For no particularly good reason, possibly prompted by looking through my dad’s photos as I did on Father’s Day, I began thinking about how my siblings and I have fared compared with my parents.
My parents were the first people in their respective families to graduate from high school. They both went on to attend and graduate from college and both obtained higher degrees. My siblings and I always assumed we would attend college—we never considered anything else. One of my siblings and I went on to a higher degree. A couple of my siblings’ spouses have as well.
Adjusted for inflation my father earned more in his last full year of life than any of us have in a year. My wife and I have a family income higher than my parents’ highest family income (again adjusted for inflation) as does one of my siblings. The rest of my siblings have never managed a family income higher than my parents.
With the exception of one of my siblings my siblings and I have found maintaining a middle class lifestyle a strain from time to time. We’ve been frugal.
Of my siblings, their spouses, and I all are retired except for me and several of my siblings’ spouses. I’ll probably continue working longer than any of them.
My nieces and nephews have all graduated from college. Roughly half have gone on to post-graduate education and I expect that more will. It’s early to say what their incomes will be or whether they’ll remain middle class.
Consider that everyone in my family has an IQ at least two standard deviations above normal (some of us considerably higher), we’re all industrious to a fault, and by and large we’re good-looking and personable. No substance abuse (as far as I know) and no criminal history. And we’re just getting by. You might think that people who are so hardworking and intelligent would prosper. You would be wrong. We just don’t have enough guile.
I can’t imagine how the vast majority of the people who don’t have our gifts and advantages manage. My guess is that many don’t.
Many that deserve success fail, and many that fail receive nothing but success. Contra King, justice is not a moral aspect of the universe.
I myself only exceeded my parents’ income after discovering (in my thirties) a talent for taking from the rich and giving to myself.
Dave, you do sound glum. Maybe a vacation?
Vacation? I’ve heard of those. It’s been twenty years since I’ve taken one.
Wealth is how people manage. It’s that simple. You start off with no student loans; parents offer support for rent and then they or their estates put in money for property. And if you are in the right place, you meet partners who are really wealthy and not just upper middle-class. Then you have all of college covered for your kids. That’s partly why people fork over 80K for middling private schools in New England. ‘Guile’ is code for many many things, one of which is acting ‘elite’, another of which is emailing the dean of said middling school every other day.
I run in circles of financially well off people, Modulo. The issues you cite sometimes, but in a distinct minority, describe these people. Your attitude, and others like you, speaks volumes.
Almost always missed in discussions like this: risk acceptance. So many are industrious, intelligent etc. few are risk takers. My personal experience is that after risk tolerance is perseverance.
Next most missed is goal setting. The brightest people I’ve known have been in the sciences. And I mean logic and reasoning, not memory and easy recall. But it doesn’t follow that they have goals of income, or wealth accumulation.
Ciao.
May I recommend the Desert Pearl Inn?
In my family, my generation, who came of age in the 60’s, has had peak economic success, substantially better than our father, who did ok as a union pipefitter. My mother didn’t work outside the home. However, our children have done less well, and the grandchildren even worse than that.
That’s actually the point of this post. IMO the last 30 years have been a bust for most Americans. I’m glad that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are doing so well. I don’t envy them. To paraphrase Chesterton the only thing I have against capitalists is I wish there were more of them.
This is something I’ve thought about frequently and it’s especially relevant now since my wife and I changed our views on money and lifestyle significantly over the past couple of years. We ditched the materialism and consumerism inherent in chasing “the American dream,” the middle-class lifestyle along with attempts to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s really been liberating and we will be fine when our income drops below the national median next month.
One other thing this changed is how we teach our kids about money, wealth, status, etc. I’m hoping they will learn young what it took us almost 50 years to learn. Frugality is a virtue and is nothing to be ashamed of.