People Are Sharing The Craziest And Most Confusing "Rich Kid" Encounters They've Had (30 Stories)

Entrepreneur Wolf revealed what a good socioeconomic status means in practice. "What this looks like in reality is that if a kid from an upper-middle-class or wealthier part of town gets in trouble, the district attorney, officer, and or judge is going to take into consideration who the child's parents are and that child's prospects in life in general," he said that Lady Justice isn't always blind.

Unfortunately, kids with less well-off parents often don't have the same luxury of influential community members supporting them. "When you compare this to what a child who is a minority whose parents do not come from a place of abundance and especially if that child's parents has a criminal history of any kind, then they are simply going to be more susceptible and vulnerable to the consequences the law would provide." The advantages of being rich don't stop there. While wealthier families may be able to afford a private attorney, poorer ones have to use a public defender and are at a disadvantage.

However, this kind of safety net doesn't translate well into developing strong virtues that lead to success. "By giving that rich kid a soft place to land, you robbed him or her of the experience of taking full responsibility for their actions and sent the message that just because you have money you are different and don't have to adhere by the same set of rules as other children. This is the worst thing you can do to that kid and you're setting the child up for a life of entitlement," Wolf told Bored Panda.

Being spoiled in our childhoods by wealthy family members, however, isn't the end of the tale. There's still room to bounce back, Wolf says. This requires actually coming face-to-face with real struggles, though. "This is a nature versus nurture type of situation. even if a child is somewhat spoiled, and very well taken care of they can still turn out to be a good person that has empathy, love, and tolerance for another person. This all has to do with that child's life experience. It is impossible for a rich kid to ever really understand the struggle that a poor person goes through because that simply isn't their experience, thus it could only ever be hypothetical until they experience real struggle in their own life."

Wolf opened up that the "only thing" he's seen that really works that helps rich kids stay grounded is when their parents "manufacture situations, rules, and ideologies that would simulate the same kind of experiences and struggles that a child who comes from less abundance would have to endure."

One example of this would be a kid having to earn the things they want instead of getting them just because their parents have money. "So if that rich kid wants a new bike, then dad has to explain that the bike cost money and even if he is willing to pay for some of it, the child is going to need to go out and earn the rest of it doing chores, mowing lawns, asking if the neighbors will hire them to do odd jobs, etc. to raise the funds. By taking the simple action, you are teaching the child that you have to work for anything in life that you want."

Wolf explained that this lesson of earning things by the sweat of your brow will "continue to pay dividends" because they'll understand the real value of money. What's more, they'll appreciate the bike or whatever else they wanted to get far, far more because of everything they had to do to earn it. "You can extrapolate those types of manufactured situations well into the teenage years of the child to help them stay grounded and give them as much real-world experience as you possibly can while still helping them and being a good supportive parent."

For entrepreneur Wolf, there can be no understanding of the true value of money without learning how it works. "Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is just cut their kids off financially give them the gift of struggling to have to figure life out for themselves. Personally, with my own kids I like to think of it as preparing them for the world," he opened up about his own parenting style, adding that he's afraid that if his children are handed everything, they'll be soft and unprepared for how tough real-life can be.

"In order for them to be prepared, they need to be strong, which means that they need to experience struggle, hunger, want, jealousy, and all the range of emotions that any kid from a poor family would have to go through. I want them to really have a deep empathy for the struggles that other human beings need to go through in order to survive on a daily basis and I truly believe that this can be done in a controlled environment where we are not neglecting our kids while giving them the most competitive edge in life spiritually, physically, mentally, and financially," Wolf said.

Jamie Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, told New York Magazine that well-off kids can stay inside their comfortable bubbles practically forever. “For rich children, it’d be very easy and convenient never to take any steps to build an identity outside of your association with your family’s wealth,” he said.

Johnson continued: “That, honestly, is I think what you see in my film more than anything else. That’s where those feelings of entitlement come from, that’s where you get the snobbery, that’s why those characters seem, at times, offensive.”

Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, a specialist in adult resilience and coping, argued in 1981 that childhood capacity for work is one of the best predictors of adult mental health and the capacity to love.