Do rich people know that they have it better than a lot of other people?

[Deemarie11]

I just think this is really interesting Im in a book club. In the book club is the poshest man I've ever met. Let's call him alan. He has told me his back story. His father owns a massive, massive farm. His father is also a chief director of another organisation, at the same time.
Alan went to private school. Alan plays rugby. Alan has a good job.
He is a nice enough man. But what strikes me is he is always,always complaining about his life.
And his problems are so trivial - when I know myself and alot of other people in the book club, had a far, far worse life than he did. Yet he complains the most

For example, one time he was complaining about how his father didn't help him get a job, when other peoples parents help them to get a job.

I was thinking "I didn't have a father at all", but I didn't say it. My father walked out on us when I was 3 and had nothing to do with me. I bit my tongue!

Next week Alan was complaining about the private school that he went to.

I was thinking "I grew up in total poverty, I cant feel like shedding a tear about your private school".

I don't know. He just doesn't seem to realise that he had a better life than most people I know .

Maybe really privileged people are not aware of how privileged they are? As it is all they have ever known? But surely you would know that you are better off than other people.

Maybe he just doesn't care. ?

Why shouldn't he get to complain just like everyone else? It's all relative

There’s no evidence everyone else is complaining. If the OP’s post had been “I mentioned my father left when I was three and nobody in my book group wanted to know and in fact one of them said I must have a chip on my shoulder” what would you have said? @undernotover

It's not silencing OP at all, it's reminding OP that everyone is allowed to moan even if she had it worse by comparison. OP is the one trying to silence people by saying privileged people can't complain.

That's not what's being said at all. Everyone can have a moan, but there's a time, a place, and a company to do it.

Moaning about your oh so tough life around people who have experienced genuine hardship is at best inconsiderate. If you don't know a person well enough to know their background I'd argue you shouldn't be moaning about your life to them at all. And if you do know them well enough you should know what sort of thing might be considered inappropriate/insensitive.

I am not in the U.K.

Why do people assume that everyone is? This is a global website.

Yes! Thank you

I was in a meeting recently where people complained that younger people were not as generous as older people, and as the older people were dying off it was getting harder to keep the charity running. I'm pleased to say the chair made a spirited defence of the pressures young people, especially those with families, can be under.

I was so cross at the entitlement of that older person, and their obliviousness to the comfort of their own position with a paid off mortgage and a pension.

#NotAllPensionersetc...

Older poor people are the most likely to give to charity.

It’s all relative to your environment, and your own frame of reference. He’s not you, he never lived your experiences in order to understand them as ‘worse’ than his, no more than you can understand his.

it’s also not a race to the bottom. The poorest in this country could be seen as whiny and privileged, relative to the poverty experienced by someone in South Sudan, yet I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate being told to check their privilege.

I am not in the U.K.

Where do you get that from, antelope?

I haven’t been involved in a few years, but it always used to be the case that older, higher socio-economic status and female were the demographic markers. Poorer people didn’t give or volunteer as often or as much.

Maybe his parents didn’t show him love or affection and this has messed him up. Being wealthy does not equate a happy upbringing.

In my experience most people are focused on their own problems and give little or no thought to the “relativity” to the problems of others. Nothing to do with privilege. And these days it seems people are more self righteously self important than ever.

@audeloquipalam Very poor social skills then.

Read it in an article in the Guardian. Older poor people give proportionately more of their income than anyone else. Well-off people may give a larger amount, but a much smaller proportion of their income.
It is the Widow

"Maybe really privileged people are not aware of how privileged they are? As it is all they have ever known? But surely you would know that you are better off than other people."

OP have you eaten today? Do you have access to drinking water? Do you have access to a flushing toilet? Do you sleep in a bed? Do you have electricity?

Aren't you aware how privileged you are? Cos it is all you have ever known? But surely you would know that you are better off than other people?

Maybe he just doesn't care. ?

• *Maybe you just don't care

Maybe he was trying to make himself more relatable in a slightly misguided way. People will,have assumed his parents will have helped him get a job and people will have assumed he had a wonderful privileged time at his posh school. So, maybe, he is just trying to point out what happened.

Having money makes lots of life's problems disappear but the thought that because some people have money they don't have things to complain about is ridiculous. I wish it were true but it isn't.

Money doesn't protect you from health issues, relationship issues, self esteem issues and MH issues.

I struggle with this too. I know objectively that mental health doesn't discriminate but it is difficult.

You have internet access, have the leisure time to join a book club, have had the opportunity to be educated so are literate and able to read, and you live where there are public libraries….so check your privilege.

It does. If you are part of an oppressed group or in poverty, you are at a higher risk of mental health problems.

FGS what is it with a race to the bottom these days?! People bursting with pride that they have it harder than others.

Having an unsupportive father can be crushing. Other people having no dads is not a comfort.

My DD is in private school and is being bullied terribly. It’s not as simple as private school = better and anyone who went should be glad they had a horrific experience.

Wanting to be in competition about having had the shittest time is a seriously unhealthy place to be in, and completely narrow minded to assume money means you should STFU about your experiences.

Princes William and Harry lost their mum in sudden and tragic circumstances as children and had to tolerate crying loons in their face in the days following. I certainly don’t think “Well at least she wasn’t poor” when I think of that

This
Being rich or growing up rich doesn’t mean that you can’t have some dreadful challenges and difficulties in your life

Being poor or growing up poor doesn’t mean you get to disregard everyone else’s struggles because yours are alway worse.

You keep saying this like it’s some sort of gotcha. I’ve read your other posts. You’re in Ireland. Everything posters are saying about you being more privileged than people in a lot of the world is still the case. Do you appreciate this?

It's interesting.

I used to teach at a school for children of the super-wealthy (in Russia. so mostly the children of oligarchs). And honesty, their lives were... not great. Yes, they had a lot of stuff. Yes, they could always pay the bills and they could afford some very cool experiences. But so many of them were just not happy people. A lot of older men married to younger women knowing that they were only in it for the money, a lot of dissatisfied young wives who knew they were disposable the second someone prettier came along. Kids who HATED their parents or didn't even know them. I had one student have a breakdown in class because her mother came back from Spain overnight and then left again for another country in the morning without waking her up or saying goodbye. There was an eight year old who lived alone in an apartment with paid servants - his parents didn't want to live with him. The saddest of all was the teenaged girl who just openly told me "I know my mother is a whore; I know she only married my dad for his money. So why should I listen to her?"

I remember meeting a very privileged old woman and her fifteen-year-old daughter. They had had horrible lives, very similar to the lives of my neighbours in one of the roughest parts of Dublin. The mother had married an older man at 16, the daughter had married a coke-head at 16. The mother had become an alcoholic. But all set in a world of nannies and chauffeurs.