i was not referring to the thread about being a SAHM ffs
That's the one I was assuming - I hadn't seen the one about the lazy partner - yes he is a prize twat for thinking earning more entitles him to duck housework.
I honestly find it hard to believe that the people on these high salaries didn't come from a higher class than the impoverished working class.
This is one thing that really does need examining. Because you can do it. I grew up in a dirt poor mining town in a poor family where no one had ever been in further education. One thing I realised when I got to university was that those who had been to 'good' schools had a totally different set of expectations to me. Their families had just assumed they go to uni and enter a certain world. My school didn't give a toss. So that's a barrier, but it's one you can overcome. Interestingly, the people who did best on my course (a very demanding hard science double degree) were the state school kids, three of us, all from quite rough schools and very modest backgrounds.
I think expectations are not high enough in many schools but the kids aren't any smarter or dumber or higher or lower potential so how do we get those kids succeeding more?
And as for luck - I think luck applies across the board, rich or poor. As I said above, a friend who was lovely, smart and wealthy died very young. Shit luck really. That type of luck doesn't differentiate.
So it's kind of right and kind of wrong to say that someone from your background could never earn more. They could. It's further to go than someone with private schooling, contacts and money but people do it. Not enough do it, which is why we have such shit social mobility.
One final thing and that's the idea of internal vs external 'locus of control' - that means whether you think success is predominantly something you do yourself (internal) or somethinh mainly done to you (external.)
I know it's not as simple as that - there are always chance factors but in the main is the idea. People with an external sense of control have lower success because they think that no matter what they do they can't succeed.
I think a big part of the answer is getting that mindset into kids young. They CAN succeed, they can do it. They need to leave the instant gratification fame for no work reality TV shit and realise that hard graft is necessary for most decent jobs.
Then we need to get expectations and support in crap schools (and there are a lot of crap schools) up to the level we see in grammars and selectives. Imagine how much talent we are missing.