To think people underestimate impact of advantages

[brasty]

I think lots of people underestimate the impact of advantages in their life.
So having parents who value education and encourage you.
Having parents who find the best school for you.
Having loving parents who create a loving environment to grow up in.
Getting help with house deposits.
Having a parent who will help you out when things go wrong.

All or some of these things makes it so much easier to have a good life. Yet so many people underestimate the impact.

Oliversmumsarmy I don't think it's as simple as just handing out money to be spent on whatever. But for me it's the fact that money opens doors and that without it, certain doors remain very firmly shut.

For example, I work in an industry where a Masters degree is pretty much essential. I consider myself fairly privileged and my parents have always taken good care of me financially, but nevertheless it took me years to save up to do so that Masters. I had a part-time job the entire time that I was studying, and my dad was still giving me a little extra money to help get me through it.

So yes, I consider myself to have worked incredibly hard to have got that Masters and I am bloody proud of it. But I also know that if I hadn't had at least some support from my parents, I may not have been able to do it at all.

There are probably hundreds or even thousands of kids right now who would LOVE to do my job, but unless they can stump up the cash to do a Masters and support themselves through an additional year of full-time study after uni, then there's no way they'll ever get here.

The idea that a certain career is a no-go unless your parents have money is horrible and wrong. I'm doing my best to change things from within but sadly I think it will be a LONG time before anything meaningful changes.

Yes I've heard the same katymac - it costs roughly the same per child.

The royal kids go to a normal kindergarten (of the forest ones I think.) of course they have massively privileged lives in most other respects but they will go to a normal school all the way up.

Sweden isn't a utopia in any way at all - but the Nordic/Scandinavian countries seem to combine functioning economies with social justice in a way we could learn from.

YANBU but you can't just divide people in to "disadvantaged" and "advantaged". All the people on this thread who had bad parents or grew up poor, well at least they are in UK right, a safe Western nation. Someone else could have a health problem but be very slim and physically attractive. Someone could be poor but have a lot of friends.

Whenever someone says "xx doesn't realise how privileged they are", they are in turn not realising the privileges they have.

And there is a piece of research going on (currently still I think) that suggests that excellent nursery education can provide the most difference in outcomes for children & that investment in that is the most cost effective in improving the lives of the families involved.

It's a very simplistic argument OP. Most people who do well from underprivileged backgrounds do it because of determination, hard work, and. That's not a fluke or an advantage or luck - it's a deliberate method of thinking & can be learned by anyone if they open their minds a little to new possibilities.

it's a deliberate method of thinking & can be learned by anyone if they open their minds a little to new possibilities

Utter tosh. Some people can out run shitty circumstance, most cannot because there is very little room for any false steps or illness.

But people not from underprivileged backgrounds don't have to have learn a deliberate way of thinking. If the background is privileged enough, they don't need determination or to work hard, either.

I think that's the OP's point.

I know someone middle-aged who lives off inherited property and tapping his elderly mother. He's vicious to the tenants of his inherited properties, brags about cheating on his taxes, and considers himself a vastly superior being to poor people whom he calls scum.

I'm not sure he's ever held down a job in his life - frankly he's unemployable.

Yanbu OP.
I went to state school but now work in a job where some of my peers are sending their kids to private schools.
I was reading about the poor provision of wheelchairs on the NHS recently - 5 year waiting list! It said people were resorting to crowdfunding. How does that work if you don't have the contacts / network? It doesn't.
A better 'attitude' really can't help in so many circumstances as you've no safety net.

www.upworthy.com/a-short-comic-gives-the-simplest-most-perfect-explanation-of-privilege-ive-ever-seen

This cartoon really highlighted it to me.

Don't know how to fix it but do appreciate all the good things I have had.

Though not nearly as privelaged as Richard! Lol.

And this thread is working on the assumption that those people who make it are hard working, maybe with or without privilege. However, I have worked with/for some immensely wealthy people (multi-billionaires) and I wouldn't want a single one of them as a work colleague or boss. Their 'hard work' is my definition of grasping, power hungry, driven, arrogant, and abusive in how they speak to underlings.

I'm sure that there are people who are wealthy that aren't obnoxious, but those who work their way up to a high position are pretty ruthless and merciless. It's no surprise that poorer people give more proportionately than wealthier people. It's well documented that richer people hold on to their money far harder.

Yes the attitude up thread of 'why should I give my money to people who can't bothered to work' is typical.

I know a few people exactly like Richard in the above comic. They're nice enough people but seem completely unable to recognise that their six-figure salaries have anything to do with privilege. They just want to tell you that they 'worked hard' to get here and that anyone else could do it too if they really wanted. No recognition of the considerable leg-up they were given by going to private school and having parents pay to put them through uni and organising work experience at dad's mate's firm during the summer holidays. Or if they do recognise it, they still claim (as a PP did) that it's just all about having the right attitude and other people could do it too if they just had the right mindset.

Meanwhile someone working two jobs and struggling to make ends meet while also putting themselves through night school or doing OU just isn't trying hard enough, or hasn't found the right attitude yet.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of your success while also acknowledging that not everyone has the option to follow the same path as you did.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of your success while also acknowledging that not everyone has the option to follow the same path as you did."

This!

I was thinking of this yesterday when I read a newspaper article about someone I know who is CEO of a very successful growing company, employing hundreds of people. The article spoke of him being self made and how he was a successful entrepreneur at a very young age. Which is true. But at no point did it mention that he started his first company with family money, not out of thin air.

He is a good example of someone who has capitalised on the opportunities he has had, and who certainly deserves his success. But it's entirely misleading to imply, as this article did, that he is entirely self made.

I think when you have fewer advantages, some ordinary turns of bad luck can push you right down.
For example, I was burgled when I was single and working on a low wage. Working bloody hard though. I was able to borrow money from friends to get me through. Some people only know others like them who have nothing.

I was many years ago in London evicted because my landlord wanted to sell his house. It was before the deposit bond, and although there was no damage, I couldn't get the deposit back. And I could not get somewhere else without it. Someone at work knew someone who was renting out a room and did not need any deposit. Without that I could very easily have been homeless, and lost my job as a result.

It is small turns of luck or unlucky circumstances that can change everything. Having people who can help when ordinary things go wrong, makes all the difference. As a single childless person at the time, there was no official help available to me with either of these circumstances.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of your success while also acknowledging that not everyone has the option to follow the same path as you did

But there was nothing to stop any 17 year old childless person doing what I did which was walking into shops and cafes and asking if they needed anyone. And then working every hour in the day for a pittance but added together those pittances added up.

Olivers, except maybe anxiety. Or having been told all their lives they were too stupid to handle money. Or maybe they had responsibilities to care for an alcoholic parent which means they couldn't do shift work.....

Every single person in this world is a sum of their own personality and circumstances. There's so many many tiny things that make up a person and someone not being 'able' to do something may look like laziness or apathy to the outside world but to get to that 'laziness', something has happened to them. Bad parenting? Being put down as a child every time they tried to do something? Getting in with the wrong crowd at school, getting expelled and considering themselves useless and a disappointment ever since?

I think it's best not to judge anyone as the things people do or don't do are because of a massive combination of things.

But there was nothing to stop any 17 year old childless person doing what I did which was walking into shops and cafes and asking if they needed anyone. And then working every hour in the day for a pittance but added together those pittances added up.

You're assuming that there are shops and cafes in their area to begin with. And that one of them will have a vacancy. I remember ringing round every single shop and cafe in my (fairly large) home town as an 18 year old and only one of them was willing to even let me come in and talk to them. Then I did and they offered me a few shifts. Which I worked. And then I didn't get paid. They assured me it was a mistake that would be sorted. So I worked a few more shifts, and didn't get paid. In the end I got a few pounds out of them despite having worked full time hours for a month.

Happened in my next job as a teenager too, I was mysteriously 'overlooked' when pay day came round.

Having lost both parents relatively young, I'm acutely aware of the advantages a supportive family gives. It's goddamn hard to exist and try to push your life forward without that. People don't understand, obviously other people sometimes have it harder and succeed despite that. Doesn't really help tbh.

Just makes you feel shit that despite your circumstances you haven't had the fortitude to do well. You are obviously defective.

God yes. There's obviously people who buck the trend either way. But hugely yes!!
My bil has done very well for himself and posts memes all over Facebook about 'it's all down to hard work'
'If you want something enough you'll work hard enough for it'
'For you've not got it you didn't work hard enough'

Oh fuck off, with your supportive parents, good education, family with a few quid and enough understanding of money to pass management of it onto their kids.
He's had a combination of timing, luck and good involved parents. Yes there's work involved but never hard!

I only realised in the past 10 years the advantages others had. Someone to sit and help with homework, someone engaged enough to do trips/ help you research school stuff.
Someone who could afford extra curricular stuff and to send you to uni. Enough understanding of the financial world to teach you it.

Let alone getting into the big bucks of house deposits private education etc.

It's having the basics, a stable home, engaged supportive parents, understanding you get one shot at education. No outside shit being dealt with at the wrong time e.g child sex abuse, bullying.

But then I watched that leaving care at 18 documentary on BBC last week. It's been something I've been vaguely aware of, but my word those young adults have it tough.
I was in an abusive relationship, was lucky enough to go back to my parents. they have to have their shit together by 21 or the funding stops. So no living at home for uni, no moving back home between placements. Hard hard life

But there was nothing to stop any 17 year old childless person doing what I did which was walking into shops and cafes and asking if they needed anyone.

Others have already listed numerous reasons which might indeed stop a 17-year-old from being able to do just that, so I won't repeat those. But also, times have changed and I think a lot of 17 year olds would struggle to find a cafe or shop willing to take on staff that young nowadays.

That also doesn't change the fact that if you're spending all your spare time during your teenage years working in a cafe, then you have less time for your studies and less time for the kinds of extra curricular stuff that unis love to see on their applications.

So no, you don't need a wealthy upbringing to succeed but it's hard to deny that such an upbringing makes certain things considerably easier. Why are people so determined to deny that?