Why Wealthy Kids are the Most Depressed

[@thearbrailia]

My husband came from a more affluent area than I. I went to the most dangerous school in my area. It was in a very drug infested project. There were very few drinking parties and no drug overdoses in my school. My husband lost many classmates to drinking and drugs and many of them are still alcoholics to this day. My theory is that the poor students were creating more self-efficacy by having to survive violence, harassment by pimps and being around crack addicts so they valued their life more because it took so much just to survive. We were playing the same game at a higher difficulty rating so our wins meant more to us. The suburban kids were stuck in the tutorial of the game because their families kept them from any danger and they were constantly trying to kill themselves with risky behaviors that we found foreign out of boredom.

[@catholicpog7183]

My guess is the level of pressure is much higher if you come from a more wealthy background. Poor people just have to survive, maybe find a job or go on government assistance. They're more worried about the floor than the ceiling. People from rich backgrounds on the other hand know that they have a big opportunity and feel constant pressure to make the most of it. Their peers are all highly successful. Their families expect something of them. They're not worried about avoiding the worst case scenario, they're worried about not reaching the stars which is a much higher bar. The pressure and endless comparison that comes with success makes life very difficult even if they're doing well on paper.

[@Samsara1-o9p]

From being around wealthy people, its an obvious point but they also have more money to buy copious amounts of drugs whereas poorer people are limited. I was shocked how much they would buy, I would put most ppl in debt to people you don't want to owe.

[@technicolorProducer]

@@catholicpog7183 Having been deeply involved in both environments as a teacher (and I also worked in crack houses replacing the plumbing while in college and now live in one of those communities in which the nannies raise the kids) this is one of those blanket statements that is total nonsense. It seems like it makes sense and with large enough numbers I am sure there are a few that feel that way but the vast majority simply don't care. One minor example: it would be common to have a white rich kid (and it kills me to say this) just sit in class and not do any work at all...day after day, assignment after assignment - regardless of how easy or difficult it is. I would have poor kids not turn in work but never just sit there and do nothing especially after asked to do it. Please stop saying they are under so much pressure and have earned their anxiety. They really don't need more excuses. Kids will tell me I know my parents won't hit me or punish me. As Mike Rowe says: you don't see community college kids protesting.

[@henrytang2203]

It's funny how some people who grew up poor are motivated by the goal of reaching financial freedom. While some rich kids struggle to find meaning.

[@SoteksChunkyProphet-dg7io]

It's pretty simple. Human beings were never designed for an easy life. We require struggle to find meaning.

[@aleidius192]

I always had a theory about that. People will tend to be successful to extent that they focus on their careers to the exclusion of everything else, right? Well that means wealthy people will tend to be people who give all their attention to their jobs with nothing left over for their children. So you end up with children who receive little to no guidance or affection from parents while being given the material means to indulge every vice. Of course the rich kids aren't all right! It's a wonder that generational wealth exists at all! Progressivism is just arsenic on the cake.

[@maidende8280]

My parents were like this 😭

[@MisterWebb]

No, absolutely incorrect. Successful people are far more likely to treat their children well. It is the working class who neglect and abuse their children. The key difference is in IQ - the poor are simply too stupid to be depressed. This fact is borne out in suicide statistics.

[@aleidius192]

@@maidende8280 I'm sorry to hear that. All you can do is be a better parent than your parents were.

[@annatardlordofderps9181]

It's also highly likely that the investment in the job and the elevated levels of neuroticism are also directly related to each other. The parents put all their investment into their careers as a protection mechanism. This prevents their children from developing coping mechanisms to deal with their already elevated levels of narcissism, thus they feel increasingly neurotic and terrible about things.

[@browncow7113]

I think this is the right answer

[@technicolorProducer]

I taught in Las Vegas and the richest suburban schools in Connecticut-lots to say but I will summarize with this: we live in one of the communities and my ivy-league wife and myself home school. (Keep your children out of those top schools.) The top schools have the $ to cover up the problems. In one school the kids went to the high school over the weekend and trashed the place - leaving one student passed out. The superintendent called in all the custodians and said no one leaves until this place looks like it never happened.

[@Iam_Celene]

I grew up in an upper middle class town and this is 100% true. A lot of kids I grew up with committed $uicide.

[@karin38539]

OMG hi fellow Tater! I couldn’t resist saying hi cuz this is the 2nd time or 3rd time I see you outside Tree’s channel 🤣Besides this channel and Tree’s channels, I’m subscribed to ExoticalsUnited too, I’m truly amazed by the algorithm at this point😂

[@tomocchii]

@@karin38539I’m also subscribed to both channels 😊

[@therearenoshortcuts9868]

noticed this too the richer the parents are the most likely the children are either: 1) useless/lazy, 2) crazy, 3) or have other kind of obvious pathology

[@danielhall3895]

Affluent parents either don't realize that they can stunt their kids by giving too much, over-sheltering, and not teaching them boundaries, resiliency and some kind of work for for what they want; or their wealth becomes a narcissistic means of keeping their kids from individuating and becoming independent of them. Either way, these parents don't get that it's also a form of abuse to give your child everything without reserve or discernment for the effect on the child's character, and not love. I think the higher rate of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use with sheltered kids, versus inner city may stem from the fact that inner city kids have much more in their face examples of the effects of multigenerational substance abuse at this point.

[@saturationstation1446]

they do realize and are deeply proud of it. its just the eurocentric cultural standard to raise your children into selfish monsters. always "prioritize your desires over everything" kinds of attitudes instilled into them.

[@danielhall3895]

@@saturationstation1446 I want to push back against it being an ethnic thing, and say it's a bad affluent class adaption since the boomers, but it is cultural at this point and has spread downstream to the other classes.

[@Mariathinking]

​@@saturationstation1446 I don't think its eurocentric, its not like that in Europe. I think its a very American thing - consume consume consume, if you already have then buy bigger. That sorta old money vs new money mentality/stereotype is steeped in American vs European ways of life and amazing wealth.

[@derek4412]

Another thing could be that once your parents have enough money, all of the hard work you could possibly put into anything seems pointless. What you inherit is going to far outweigh what you could earn through your labor. But the typical “payoff” for some of these children is too old to make a difference. If you’re not going to see a sizable amount of money before you’re 25 years old, you will probably wind up delaying your ability to get married or start a business. Rich parents just love controlling their grown childrens’ actions.

[@justinhale5693]

It seems like not letting a child go unsupervised cooed is a very reasonable cutoff. Parents must make boundary decisions for children that take into consideration knowable risks and benefits of every aspect of the changing childhood independence to the extent permitted by practical necessity.

[@stanleykachuik2589]

This is one of the many problems due to people having children later in life. It's so important for kids to see their parents struggle to make it in life. Without this example in their domestic environment. They have no idea what it took for their parents to succeed in life.

[@paolo3287]

Not necessarily true if the parents are present in the children’s life they can instil work ethic in other ways.

[@emeraldwizard1227]

Very good point

[@ajaxsf]

I was close friends with a girl from old money. A few decades ago her family was household name and several universities have buildings that bear their name. Oh man, never in a million years would I marry her. She even said whoever marries her is set for life, but it wouldn't be worth it. Sweet girl but messed up.

[@user-np6tf8zx1u]

But why did she say it wouldnt be worth it

[@sw3783]

Studies that track "reported" substance abuse are notoriously inaccurate. When they are followed by testing, you found find that some groups are more likely to lie than others.

[@technicolorProducer]

Especially when the kids have to complete an 'anonymous survey' while logged into their computers. At least a paper survey may encourage kids to be more honest.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

None of this is new. The notion that the wealthy (and particularly their children) fall prey to empty hollow hedonism has been talked about for thousands of years through the story of Siddartha Gautama (the Buddha). A prince who first seeks endless pleasure, finds only ennui, then seeks suffering (through deprivation) is quite literally his story. Considering the similarities between Buddhism and stoicism on the issue of accepting if not embracing the suffering of life, one way to get a baseline on what approaches normal on issues of what are healthy levels of positive mental health outcomes regarding resiliency and positive outlooks would be to look cross-culturally at the upper class of predominantly Buddhist communities and communities of Christians that tend toward stoic philosophy (like Eastern Orthodox). Those are communities that are more likely to have internalized ethics that denounce empty pursuits of pleasure.

[@clarke.v.5020]

Buddhism/stoicism is NOT the answer, nor is suffering. That is nihilistic misdirection. The answer is meaning-boosting collaborative projects between the classes. Think war, space race, etc. The goal should be fostering a sense of noblesse oblige amongst these depressed "elites", give them a big "group project" they can derive meaning from. Going off to explore your own suffering is an abdication of duty.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

@@clarke.v.5020 "Stoicism is NOT the answer . . . WAR is!" My guy are you listening to yourself? You're calling me nihilistic when you're advocating for the maximal amount of human death as a group project? When you're advocating war as a solution over simply learning to not be defeated by the concept of suffering, some self-reliance, and control over your own emotional state . . . I mean, at the very least I don't think you really understand stoicism. And I wasn't even pitching stoicism or buddhism as a cure-all, like you're trying to with . . . war. I was saying to use these groups as a control group to gather data. Did you even read what I wrote?

[@clarke.v.5020]

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe I don't claim to have the perfect answer, or any at all, but stoicism is literally cope. The problem here is that the "new" world around us doesn't match how our brains have evolved. Stoicism appears to me as a means of tricking our brains into accepting the meaning-desert

[@clarke.v.5020]

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe Ah yes, have a heckin normal one my duderino I won't pretend to have any GOOD answers or ideas myself (see above lol), but stoicism is literally cope. There is a disconnect between how our minds have evolved and the speed at which civilisation "advanced", and stoicism is a way to trick yourself into being less miserable about it. Stoic concepts like "voluntary discomfort" are a great example of this self-delusion/cope. Because we were evolved to deal with legitimate (primarily physical) hardship and suffering which is now in short supply, folks do stuff like take ice baths to trick their minds, eat raw or unseasoned food for months to make the taste of an apple or carrot "as sweet as candy", etc. Also see: "surrogate activities" We escaped war and suffering only to fruitlessly attempt to create facsimiles of it. And yet folks are still feeling starved of meaning. Something deeper is amiss here, and papering over the clear underlying issue with philosophies like stoicism seems to be a red herring at best.

[@clarke.v.5020]

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe I will say that Stoicism does seem to "work" as a cope for a small group of high agency folks, but I think we can do better.

[@ChristinaM-s9l]

Human beings are like working dogs. If you pen up a working animal and provide them a cushy existence, they will rip their own house apart to feel something and quell their anxiety and motivation to work and feel satisfaction.

[@s0cializedpsych0path]

I was poor as hell as a kid.... so I sold coke to the rich kids... because I didn't like coke, and could carry it without dipping into it.... and when it came to other stuff... I knew where to get it all at better prices than they could get. I also came from a single parent home, where the parent that got me (mother) was a narcissist, with my father being on the spectrum (an Aspie machinist who custom rebuilt the inner workings of Prometheus, in Rockefellar Center) and undiagnosed.... and was addicted to alcohol, coke, and painkillers. On top of it, from the outside it looked like I had a really caring mother, and was just an asshole kid. In fact, I was my mother's negative emotion dumpster. Anything negative happens, she can find a way to make it my fault. Her shitty behavior, is somehow my fault. When you raise a kid like that, don't be surprised if they start getting high.

[@tomocchii]

I thought by coke you meant Coca Cola 😂😂😂

[@s0cializedpsych0path]

@@tomocchii 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@tomocchii]

@@s0cializedpsych0path I used to sell Coca Cola to kids, where I’m from you’re seen as cool if you drink it

[@annatardlordofderps9181]

Its most likely because children of wealthy households are multiple-times-to-one going to be coming from a liberal household. This sort of "urban monoculture" as you define it is terrible for mental health, so households where its most prominent are most likely to see lowered mental health outcomes.

[@MisterWebb]

It would be interesting to see how the stats look when the cutoff is $200,000

[@anewagora]

What specifically is wrong with the culture you label here and what would be better instead?

[@DavidTitus_]

Maybe it's also due to the fact they have mothers who worked, thus an unnatural family structure. I think hard pushing can also play a role, 8 hours of school + homework for shi you most likely forget is kind of torturous as well.

[@DavidTitus_]

Not to mention learning in the most boring way possible.

[@The-Oneness11]

Many poor mothers work even more.

[@friedawells6860]

I was thinking the same! The child psychologist Erica Komosar (you can find her as a guest on many podcasts of late) has some interesting takes on the effects of achievement pressure on young kids. Basically, her stance is that if you try to force kids under the age of 4 to do intense cognitive learning, it really harms their emotional and social development while yielding only minimal gains in future academic performance. Particularly, it can lead to anxiety, perfectionism, and depression. While growing up, it was not uncommon for kids in our affluent neighborhood to have tutors at the age of 5 to ensure they were at their peak performance in grade one (not even exaggerating). Those same parents might also be putting their kids in a daycare facility from infancy so that the mom could immediately return to her high status career. I think it's more than just ennui, but a combination of achievement pressure from infancy, daycare from infancy, and urban monoculture. When you have a parent that will pay for you to have a fancy therapist, but isn't around to just play catch and talk with you unless you're actively having a breaking down... this is exactly what you get.

[@User04678name]

I homeschooled my kids and one of them is still a fabulous pick pocket.I used to joke we only teach essential life skills, like pick pocketing and hustling poker! Lol

[@Planeet-Long]

22:45 FaceandLMS did an interesting piece about the removal of certain standardised tests in the UK, he noticed that whenever there was a test on which boys perdormed better than girls they would either abolish or reform it, but if girls performed better than boys this test was weighed as more important. He was arguing with a redpiller who claimed that girls were just naturally smarter and that schools are "a feminised environment", but FaceandLMS countered that he noticed that only specific tests where boys did better were removed. This type of systemic discrimination against boys in schools is also why we see a gradual female domination in the school system over an instant one (if girls were naturally smarter than boys we would have seen an immediate effect rather than a gradual one that favours them over a period of more than half a century). This is also true in other categories, an unruly girl isn't medicalised like unruly boys are, at least not in the same way. A boy with ADHD is given Ritalin™, a girl with ADHD is just given therapy and more understanding. Because girls are more coddled by this system they become more sensitive to trigger warnings, this is why you see more women against hardships in universities. A lot of redpillers and right-wing "intellectuals" like Ubersoy argue that women are naturally like this, but if you look at how the system has coddled them for 5 generations (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Zoomers, and Gen Alpha) now, it's clear that this is the intended product, men who get coddled by this system behave more like the women than like stereotypical "masculine" behaviour, notice the urban elite Blacks who call for racial safe spaces and need trigger warnings they are reminded of any racial disparities. Less coddled Blacks like those who grew up around gang violence often don't act this sensitive. The school system is designed to turn their privileged groups (or the supposed "oppressed groups") into these coddled ever-victims who are extremely emotionally fragile. It's by design.

[@Planeet-Long]

Historically, women weren't as fragile nor did they complain as much as the modern woman, the way society tells men and boys to "just man up" used to be normal behaviour against any woman or girl who complained about her lot in life.

[@LOUDMOUTHTYRONE]

Believing you're equal to your brother is the source of many people's unhappiness.

[@friedawells6860]

The child psychologist Erica Komosar (you can find her as a guest on many podcasts lately) has some interesting takes on the effects of achievement pressure on young kids. Basically, her stance is that if you try to force kids under the age of 4 to do intense cognitive learning, it really harms their emotional and social development while yielding only minimal gains in future academic performance. Particularly, it can lead to anxiety, perfectionism, and depression. While growing up, it was not uncommon for kids in our affluent neighborhood to have tutors at the age of 5 to ensure they were at their peak performance in grade one (not even exaggerating). Those same parents were often also putting their kids in a daycare facility from infancy so that the mom could immediately return to her high status career. I think it's more than just ennui, but a combination of achievement pressure from infancy, daycare from infancy, and urban monoculture. When you have a parent that will pay for you to have a fancy therapist, but isn't around to just play catch and talk with you unless you're actively having a breaking down... this is exactly what you get.

[@buglepong]

malcolm is literally harry potter

[@kristensauter2840]

Sheltering children programs them to believe the world is an inherently dangerous place. Thus, all the pathologies that arise from being sheltered. Depression, anxiety, hypochondria. Now, I'm not saying the world isn't an inherently dangerous place because obviously it is. But if we go through our lives Acting scared all the time that's no way to live. We have to live like the world is generally safe and friendly and a lovely enjoyable place. But we have to experience the dangers in order to navigate them. Letting your children play in your programming, then to leave the world is , a generally safe and loving and wonderful place, well also experiencing actual dangers so that they don't have to create imagined ones later on.

[@catholicpog7183]

Trump's family is the exact opposite of how most rich kids are raised. He grew up with the message: "the world is a dangerous place because of people like us. You're a killer." Most kids are unconsciously brought up to think of themselves as victims.

[@MrKoobuh]

Teaching kids to be afraid is definitely harmful. However, there really are wolves in the woods, mountain lions do stalk and take the unwary, and even a stray dog can kill a grown man. Teaching kids to be aware, vigilant, proactive and resilient is the appropriate approach, but those are simultaneously difficult to teach when everyone else lives in their smartphone bubble, and dangerous qualities to authoritarians.

[@angelafoster5071]

As a catholic, I read spiritual books etc. One Saint, I believe, in something I read mentioned that depression is a product of anger. It’s traditionally understood that anger is the vice in opposition to the virtue of patience. Rich people don’t have to be patient for much. This is probably an oversimplification but I think it could be a likely cause of depression in the wealthy.

[@diamondback2085]

One thing I love about babies is their ability to fall asleep in positions that seemingly show the baby has a slinky neck. My wife and I referred to it as chicken neck.

[@babyqueenxo]

I love babies, everything about them. Chicken neck is so cute.

[@Wucked1]

I'm not sure it makes you evil, but taking pleasure in other peoples suffering doesn't make you good. That's for sure.

[@edytatehrani3934]

It's counterintuitive, but not surprising. If you are given everything and you don't have to strive for anything, then you don't build any resilience and you don't have any purpose in life, plus their parents probably are managing the wealth 24/7 and don't have the time for their kids, so they often have stuff with no love. I grew up in communist Poland, as kids we didn't have much, but we were largely unsupervised. The only rule was to come home by sundown. Me and my friend, who were 4 and 5 years old at the time, got lost in the woods. We found the train tracks and I 54:03 decided that we should just follow the m because I knew that it would lead to the road. It sure did and we hitch hiked home. We stopped one of the cars and told the driver that we got lost and where we were from and he gave us a ride back. We got home by sundown and no adults even knew about it.😅

[@GeoffryGifari]

So the "bored rich kid" is more than just a stereotype?

[@rodgrey1989]

The oppressors might be their parents but the rich kids that are neglected and drowning in high expectations are not “the oppressors”

[@SimoneandMalcolm]

Everyone has high expectations. That was one of the points we make in this vide. The fact that they think that they have higher expectations on them than for example first gen immigrants just shows how naracstic they where raised to become.

[@annatardlordofderps9181]

It's likely the exact opposite. They are likely developing mental issues from *not* having any expectations at all and their parents are being too distant and "hands free" in their parenting.

[@maidende8280]

@@annatardlordofderps9181 My mother had both at the same time, i.e. high expectations (valid in my case) and was hands off & emotionally distant. This worked out okay for me (self-disciplined, driven, open) but terribly for my low conscientiousness, low openness, disagreeable brother. He was also a computer addict from the age of three. 😬 He absolutely should’ve been physically disciplined.

[@MisterWebb]

@@SimoneandMalcolmRich people are intellectually superior to the poor. Their offspring are more likely to be depressed because they have higher IQs and ignorance is bliss (truth hurts). If you don’t hate this hellhole of a world then you’re probably a mental minnow.

[@MarioMario-vy4bi]

@@maidende8280how old is he now?

[@Planeet-Long]

15:08 My 5 year old just had a near death experience 30 minutes after watching this, I explained to his how deadly it was bedorehand and I explained to him how the only reason he was still alive because the woman in the electric car's reaction ability and that she wasn't in a hurry. Most kids just shrug this off, that's the main issue with kids and this is why more than 50% of all young children used to die before the 1800's.

[@Planeet-Long]

* before watching this.

[@billusher2265]

Interview Tucker Max on how he transitioned out of the monoculture after achieving fame to a homesteading prep per lifestyle to raise his children away from the monoculture

[@FourOf92000]

tomorrow's episode: Simone practices saying "schadenfreude" for 45 minutes :p

[@letsdomath1750]

27:26 No, literally you guys are employing forethought, and with increased awareness, you can have your kids grow up without an increased likelihood of becoming a statistic. That volunteer gig in Mexico at 13 story is wild.

[@anotheryoutubechannel4809]

39:50 here we go. This is such a great discussion! The whole video should be watched, but this section here needs to be discussed A LOT MORE! Please do more on this!

[@manichispanic5234]

This doesn't surprise me. Growing up in the hood everyone smoked weed but that's really it. Anytime we went to a party in the neighboring county, with the rich kids, they always had pills and Coke, etc. Obviously those kids could afford it. I also catered during college for a lot of private parties. Ever seen a group of dancing 13 year olds get half naked while their parents boost it up at the bar? I've have seen things LOL

[@DayrusBPB]

It's really lonely at the top, especially if you're different from your peers in terms of views, etc. (not that I can relate) Better to be rich than poor though, more options. Explore and travel in your middle age while you still can.

[@MrKoobuh]

Kids resolving conflicts amongst eachother sounds like a great way for a kid to end up in the ER after taking a 2x4 to the ear. Parents are SUPPOSED to be authority figures, and kids should feel safe coming to them for redress or mediation. Getting admonished for 'snitching' on another kid when something is going wrong makes the aforementioned scenario inevitable. There's a lot of gray area when it comes to how authority can be exercised and interacted with, re-enacting Lord of the Flies doesn't seem like a good alternative to helicopter parenting.

[@steelearmstrong9616]

Wealthy kids don’t know the what real depression is. They are miserable by choice

[@mikepaulus4766]

My cousin had it very rough socially. Her father was a doctor for a major sports franchise, but she was a normal person with problems just like every else. Most kids have some money issues at home, she went on two or more destination vacations a year, had horses, riding arena, indoor pool, etc. So when she was sad about things she didn't get any sympathy because most of the kids thought she didn't have any problems because she didn't have any of the problems they had.

[@theJellyjoker]

Money doesn't buy you happiness.

[@tomocchii]

You can use money to buy things that make you happy

[@theJellyjoker]

@@tomocchii true, but work/life balance is still a thing. You've got the shiny new car, the big mansion and a fat bank account, everything you ever wanted!! So, why do you feel more depressed now and why are you angry all the time? Money sucks! Never touch the stuff, personally.

[@yahia9481]

​@@tomocchii"i would like to live miserably wealthy better then miserably poor 👍😅"

[@tomocchii]

@@yahia9481 makes sense

[@yahia9481]

@@tomocchii whoever says the opposite, easy . Give us what u got 😆

[@derek4412]

The children of wealthy parents, on average, are going to be exposed to, and inherit a materialist worldview. This is probably the root of wealthy adolescent depression. I would be curious to know how the children of parents who are both wealthy and religious turn out. I know there are not that many wealthy people who are religious, but I would still imagine they would have slightly better mental health outcomes, so long as the religion took precedence over the wealth accumulation as the “religion“ inside the home.

[@tomocchii]

Strong family values. I’m not as bad I could be because I was punished a lot and sent to my grandpa’s home to do martial arts training and lift heavy things. In Poland my grandparents would make my sister lift heavy things and run 2 miles to the market to get tomato. I still turned out to be very narcissistic and materialistic but what happened was that I developed an insane work ethic.

[@stormygeo]

When you're poor, you don't have time to be depressed. You're trying to survive. To be depressed or the vast amount of mental illness, you have to have your needs met and time to self introspect. Also, with all of the messaging that the rich are bad, whites are bad, Americans are bad, thinking about it all leads to depression.

[@l.3626]

maybe its bc rich parents havent focused on the important things in life, but only on money, so the kids grow up rich, but without everything else, while other non rich kids grow up with enough money but with everything else too

[@technicolorProducer]

Exeter is well regarded as the best private school; there was a great story in rolling stone on the 80s that focused on kids from an elite boarding school creating this drug smuggling ring - the kids would fly themselves to Central American and come back with hard drugs…and obviously they did not need the money.

[@Dr3Mc3Ninja]

I think people with too much money, time and freedom, spend too much time thinking about their own feelings. Having external pressures forces you to focus on tasks, survival and improving your situation. I played outside unsupervised, went down into the river, stepping onto unsteady rocks and everything. Never had an injury. Depending on your age, you learn to be careful. Knowledge of the land goes a long way.

[@tomocchii]

This is true in my experience. A lot of rich people can be weird or suffer from boredom. Other than that they’re pretty normal. My older sister was also emotionally neglected so became dependent on drugs. She also has autism and outlier intelligence so cannot relate to many people and her complex about the way she looked led to severe bullying and then ostracisation as she herself became a bully and truant. She doesn’t care about money she says it’s like a chain that enslaves you. She’s a weird one sometimes but a very interesting person that’s on another level intellectually. This is the minority case because in my country all kids regardless of wealth level even if they have distant parents, have community and some form of moral code enforced by the family. In America they don’t have that as much which creates a poor coping mechanism for narcissism that arises from being wealthy and having been the child of a hands free parenting style.

[@timrichardson518]

Simone nailed it at 44:30 Let’s not overthink the “woke“ phenomenon. Affluence is the primary cause. We live in an era of unprecedented safety and affluence. Our species is designed with a survival bias that sees danger in every bush and threats in every landscape.

[@moondog7694]

I'm guessing it's because rich kids are more likely to come from two-income households, whereas poor kids are more likely to come from a one-income household. Psychologist Faye Snyder recommends moms stay home with their babies from birth to age 5. The book "Better Late than Early" recommends parents homeschool their kids until age 8. Faye says BPD results from incomplete bonding/symbiosis with the mom. Bonding with mom takes 5 years, according to Dr. Faye. A symptom of BPD is depression.

[@TheGreatAmphibian]

I’m guessing that you are an idiot who thinks we’re living in the 1970s. Very few working class families can afford to keep the wife at home.

[@objetivista686]

I believe you both know it's a correlation so it's not all rich kids who feels miserable and would be interesting to see the differences between them and those rich kids who express high levels of mental health.

[@anotheryoutubechannel4809]

Someday will share how we raised 2 amazing teens in CA, one an active Christian, both decided to not get vaxxed, both do great at school and have a great group of friends while making more than the numbers given here. Both are also conservative. All with no push or demands from us at all. We’re burners! 😂 We do always tell them that being raised with money is actually a bad thing and why, and they have also travelled to almost 20 countries and have seen about everything possible re poverty in this world. Money is a facade that makes you lazy.

[@PatrickBohanWriter]

Malcolm lore is so fascinating. Bro has several tragic backstories

[@LunilWormwood]

I've never understood why baby boomers and Gen X-ers who weren't coddled as kids are the ones coddling their kids

[@mikepaulus4766]

As a Gen X person I can understand why so many of us made the mistake of coddling the kids. I raised myself with my dad buying the food and paying the rent. There was an excess of freedom and I should be dead many times. Going too far in the other direction seems to be a logical error after that.

[@PaulVanderKlay]

The Collins guarantee their kids will one day get book deals!🤣

[@useraam]

These people were also the ones who popularized not hitting your kids for any reason

[@DenshaOtoko2]

I guess that's why ball sports and Boxing, MMA and WWE are so popular and video games.

[@tensevo]

the reason it is funny because poor kids, at least they can blame their unhappiness on lack of wealth, but, rich kids, know that wealth does not make you happy, even though it is supposed to.

[@oxvendivil442]

This is so true even here in the third world, just in my family, I and some of my brothers suffered from depression and anxiety, what I observe is the middle and upper classes here suffer from the same affliction as the middle class in the developed world.

[@caustinolino3687]

All of these studies about "wealthy" kids have a $120k household income cut off. Two parents averaging $60k each is not wealthy by any means unless it's in the middle of nowhere. You are talking about upper middle class here, even solidly middle class in an expensive city.

[@MrKoobuh]

In my area, $120k doesn't graduate you from renting an efficiency apartment, leave alone qualify as wealthy. Of course, that is because out of state retirees and out of town tech workers bought up nearly all the housing with cash and tech bucks respectively.

[@friedawells6860]

I came for the schadenfreude but stayed for Malcolm's tragic backstory XD

[@jac7895]

Hearing what your boy Octavian had to say about money was fascinating. He's at that phase yknow.. he probably already has a surface level understanding of scarcity and the power of money !

[@drakethesnek6429]

Struggle is necessary for happiness.

[@tann_man]

As far as celebs and transing their kids goes: it's important to remember a certain group controls Hollywood and the media. Remember exactly which books the Germans burned and who wrote them?

[@letsdomath1750]

24:55 It really depends on where you grew up. In high school, having altercations of any kind led to immediate suspension and other forms of disciplinary action. It was easier to keep a distance from other people to avoid getting embroiled in that mess because dealing with my parents on top of that was not something I was going to partake in. If you didn't rat out others, the whole group was punished because our instructors were Draconian.

[@quackhouseproductions5572]

In the 00s it was the “depressed” middle class goth kids that scratched their arm with seafty pin.

[@drummersagainstitk]

Thank you for all the content. Always fun.

[@Hans_Peterson]

Aww the hypocrisy of Malcom railing against the “uRbaN mOnOcULTuRe” for being hedonistic and using drugs and alcohol more frequently as he downs a coors light at what was probably 11am when this episode was filmed.

[@Lucas02000]

There's a difference between the odd beer and crystal meth.

[@Hans_Peterson]

@@Lucas02000 yeah amphetamines help you focus and get shit done, alcohol makes you messy

[@thenewbohemian5779]

I grew up in Aspen Colorado, needless to say and incredibly affluent and wealthy society. The rates of drug abuse, depression, anxiety suicide, etc, was leaps and bounds above national rates. I think the suicide rate was something like 3x higher.

[@user-np6tf8zx1u]

😮why do you think that is

[@thenewbohemian5779]

@@user-np6tf8zx1u My personal thoughts are two fold. One, is everyone is bound to judge things through the relativity of their own experiences. If ones initial baseline is sky high, it's very hard to get above that (especially with diminishing marginal returns), and very easy to dip lower. For example, ones third home or second Lamborghini doesn't add much joy, but if somethings happens, that can cause great harm. Like having to give up the lambo for a Toyota. Relative states, it seems to me, can only meaningfully go in one direction, producing more distress than fulfillment on average. The second train of thought I have on this is: life is a sysiphissian struggle. We gain good feelings from advancing our boulder up the hill. The heavier the boulder and steeper the hill, the greater the dopamine boost. Well, when one has everything, their isn't much to struggle against. If any inconvenience can be handled by swiping a credit card, their is no challenge. Think about if you had to play a video game stuck on the easiest difficulty your whole life. Eventually you would get bored. I truly don't believe human well being is that tightly aligned with material well being. Human well being is spiritual not material, and we meed opportunity for spiritual development and advancement, without it life is meaningless.

[@jkbrown5496]

Alfred the Great had lifelong IBS. Associated with him is Judith of Flanders, the princess of the time being the great-granddaughter of Charlemagne, married off at age 12 to the 50-something king of Wessex, then married by her step-son before escaping back to daddy at the ripe old age of 17 only to be put in a convent to await another marriage. Later when her step-son/brother in law Alfred was king of Wessex, her son married one of his daughters.

[@badart3204]

I’ve got some cousins that are Hamptons level wealthy and seem to have avoided mental issues. Their parents had them at summer camps a lot and their mother was very present in their lives. They also were heavily involved in athletics with many broken bones so that probably gave them a bit of struggle to keep them sane. All girls so probably a bit less pressure to prove they “made it”

[@BosseWolff]

met wants vs met needs. the more functional the surface looks the harder to find the root of the problem as well.

[@Ottuln]

I've rarely agreed with you so much. We're just starting to get rid of our kids and I absolutely love who they are and who they are becoming, and it is almost 100% because of the attitude you express in this video. Letting them become their own people, giving them opportunities to take risks and go on adventures, walk to the store or the library miles from our house. It's made them independent and confident and I think that is the most important thing to avoid them becoming self-obsessed and constantly preoccupied with finding acceptance and attention through extreme action.

[@objetivista686]

Wealthy people tend to be genetically different than the rest of population: high IQ, high driveness or ambition which is correlated or even expressive of a proneness to stress, anxiety or emotional disturbance, and also with anti social personality disorder (narcisism, macchiavelism, psychopathy...) BUT in some way compensating with this driveness for competition. Then their kids tend to inherit a high degree of psychopathology risk and often associated with a problematic social and familiar environments. There is a very large study done in Iceland which found that accomplished people tend to be more like to have blood relatives with mental disorders. Another evidence. But it's also important to see if "elite" groups differ from this proneness to mental illness, like, artists versus engineers??

[@LowValueMan]

This KZbin channel is very refreshing…in contrast to the vast array of content that applies the human mind to the lowest form of gratification. No diss to cheap indulgent satisfaction, but man…from time to time I do catch myself questioning things like…for most people is there any limit to the prolific amounts of “dopamine rush” or “brain rot” activities. Don’t get me wrong I’m definitely not a poindexter and like to have fun…but can we have a little more balance is that too much to ask? It’s probably a significant contributor to why many people are so miserable all the time…with how popular hedonism has become, although misery is a much more nuanced topic.

[@tomocchii]

Yeah I too get tired of watching the 50th video of ishowspeed screaming

[@letsdomath1750]

I like watching their videos too as they cover nonstandard topics, but it's still ultimately for entertainment when all is said and done. 🤷‍♂️

[@russianmom8311]

I found this book very helpful for extreme anxiety and panic attacks. “Hope and Help for Your Nerves” Book by Claire Weekes. Also the KZbin channel that uses the principles in the book is “Shaan Kassam”

[@annaandjuju]

I think you should examine this phenomenon using Bourdieu’s theory of capitals. I find that middle class parents tend to over value human capital in their children’s access to social mobility while wealthier parents tend to value social capital more and very, very poor people tend to value physical capital. Perhaps overvaluing social capital leads to more personal risk taking (for clout?) and has implications for dopamine production.

[@user-rh9jg9fu7z]

Yes you are evil to not feel empathy for these kids

[@babyqueenxo]

16:00 Simone is such a sweet wife, telling us that Malcolm is concerned about the kids' safety to soften it, but he's like nope! I'm about variable risk. 😂❤Between Simone's heart and Malcolm's brain, the kids are going to have a great childhood!

[@baskey3723]

HELP WHY DO MALCOMS PARENTS SOUND LIKE MY DAD 💀💀💀💀

[@StudyMusicAssist]

Sounds about right. I'm 25, making almost double more per hour than my dad did before he died in 2022, and I'm pretty darn satisfied with life right now, even though i'm single and don't have much of a social life, i'm kinda happy with the way my life is headed. I'm hopeful to say the least. But i dated a girl last year who has a full ride through med school from her dad's money since he has the kind of money to buy 5 multimillion dollar mansions and a private jet, and she was a fucking MESS. Like she has a black amex card ready to buy literally anything with her no credit limit, yet she had absolutely no self-worth. She couldn't fathom a future where she matched her dad's expectations, and she starved herself frequently and had a habit of plucking her hair because she hated everything about who she was. The breakup sucked cause we had such good chemistry, but my god.

[@StudyMusicAssist]

To add a bit, i blame the father for giving literally everything she could ask for, and yet forced her to go to a local community college because he couldn't bare to leave apart from her. Like bruh

[@jeremyrichard2722]

I think this is right mostly (even if two weeks old) but I think it's a recent development, as Gen X didn't have this problem, because Gen X was the tail end of the real generation that was like "Stranger Things", "Donnie Darko", or "ET". The laws that pretty much forced kids to stay home and become latchkey kids for liability ended that. Back when I was growing up, the rich kids were always pretty happy, and were the ones who had tons of extra money to spend at the malls and such where kids hung out back then. So for example a rich kid might say have $20 they could blow in an arcade pretty casually while hanging out, and then stil go get lunch at the food court, the poorer or average kids might have $5 to $10 to spend total. It was a pretty obvious and typical difference... and of course the wealthier kids had the cooler bikes, more different clothes, and stuff like that. I will say the closest thing to "rich kid depression" was that a lot of the wealthier kids might not have to worry about ordinary stuff and had more toys and so on, but they also tended to have higher expectations. You either had the ones whose family invested and was in a boom where the next generation was probably going to be the one to have nothing as they lost it all, or the ones who were basically under tons of pressure to be like their parents. Also understand the wealthier kids had a lot of rules that were unspoken about who they could hang out with. The Yuppie Spawn in particular tended to only hang out with more of the same, and assumed anyone who was friendly with them wanted something. this lead to paranoia, and also a bit of envy among some of them who wish they had a broader peer group. My family wasn't rich (far from it), but back then as I could use several different types of computers and configure sound cards and such, I helped a lot of them out at times, and I know for example that there were a couple of guys who liked girls who were less than wealthy, or of a lower social class in the eyes of the guys. Say having families who owned small businesses. Those girls would be paranoid of rich guys like that out to use them, and realize even if the guys started out nice, their parents would basically tell them that the girls they liked were simply people to play around with and use like the girls were in some cases worried about, and that they needed to eventually find someone more suitable and not take anything seriously, especially at the time around high school or early college. A lot of the yuppie/frat boy douchebag mentality seems to be ingrained by the parents, and of course remember, even those who might not want to be that way are dependent on said parents. It's not like your average 16 year old whose family might have a million or two in the bank and a nice house is going to just walk away from that so they can try and take a relationship with a girl whose family runs the local pizza place more seriously.

[@torch9t9]

Kids with money can afford drugs, alcohol and smokes

[@objetivista686]

Celebrities also tend to have a higher rates of mental health issues so their progeny proneness.

[@johnphamlore8073]

What if countries cannot be generalized, and that problems are nation-specific. What if in the United States, depression about the future is actually a rational analysis similar to sensing that a fire is about to sweep through a forest? I challenge you Malcolm and Simone to do a simple web search "college students can no longer read or write," where you will find articles detailing the problem from every point on the political spectrum. This is I believe a problem unique to the United States, a destruction of literacy, even among the affluent, that is already sending the US population back to general reasoning abilities of pre-industrial societies. Also I find it ironic Malcolm disparages the Irish who refused to leave during the potato famine, when all the signs are the United States is going to very soon experience an analogous implosion. All the signs are the United States is rapidly losing the ability to get anything done -- look at the cowardice displayed just this weekend refusing to have the astronauts whose job it is to take such risks return on Starliner.

[@burnhamsghost8044]

Kaczynski’s Power Process

[@jacobperson2209]

Octavian saying “like and describe” is one of the best things I’ve ever heard - it’s been so fun to increasingly have appearances from the kiddos

[@maidende8280]

Andover girl here 👌🏻 Literally never even heard of anyone doing hard drugs there. But one of my friends a year younger did MDMA & so that was my first drug (highly recommend). I was never into alcohol or weed & I was way too busy to try drugs before senior spring. Class of ‘99. The ennui was real though among plenty of my classmates. Btw I was sent away from home at 12.

[@SimoneandMalcolm]

The sending kids away at around 12 or 13 is very common for wealthy american families of the last generation but I don't see it much in this one.

[@maidende8280]

@@SimoneandMalcolm It’s a shame. My brother is a total brat and was sent away at 8. Can’t imagine how much worse he’d have been - scary to consider. Typing this on an iPad btw 😅 Apple is largely about aesthetics for me & I despise plastic especially.

[@jonredgreen]

Beautiful family. Awesome you two.

[@antebellumblackamerican7408]

Inner city kids dont have the money or time to take drugs like the rich kids...I don't know why Malcom is surprised by that stat.....???

[@The-Oneness11]

That's a good point. Also when you live in a low income neighborhood you very clearly see the dangers of drug use. You know people who commit crimes and go to jail and you know people who overdose on drugs.

[@alanlight7740]

9:59 - Simone says that the only way to have meritocracy within a family clan is to get rid of people. I suppose much depends on what you mean by "getting rid of people". In the medieval period children who did not fit in well with a wealthy family's enterprises were often sent to a monastery or convent - which allowed them to be sidelined where sometimes they even did considerable social good while still allowing them to be in important ways part of the family. And while it isn't quite the same I spent much of my childhood around missionary organizations which fulfilled a similar role as those monasteries and convents. The mechanics were rather different, especially as most of the missionaries had families, but it was curious that the people who became missionaries tended to be either geniuses or morons, with very little in between. Perhaps such organizations are a good place to both employ geniuses whose personalities are not right for either business or warfare in a place where their work will benefit society, and also to park poor performers from good families. The organization I spent most of my time around had specialized functions that meant we had more geniuses than morons. To give you some clue as to their capabilities they were building bespoke portable computers in the mid-1970s, were at the forefront of niche aviation technologies, and one of the missionary kids I knew ended up being one of the lead developers on the back end of Facebook. 10:18 - Malcolm says that isolation from adults and emotional neglect by parents lead to substance abuse ... and I have long suspected this but would like to see some sources if you have it handy. 16:30 - Regarding vacations: personally I found the road trips we went on when I was a kid very educational. My father was an engineer who loved military history so we toured places like a nickel mine and the famous lift lock in Ontario and battlefields and military museums everywhere. I'm glad that we didn't fly as we wouldn't have been able to visit nearly as many places if we had done so. As an adult I have visited most regions of the world and have learned quite a bit from that experience, but there is plenty for kids to learn just from road trips in the United States and Canada. That said, my oldest sister started hanging out with professionals as an adult and they persuaded her that our road trips were bad somehow and that our parents should have just flown us places for vacation. I suspect my sisters may not have enjoyed all those battlefields as much as I did, but they did like the lift lock.

[@PaulVanderKlay]

I think Simone is right about safetism

[@janed811]

Your baby is so precious! 👶🏻♥️

[@aubnuwelja]

Here, in one of the poorest countries in the world, a lot of youth commits suicide because of lack of opportunities. Hhhmmmmm..

[@L-P-V]

I wonder what could Malcom have possibly done to be disowned at the age of 13.

[@timrichardson518]

I'm with Octavian!

[@michaelwellen2866]

So, if one of us is rich, how do we raise well-adjusted kids?

[@TechnoMinarchist]

Guess that's why they can charge so much for therapy.

[@vexedtextiles]

Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won't drown.

[@letsdomath1750]

45:40 People are exposed to negative stimuli all of the time. Most people are not living sheltered lives like Siddhartha Gautama before he became the Buddha. Seriously, trigger warnings don't protect people from shaming, isolation, abusive and negligent parents, pandemic lockdowns, etc. Be real. 🙄Yes, activist types bemoan this and the other, but they are also pining for the world of shoulds.

[@GuitarsAndAdam]

Android User here. IPhones are for the Urban Monoculture!

[@letsdomath1750]

16:44 Yes? Is that your question? The answer is still yes. The vacations I had with my family were some of the only times my parents were chill and relaxed, and I valued traveling from a young age as my dad used to be a pilot many years ago. As an adult, I am open to new experiences and learning about different cultures because of it. Again, this may not be the case for other people growing up, but vacations can leave powerful impressions that last throughout a lifetime.

[@williambranch4283]

Enervated since 1965. Menendez broes.

[@baronarcanus9111]

No, you're not evil for that particular reason.