allowed to buy them a used car? A new car? A luxury car? What if that kid’s the glue that’s holding his family together, and the successes are more privately heroic? </p>
<p>What makes somebody a good person, and what makes them a bad person?</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but I’d say that I’m pretty sure that most of your kids turned out to be successful adults because you were good parents, and that it probably had very little to do with what kind of car they drive.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m already registered here, and I can only carry one soapbox at a time… ;)</p>
<p>aibarr, I think it’s substantially different to give a daughter a car as compared to a son.</p>
<p>My negative reaction wasn’t because of the kid but because of the parent who thinks givng a $30K+ car to a 15yo boy is a smart move. I don’t care if the kid DID cure cancer.</p>
<p>“What do you give them for their 16th?”</p>
<p>Well a Porsche twin-turbo of course! The kid should be ready to “move up” by then.</p>
<p>OK, I realize how ridiculously outlandish this suggestion is. But hey, the kids been working hard and keeping his grades up. Why not?</p>
<p>Some kids around here get Mercedes SUV’s for their 15th “because they’re safe and he/she likes 'big”"…Go figure. Great lesson for kids to know that they can achieve little but get much…NOT!</p>
<p>"The things being said in this thread are petty and terrible, and the only thing that this kid did was get something really nice. You have no idea whether he’s ungrateful, whether he’s a good kid, whether he’s a good driver, or what this kid does. You have no idea whether the kids parents donate a lot of money to charity or are good people, and you have no idea what their motives are.</p>
<p>Having money doesn’t make someone either a good person or a bad person. It just makes them a person with money. “Needless display of excessive wealth…” It’s just a car."</p>
<p>Aibarr, you are obviously very kind, intelligent, and hard working. You generally touch people with your thoughtful postings. However, I disagree with you on this one as I think buying a new expensive car, sportscar or not, regardless of brand name, for a 15 year old is not a good decision. It <em>is</em> a needless display of excessive wealth, imo. And I believe it does make a statement about the values and priorities of parents who gift such a car to a 15 year old.</p>
<p>DD went to high school with many kids from wealthy families. We worked hard to pay private school tuition because the public schools in our area were unacceptable at the time. Our house would have fit completely inside many of the houses of her classmates. Many of these kids were raised with an obvious sense of entitlement - flaunting their wealth in both a material sense and the way they treat others. Luckily, not all wealthy families are like that.</p>
<p>Some of my daughter’s closest high school friends were from extremely wealthy families who taught their children that they are fortunate to have what they have and with that comes a responsibility to care for others and give back to the community. The parents of one of these families do not work other than to manage the family wealth. However, their kids drove used unimpressive cars. These kids also served weekly in the local soup kitchen. They are the most down to earth kids you would ever meet and you would never guess their wealth.</p>
<p>That’s the difference to me. I agree with you when you say that having money doesn’t make someone a good person or a bad person. However, gifting a 15 year old with a Lexus isn’t exactly character building either.</p>
<p>Especially in these times as so many families struggle with unemployment, whenever I hear of something like this Lexus story, I translate it to how far $30,000 would go for a family struggling to put food on the table.</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids who get new cars when they start to drive (16 or 17), whether out of necessity or some families could just simply afford it. One could lease a BMW for 350/mon, considering it costs around $3000-$5000/year for private school bus at our school, for a lot of parents it makes sense. Monthly lease payment is no more than a dinner out sometimes. Having a new car is really isn’t that big of a deal for some families.</p>
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<p>It is not the case when almost every senior has a car to drive at your school, AND most of them are new. It is more rare at our school not to have a car. It really depends on where you live.</p>
<p>We would no more say on CC to someone, “Oh my goodness, you don’t have cable? Unlimited text? Wifi?..” because people would think that’s in poor taste. Why should we be judging someone who is able to buy a car for his kid or is able to afford a luxury car? Why should we be defining someone’s excess?</p>
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<p>Yes, it probably is very nice for them to have an extra $35,000 to spend on a non-essential item. Just as it’s very nice that some posters on here have the extra $200,000 to send their kids to schools full-pay, or have the extra $ to pay for horizon-broadening travel, live in neighborhoods with outstanding public schools, send their kids to expensive private high schools, provide tutoring or coaching for academics and sports, etc. Good for them! Honestly, why not just post in green?</p>
<p>I see no reason why people who normally live a certain way should have to tone it down just because others are jealous.</p>
<p>And there’s nothing inherently gaudy or ostentatious about a Lexus, for crying out loud.</p>
<p>Honestly, this whole thread reminds me of the kinds of people who think that a woman who has a big diamond ring, carries a nice handbag, or drives an expensive car is “flashing it” when she goes out in public with said diamond ring, handbag, or car. Uh, no - that’s just using it as intended. The reaction of “flashing it” is jealousy.</p>
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<p>EXACTLY.<br>
My sister drove a (granted, hand-me-down) Porsche as a 16 yo (it was the eighties and my dad went a little hog wild, LOL). She got a Peugeot for her 17th bday. I drove a hand-me-down when I turned 16, but I got an Audi for my college graduation. And? So?
It’s not the cost of the object that makes one materialistic – it’s the attitude around it. Someone can have a spoiled kid with a $3,000 clunker or a perfectly nice kid with a $30,000 car. </p>
<p>Personally, the post upthread about how a new driver has caused $6K worth of damage to one car and $3K worth of damage to another car, mixed with a blithe, “Hey, maybe I’ll give her my car, I’d like a new one” is FAR more disturbing to me than a family giving a Lexus to a teenager. If my kid were causing damage to family cars, he or she wouldn’t be driving.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, Lexus makes a very fine, safe car called the ES (basically a Camry with an L on it instead of a T). Costs about the same as the IS in the article, which is considered a sporty car, and that’s my biggest problem with this story - I do not want to read this kid’s obituary in the Times. I see too many sporty cars in the ditches where I drive. Dad’s testosterone overtook his brains when they were shopping for the car.</p>
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<p>Same thing for any family here who is spending $50,000 to send a kid to a fancy college. How far would that money go for a family struggling to put food on the table, eh? No reason the kid couldn’t go to a community college and the parents put the rest towards charity, no?</p>
<p>Ditto with fancy summer camps, sporting lessons (esp private coaching), expensive musical instruments and lessons … Why the jealousy of the car but not those things? After all, there’s no more societal benefit to Joey getting a fancy French horn and private lessons than there is to Joey getting a nice car for his 16th.</p>
<p>“there’s nothing inherently gaudy or ostentatious about a Lexus”</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re right. You could get more space or better performance in a new car for half the money. Oh wait, so THAT’S what makes choosing the Lexus ostentatious. It’s not “just a car” … it’s a LEXUS!!!</p>
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<p>Do you require achievements from your children before you give them a birthday gift?</p>
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<p>Do you feel that you have to top last year’s birthday gift with this year’s?</p>
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<p>What would the cut off price be in order to not make such a statement?</p>
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<p>By that theory, none of us here on CC should be doing any Christmas shopping but instead should be donating everything to charity. Or perhaps we shouldn’t be spending money on private schools or study abroad or family vacations or anything beyond the bare minimum required to survive. At what extreme does this argument become untenable? </p>
<p>Not everyone is in the same financial situation. Why is it wrong for someone who can afford to buy their child a $25,000 car to do so, but not wrong for someone who can afford to buy their child a $5000 car to do that? I’m sure there are families who would be envious of those who are able to provide their child a $5000 car. Should everyone only be allowed to drive the least expensive car made? Should we all only be able to live in the smallest possible apartment?</p>
<p>Not everyone who drives a nice car is doing so to flaunt their wealth. And there is nothing inherently noble in driving a clunker. As aibarr said earlier, the amount of money someone has does not make them a good or a bad person, on either end of the spectrum.</p>
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<p>Agreed. But if the same person consents to a story in the local paper boasting about said diamond ring, handbag etc. and poses for photos to show it all off to the world then, um, well they are “flashing it” for show–and people’s groans in response are not jealousy but annoyance and such unnecessary vanity. </p>
<p>This family could have given their give quietly in private, but instead had a photo shoot to brag to the community about giving their 15 year old kid a $35k car. People are reacting to the “display” more than they are reacting to the act itself.</p>
<p>alwaysamom, please read the post I was replying to and do not take words out of context.</p>
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<p>My kids do not have their own car - they share H’s and my car as appropriate. However, I would never go buy them a used car and certainly not a clunker. If we were to get them a car, I’d get them a Honda Accord / Toyota Camry type of car, not a used one. I see no reason I should “have” to get them a used car to make others feel better about what they can and cannot have.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl:
I assume it was directed at me. It is also not for you to judge without knowing the actual circumstance. Just in case if you missed the fact that she just got her learners permit, she was not out there joy riding. Both times she had her dad sitting next to her while she was learning how to drive. One accident happened when there was black ice on the road, and another because she was inexperience with a stick. What would you expect us to do? Just because she is not as coordianted as other people then she shouldn’t learn how to drive for the rest of her llife? Again, more often than not there are some reasons for things. You don’t seem to have any problem in passing your judgement.</p>
<p>As a parent, I have to be able to shrug off and laugh at some of those mishaps with my kids, especially when it’s not their fault. D2 was traumatized enough with those two accidents, she didn’t need me to go crazy on her, especially it is vital for her to get back into that driver seat again.</p>
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<p>Exactly. So, it WOULD be ok for the kid to get a Lexus if he had a) gotten straight A’s, b) gotten a 2400 on the SAT, c) gotten into Harvard, d) won first place in the state in such-and-such? What, the amount of money you spend on your loved ones is proportional to their accomplishments?</p>
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<p>What about the parents who are handing their 18 yos a college education that most American adults who have worked hard all their lives can’t afford? How about the parents on CC who send their kids to expensive private high schools or give their kids access to lessons and coaching for extracurriculars? Most Americans can’t afford that either. And? So? Your jealousy is evident.</p>
<p>And the comment about “having to top it” is just dumb. You don’t have to “top” a nice gift the next year. Giving the kid a Lexus this year does NOT mean that he expects a Mercedes the next year.</p>
<p>H and I gave my D beautiful diamond earrings for her 16th birthday (we were holding off getting her ears pierced til then). Does that mean she expects rubies for her 17th? Should I have just bought some cheap costume crud because some people can’t afford nice diamond earrings? </p>
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<p>“Excessive” is apparently defined as “more than I, myself, can personally afford.”</p>
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<p>In the minds of small, jealous people, it is.</p>
<p>oldfort - No need to justify. Teens often have accidents during their early years of driving. (Both of mine did.) And that’s why …</p>