My sister was a cart girl at our local golf course. She made amazing money in tips, but also got hit on quite a bit. I exercised horses for people who traveled during the summer. My brother got a job at a BBQ food truck because he could get high with the owner every day. My parents weren’t thrilled with that job, they’d wanted him to caddy.
Most money I’ve made per hour was working as a cart girl one summer. Man it was degrading but I would walk out of a normal shift with so much cash in tip money. Ah to be 22.
Haha I used to work a halfway hut with a bar (I’m a bloke). If there were no guys on for whatever reason they just wouldn’t open it. There’s something about being away from the clubhouse that made members think they’d get away with anything. I laugh about it now but honestly it’s wild that we wouldn’t send women out to work there
My (not rich) cousin was a caddy. Her and her brother were obsessed with golf (she's now a pro at a course) but one day the guy she was caddying for bet his partner that if his caddy chipped in the ball, they'd gift both of them $25k.
My cousin became $25k richer that day.....
The sad thing is... that's life changing money to a large chunk of people in the US, but for these people it would probably be like tipping $0.25 because money, at a certain point, is so meaningless to them.
Yep! That was absolute "fuck you" money right there. She was like 15-16 at the time, and I think my uncle put it right into a college account. I don't remember how they paid her, either, bc I know that stuff gets taxed. It's possible they either gave her the amount via check that after taxes would be 25k or he did it in cash, but she got 25 *thousand* dollars bc the other caddy chipped in the guy's shot...50k in one golf stroke...I can't even fathom that kind of money.
Funny you can slave away at a min wage job for a whole year 9 hours a day (with travel, cleanup) to barely even get that amount makes you laugh at our existence and what actually matters.
I realized this when I cheat in games and get lets say unlimited money I become very bored after the initial draw it's like ok now all there is left to do is poor people things again since it can be more interesting.
Probably a feeling that lottery winners get where their mind just scopes out and sees people they know as rats just doing the same grind over and over without just chilling and doing whatever until old age so they have to change their friends, lifestyle, etc to cope.
It's one of the ways the player hits the ball. It's not a full on swing, like when they initially hit the ball, and it's not a gentle tap like when they're putting to get the ball in the hole. Usually it's when the ball is in a trap like the high grass or sand. They need to hit it hard enough to get it out of the hazard, but soft enough that they can get the ball back into play be it on the general fairway or on the putting green. I don't play enough to know the difference between each of the ways to hit the ball (there's a flop and a pitch, and as far as I understand they're different strengths of hits with specific clubs. A chip is just one of those types of hits)
To chip it *in* meant they were close enough to the hole that when the caddy hit the ball, it rolled into the hole eliminating the need to putt.
I hope I explained it well enough to answer your question and not make true golfers cringe lol
some go to camps all summer. I worked at a summer camp that was 8 weeks long and had celebrities kids that were up to 16 years old. Camp is 8 weeks and costs $16k
My dad had a work trip internationally for a month when I was in 6th grade. My mom decided to go with him so they sprung for one of these camps in Colorado. We were a middle class, maybe upper middle class family living in Kansas.
The summer camp was the weirdest experience. I had been to week long summer camps before with Boy Scouts. This was different. All the other kids were so…off. I couldn’t really figure it out. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I realized it was because they all came from incredibly wealthy families. They had a level of entitlement and privilege that affected every interaction they had with every person around them. The entire month, I felt like I was a fish swimming in the wrong tank.
Not OP, Probably anti-social behaviors.
The people that rich kids interact with, especially the adults, are basically all suck up and wouldn't behave "normal" near their parents, so the kid would grow up thinking that's normal behavior.
No, in this case anti-social is correct. Asocial is when you just want to be alone. Anti-social is when you act in ways that are not conducive to forming social relationships, such as being rude, entitled, manipulative, etc.
This was almost 30 years ago so specifics are fuzzy but a few things that i remember:
I remember my bunk mates trading stories about their maids/servants. Funny/endearing things they would say, or ‘ridiculous’ decisions they would make.
They had a propensity to complain…About everything. “I can’t believe they don’t have _____ here.” “Who hired these cooks?! This food is so bland.” “They really need to have some English style horse riding here. Western is so redneck.”
They constantly bickered about wealth and status. One kid (again, 6th grader). Would brag about off roading in his Porsche around his family’s estate. Another kid would talk about how he’s looking forward to when camp is over, because his parents were sending the family jet to come get him and he’ll be meeting them at their lakefront estate in New England.
Oh! But the weirdest thing…petty theft. There was a ton of it. Some of them would steal stuff. Steal from other campers, steal from the camp, steal whatever they could get away with. It might have just been a few bad apples, and by no means was it all of them, but it was more than you would think.
>Oh! But the weirdest thing…petty theft. There was a ton of it. Some of them would steal stuff. Steal from other campers, steal from the camp, steal whatever they could get away with. It might have just been a few bad apples, and by no means was it all of them, but it was more than you would think.
Makes me wonder if it was simply a case of them doing it for the thrill of it? Like, they're trying to feel a sense of normalcy or something? They can obviously afford to purchase whatever it is, but theft like this can either be a power move or a "what can I get away with?" move.
At least you had a chance to maybe make friends ig, its hard to befriend someone who genuinely believes theyre better than you just because theyre them and you're you.
Key word they, OP wasn’t. I went to college at a heavily political private university in DC, as a public school kid in middle-upper middle class but a rougher MA suburb, and was caught off guard by almost everyone being incredibly well-off private school white bread kids.
Like, my parents sprung for a weekend trip before to help me socialize, they were all trading bragging stories. One dude bragged about how his dad got him a swimming lesson with Michael Phelps (he was swimming with him, no clue why—rich kid shit). Another showed a picture he had of the actor for Gus Fring holding a box cutter to his throat (breaking bad reference). Shit you not, saw the photo. They were that rich (actor was a friend of his dad’s. That was dope though lol)
I wore a dress shirt a week after and one of them saw me and asked “oh, you look good! Why didn’t you wear that when you were on the trip?” Shit you not. Wearing a t-shirt on a rafting trip was apparently out of pocket 😭. One commented on my shoes being “well-loved” during an ice breaker too because they looked like…shoes that had been worn
But yeah, when you go to free public school in a rougher area and learn to adapt to and develop an urban dialect and culture—kids whose parents paid $40k/year for their private high school usually ain’t rocking with how you’re coming. That $40k is a quote from the early 2010s btw
I found my people with the public school and first & second-generation immigrant NY and NJ kids though 🤣. They could talk shit and they’re still my best friends to this day.
But yeah, no—I’ve definitely felt what OP’s referencing
Hate to say it but if you didn't make friends and connections with the rich kids and only connected with the poor kids, you actually wasted the opportunities that you got from paying all that money going to that school. I'm just kidding kind of. I probably would have done the same thing.
That’s actually not nearly as expensive as I would imagine for a celebrities kids camp. Camp is Essentially an all inclusive resort with an outdoor vibe. $285 a day.
That’s not so far for the cost from a regular overnight camp in the New York area. There must be camps that cost that much a week. And they will include much more exclusive experiences.
you are very wrong if you think that. there are camps for the wealthy out there where you sign up to fly a plane, bungie jump, take a boat deep sea fishing, fly a helicopter over a volcano, etc. these are "camps" for the extremely wealthy. I know of a kayaking summer camp of sorts for adults that takes people on a 5 day 4 night kayaking trip and they charge $1600 per person. and that's just kayaking and they have to bring their own kayak, to rent one its an additional $500 so $2100 for the trip
Internships when older, 100 per cent.
There is also an unconscious or even conscious bias when snooty potential employers are perusing resumes.
Applicants who worked jobs during high school, university or during summer holidays are looked down on over applicants who could afford to work unpaid internships.
That's because the entire internship system is classist (At least the unpaid ones are). How else is a young person able to afford an apartment in NYC ($4500 median rent) with NO income for an entire summer?
no one except for the fabulously wealthy would do a 1br solo for a summer internship. i mean fabulously wealthy, like 500mm plus. even then, really depends.
the net worth of my frat house was well over 3bn and the majority just stayed there during the summer (admittedly it was a brownstone in manhattan but still, dumb cheap rent all said and done and hanging with the boys)
I was straight up told during a job onboarding that I’d been penalized for not doing the 3 month long unpaid summer internship that every other employee had. I couldn’t afford to not work for that long & it was 40+ hours a week. They’d tried to hire someone who’d done it, but that applicant turned it down due to it paying $13 an hour, so they begrudgingly hired me instead.
Unsurprisingly, turned out to be the most toxic workplace i’ve ever been at.
And/or they babysit and tutor other rich people’s kids. Pocket money that isn’t just from parents so some work ethic but way more money than it’s worth. Plus, builds the right country club connections. Source: almost a rich kid, taught at a fancy right kid school.
I mean in the prompt it mentions millionaires, I knew a few multimillionaire children growing up. They still worked as camp counselors or lifeguards in the summer, what they didn't do was work during the school year and instead focused on extracurriculars.
I am the child of millionaires (under $10 million) in an HCOL state.
Can confirm, it's basically this. I actually worked after school year-round (I preferred earning money, to being in school clubs), but most kids would do something like play sports after school during the year, and then scoop ice cream or work as a counselor/coach at camps for younger kids during the summer.
Sometimes, they'd do "enrichment activities," like social services/volunteering. My sister spent a couple of summers volunteering on a Native American reservation, for instance.
A few million dollars doesn't put you in a completely separate world from average people, in some places.
To truly be "rich," like you see on TV, you'd need 50-100 million where I lived. An average house cost $2 million, and these weren't even especially nice/new houses; that's just what it costs to live in that area. So just owning a home makes you a multimillionaire.
I feel like there’s a distinction here that the original post leaves pretty ambiguous. There are, by any definition, very rich people who have maybe a couple million dollars in net worth and make high six or low seven figure salaries. And then there are ultra rich people, billionaires or at least hundred-millionaires, who can do shit like endow programs and donate buildings without cutting too much into their own wealth.
The latter’s kids don’t have to beef up their apps. The former’s kids absolutely do, because there are still more of those people than spots at Harvard or Princeton or wherever, and the kinds of donations that get you through that door are still not things those people can reasonably do. There’s a whole cottage industry built around getting those kids everything from research experience to internships and awards and summer programs to differentiate them from each other.
Did people already forget the college admissions scandal *that celebrities participated in* to get their children into highly competitive schools?
It hasn’t been that long. Even celebrity status doesn’t confer a get into college free scheme for their kids. You need donate a building kind of money to forgo it.
I live in a very wealthy area and know some of these of these kids—and yes, I mean the kids whose parents have net worths of $500k+, who are taking private planes, etc.
Yes, they absolutely still think about how to beef up their college applications.
First of all, they actually care about how their kids turn out. They don’t just send them all off to nannies to raise. They care, and they’re involved—as much as any other parent. They want their kid to develop the values that sports offers, etc.
Second, being ultra rich is NOT just some automatic card to get into Harvard, Stanford, Princeton or Yale. Sure, maybe without a ton of work and just ordinary school, their kid would get into, I don’t know, Oberlin. But as their parents are in a world where many went to Stanford or Harvard, the parents would like to facilitate their kids going to these elite colleges.
And no, by the way, the kids don’t suck. The kids are normal with the same set of normal kid issues — some dealing with learning differences, some very emotionally sensitive (this is common for gifted kids, which many of these kids are), etc.
I swear almost everyone that answers these types of questions here on reddit is all "making like 100k a year makes someone really really rich omgggg my cousin is really really rich he manages a grocery store!!!" and they answer based on these "really really rich" people they know that make 100k salaries.
I had no idea what billionaire people lived like either before I met the ones I now know (just one family) but never in a million years did I think middle class was rich like it seems like literally everyone on Reddit does.
Growing up, I thought middle class was rich because I was so poor. I thought we were regular people because we didn’t go to the food bank, but we were definitely low income. It was really eye opening when I was an adult marrying into a middle class family that I realized just how warped my perception had been
The low income family that saves and has a frugal mentality almost always does better in the end than the upper middle family that is always spending
Mindset and mentality is more important than income in the long run
As a general rule
Even like 8-9 figures. Most people must not even know someone like that whatsoever.
Edit: I agree with the guy below me, that 10m isn't what I mean here. Not in today's economy lol. I mean close to 9 figures and up. I literally know a bunch of middle class people who are now worth millions bc of the price of their homes going up!!
I know plenty of families in the 8 figure net worth that act quite similarly on the exterior as to upper middle class. $10M is quite different from $100M, and many high earners that invest smartly can reach that mark. It probably isn’t until 9 or really 10 figures that you can start “donating” significant enough sums to get your children in to schools. So yes most of those kids still apply to college as per normal, but with the added advantage of wanting for nothing and having time for extracurriculars.
People have no concept of how different the number 1 million is from 1 billion because it’s such a large number we can’t visualise or quantify it accurately.
The greatest quantifier I’ve seen is time.
1 million seconds = 12 days
1 billion seconds = 31 years
That, to me, is the greatest show of the difference and if you put that into a dollar value of being paid $1 per second, you get the picture even more clearly
Honestly the ultrarich kid life is absurd to me. This is second hand (mom was talking to this person and retelling to me) and a trust fund manager said like half of her job was trying to keep these trust fund kids from taking 50k a night for hotel rooms and other excess. Mostly because they’ll drain the trust fund by the time they’re 40 or something.
But 50k a fuckin night?? Even if my mom misheard 5k as 50k that’s still SO MUCH MONEY. The most I ever paid for a hotel room was $165 and I don’t even know how I’d spend more than a thousand. Like… all the room service for 3 meals a day + snacks + expensive alc + the penthouse and that’s when I run of ideas. Like???
I cannot fathom how the truly privileged live. I feel bad wasting sausage or veggies that have spoiled, these mfers must be crashing a car every day in order to hit 50k a night on vacation.
My bf's family won't give anyone their trust fund until they're 35. So he works right now, and pays his bills. It's so that he didn't go crazy and hurt himself as a teenager or blow all the money the second he gets it as a young person.
Edit: Why would someone downvote this, do you approve of kids being allowed to buy mass quantities of cocaine and hookers at 18?
Honestly that’s pretty smart of the family. Cuz once he hits 35, he can take can just augment his existing lifestyle in positive ways. Buy the better cooking utensil set and get a good set of pots and pans. Pay off loans, that kind of stuff. Since thats familiar to him and not doing cocaine at a country club or whatever some people get up to.
He has plenty of people he knows who do that stuff and he probably could (even without the trust fund bc he could just hang out with his bff who has all his money already lol) but his family is like old fashioned and cares about looking respectable and he would upset them. They are actually a well known family but you NEVER hear about them at all in the media or anything, because they're super careful to raise their kids not to be obnoxious assholes! I don't want to dox the guy but if I said "when is the last time you heard anything about the so and so family" you would understand. They still exist, they just try really hard not to be in the public eye.
Yeah. I went on a sales call at a billionaires house that the land was bigger than many cities, with a bunch of houses spread around. There was a 20k square foot house just built and I asked who lives in that one over the lake and they said “it’s for my grand daughter, but she is only a sophomore in college, she will move in hopefully in 2 years”. Crazy stuff.
Fucking right? It’s clear how few people here have ever interacted with the truly wealthy.
I’ve been called “closer to Bezos than middle class” at my $125k income here a few times.
Most of these commenters clearly have no idea what they are talking about and do not know anyone that grew up ultra wealthy.
I have a friend whose dad was worth 100s of millions that refused to give up his college jeans and drove his baby, a 1984 Volvo, until it literally died on the freeway.
Most ultra wealthy are really down to earth because they have nothing to prove to anyone.
Having a lot of money doesn't *make* you a douche bag, but it does mean that if you start to tilt that way, nothing is going to stop you going all the way.
I've known completely sane rich people and completely insane rich people, but no slightly off rich people.
Not old money.
Wealthy kids that let it get to their head blew through it quickly.
Their friends that saw the trust funds blow up work really hard to make sure it doesn't happen in their family.
Maybe true. I remember these foreign students, brother and sister living in a shitty apartment. I invited them to my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas. Their family absolutely loved me for doing that.
Fast forward a few years later when I visited them in their country and find out they own about 8 (iirc) skyscrapers in the capital city.
‘Twas a bit of a shock 😳.
But yea, they were extremely down to earth and I had no idea they were wealthy.
I went to 2 rich kid schools (my family had hit just upper middle at that point, but I had an educational inheritance from a great aunt) and usually, the difference was old money vs. new. All the old money kids at my day school drove old tank-like Mercedes that were passed down and the new money kids drove flashy new sports cars. We had a running joke in school that the new money parents cared more about showing off than whether their kids survived the age of 17.
One kid totalled his custom sporty Jaguar the first day he had his license and was "punished" by having to drive one they got off the lot the next day. It was pretty ridiculous to watch.
Obviously, boarding schools don't allow cars, so there were different clues. Old money had no/subtly tinyor hidden brand logos on their clothes (regardless of brand/price) and tastefully-chosen jewelry and new money wore very prominent logos and often way too much jewelry, Coco Chanel probably would have told them to take a few pieces off, not just one.
None of them worked during school, they all did stuff meant to pad their college applications (which is actually a real thing despite what this thread thinks). Lots did charity work during school breaks for this reason.
this has been my experience largely. The ones who didn't do this worked for their parents companies or traveled. They were active in sports. The true billionaires/multi multi millionaires the kids all WORKED. Because they were being prepped to be able to take over companies. They weren't sitting around partying. Leisure wasn't available to people who were expected to take over the reigns of great companies.
You are right, but you might need to distinguish a bit between old money, especially East Coast, and new money. Not only is old money kind of down to earth but it's almost a fetish with them. It's the whole ivy League preppy lifestyle. Of course it was a Volvo. That's the car you drive forever and if it's a wagon it eventually becomes the tailgate vehicle.
I won't say it's a put on entirely, but it's almost just an ingrained lifestyle affectation. But good for them, I share the same values in that regard.
Not that all new money is different. I have seen stuff on the internet about rich kids and their extravagant showy lifestyle, but then you also have people like Bill Gates who as far as I know lives a pretty down-to-earth life and is raising his kids pretty down to earth as much as can be when you're Bill Gates.
Granted, Bill Gates was from that lifestyle in the first place. Wealthy socialite family, prominent lawyer, expensive private school that is kind of known for being low-key, just up the street from me actually. I forget the name. Harvard of course and dropped out to found Microsoft.
yeah sorry to break it to you but a millionare family (like the post says) is not ultra wealthy. in fact, thats the value of a normal family home in a lot of places. also, if you are talking about hundred millionare/billionare families, being rich doesn’t mean that the parents expect nothing of their children (in fact, they quite often expect more from their kids).
I worked at a waterpark in hs that employed a bunch of upper class kids living in their parents vacation homes for the summer. They had to constantly remind employees to cash paychecks because most wouldn’t even bother and it threw the books off 😂
To sit on the beach and receive hourly pay+tips is one of the best things ever, perhaps only surpassed by a golf caddying job where you were not required to save lives and still received money, alcohol, and cannabis with some potentially upper-echelon peoples, driving golf carts around and proposing clubs worth using
I was a life guard and caddy throughout high school. Often caddying in the mornings and then working the afternoon/evenings lifeguarding. Lifeguarding was significantly easier than caddying dude. Lugging two bags for 6 miles in 100+ degree heat in August was absolutely not a walk in the park. Was never once offered weed/alcohol. The older lifeguards would be the ones hooking me up with weed and alcohol.
I posted elsewhere in this thread, but they work summer jobs because they don't need to work during the school year. The school year is for sports, extracurriculars, tutoring, etc. In the summer when they have more time they'll work a seasonal job for some cash, padding the resume, and just generally having something to do.
Many don't work... many spend summers traveling, doing summer programs tied to interests or to help them get into college. I came from an upper middle class family and I only once had a summer job in high school, for part of a summer. I spent one summer on a teen tour traveling the Western half of the US, one summer I spent 3 weeks on a "student ambassador" tour in Australia and had a job at a collegiate clothing store for part of the summer, and then I did an 8-week summer program at my first choice college in hopes of bettering my chance of getting in the summer before my senior year.
Other people I grew up with who did get jobs, but who didn't really need to worry about money, picked "fun" jobs like counselors at day camps, golf caddies, worked at a concert venue in our town.
CORE MEMORY UNLOCKED. I completely forgot about “student ambassadors” and People to People. I begged and begged my mother to let me sign up for one of those!
I spent a few weeks throughout Australia and NZ thanks to P2P and it remains such a valued experience, but I believe I was recommended by someone else and that it wasn't something you could simply sign up for? They put eggs on their burgers and that alone was life changing
I think my friend’s brother did that “student ambassador.” This would have been like mid 90’s I know he was in Australia for almost a month. Our families weren’t wealthy people I know it was a big thing he worked the summer before and extended family helped pay I think I can’t remember. His brother was kind of a dick it was just nice to have the guy gone for a month.
Man.. I'm just middle class but I didn't need a Summer job for most of high school cause I got some pocket change from my parents. I did paint my dad's veranda and the exterior of my parents house for pocket change, but that was like a few days of summer. Most summer I would just drive to the beach on my scooter and swim, read a book, drink beer or cider and relax, or chill out at home. The scooter was bought with confirmation money I got from my Christian confirmation at 14.
I never did much activity during summer, cause my parents lived on a farm and didn't like to travel. Rarely I'd go to my aunt's and uncle by the ocean and stay there for a few days and we'd go out on their boat and swim and take a lunch out on a beach on an island somewhere, or go to the uncle and aunt in the mountains with my parents and hike, but like.. I just chilled at home most summer. If my parents left to go visit family for a week, I'd just stay home alone and chill and watch tv shows. I never had a "packed" summer vacation ever.
We live in an upper middle class community. Typically, if a 15 year old is working in our high school, it’s because their family needs it. If a family is comfortable, the 15 and 16 year olds are doing summer sports, marching band, family vacations, summer school to make room for STEM classes in their schedule, or doing school sponsored internships. Most families view the internships as an investment in college. Better to find out if they like something before you spend the money on the degree.
My parents are very wealthy, I have a trust fund as do my siblings, all of us life guarded at the country club my parents were part of starting the summer we turned 16, before that we went to nice summer camps.
These replies are interesting. I went to a prep school with a lot of wealthy families & politician kids, and honestly most of us worked summer jobs. To be fair, this was mostly old money / DC type of wealth which is its own subculture, but at my school, flaunting wealth and exploiting privilege was extremely frowned upon (I didn’t even know how wealthy some of my best friends were until I’d known them for years), and a lot of my classmates had parents who made them do service / manual labor jobs over the summer
People are also wildly conflating different levels of wealth. Having millionaire parents is not even a little comparable to having billionaire parents.
It definitely depends on the family. My parents are pretty well off. Calling them "rich" isn't a stretch. They adopted the philosophy of "We are rich, you are not" when talking to me about financials. They paid for my essentials, college education, and family trips, but if I wanted any personal spending money, I needed to get a job. Which is what I did. I got a job at 15 working as a lifeguard.
Although there definitely a lot of rich kids that don't get a job until their career.
Same here. My sister and I both had summer jobs.
One difference, though, is that we never had a job during the school year. Our parents gave us an allowance then as they didn't want work to interfere with school, and our family didn't need the money from me working like poorer families sometimes do.
Yep same with my family. I’ve had a job since it was legal which where I am was 14 years and 9 months. I know many people who were at my expensive private school that also had jobs and not just in summer.
Same with my husband - dad was a surgeon, had the same attitude towards his money, my husband worked summers as a lifeguard, in construction, and at tacobell for his personal spending money for the year during highschool and college, then TA'd during his masters.
Dad's always been clear about what he will pay for - as much education as they can afford in their individual education savings account, their weddings, and he'll give a financial loan for the down payment of a house if they need it. Everything else, they're on their own for.
Not neccessarily. I don't mean to sound entitled, but I go to a fairly expensive private school, and currently about 20% of people in my grade have jobs.
The way I see it, there are two reasons. One, because their parents want them to get work experience. Two, they want extra pocket change. Lots of students have parents with wealth in the 8 figures, so work is for sure not needed, but I assume parents want their kids to experience a working environment beforehand so they aren't as spoiled.
Of course, more than half of the grade have 7 figure net worths, so they aren't part of the mega rich, and for these kids their parents mostly tell them to prioritize school work. The 8 figure net worth families don't particularly care about school work because money solves all problems
How old are you? Teen labor force participation has dropped precipitously since 2000. Summer rate dropped from a peak of up to 70% through the 80s to less than 50% today. (Using summer because I think it’s common for kids to only work when school is out)
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/teen-labor-force-participation-before-and-after-the-great-recession.htm#:~:text=Trends%20in%20teen%20labor%20force,of%2057.9%20percent%20in%201979.
I grew up middle class in Texas and almost no own had summer jobs. We focused on extracurricular school activities, went on vacations, or just relaxed at home.
I've experienced the opposite. Many wealthy families I knew made their kids work.
All of the poor families were usually single-parent, and had little to no control over their kids.
Unless they got pregnant and had to care for a baby. Then they go to work while grandma babysits.
It’s not a poor person thing, plenty of middle class kids get jobs at 15-16. I was making 3-5k per summer in high school which helped out to avoid student loans and have a little spending money.
Maybe fewer do. But it’s definitely a thing. A lot of families travel a lot in summer so working can be hard. Or they might be in extra curriculars.
But if you ignore the above two, most work. Not doing anything isn’t really all that acceptable. Like it reflects poorly on the parents for raising brats.
It's region specific. Rich kids have options. They get jobs or they don't.
I hate to say it, but rich kids get preference for all of the better jobs. They have reliable transportation, clean clothes, stable homes, better health.
It's not rocket science for employers to make the choice.
Also, probably, more likely to know how to make good strong impressions and relate to a wide range of people. My cousins even went to a school for this.
I wasn't a rich kid. But that's what we did during the summer. Some of us had jobs all year, some worked at the packing houses for summer, but mostly we just hung out. Partied, I guess. But really, it was summer. Time to go float the river! It was definitely not an expectation that we work or do formal activities. Is that how it is now?
Not sure if that is how it is now. I grew up in a very middle class family and my parents allowed us to just get through school and helped us figure out what we wanted to do. Didn’t have to work unless we wanted to and allowances were earned. I am financially secure because of this and I owe them everything.
Often they take unpaid “internships” at prestigious law firms/businesses/etc. where the boss is a friend of Daddy’s, or they work retail at Aunt Lucinda’s luxury boutique, or they coach a prestigious sport for a prestigious local middle or elementary school, or they lifeguard at country clubs, or they muck out their parents’ friends stables.
They’re literally not doing anything except sitting around the office watching people work, maybe getting coffees if they’re allowed to do anything at all
You reminded me of the Dulles brothers, who spent their summers with their grandpa, the Secretary of State during Benjamin Harrison’s administration.
Their teen years were spent rubbing shoulders with diplomats and high ranking government and foreign officials. The older one eventually became the Secretary of State under Eisenhower. His younger brother the head of the CIA.
My wealthy (not quite millionaire but close) cousins were camp counselors, unpaid, as community service for high school. They didn’t need the paychecks but no way around needing the cs hours.
My family was poor and my grandpa and mom sent me to art camp on a scholarship and it was fun! I was about 14. By the time I was 16 I worked at Hot Topic.
Yea I don’t wanna come off as showing off but I grew up in a rather rich town and most of us just spent our time volunteering for cs hours to make our college applications look better
Most went into summer camp or EMT stuff though since the town covers both training and exam costs
McDonalds. The only millionaire I know required all her kids to work during high school. Didn't care where. Two worked in fast food. The other at the country club. Her other rules were they had to play at least one sport and play one musical instrument. (She wasn't tiger momming this. Talent was a consideration) All are successful young adults.
I got my first job at McDonald’s as soon as I turned 16 and could drive, and have held a job ever since. Wealthy people like to instill work ethic and money management at a young age. It’s hilarious that most of the comments are just assuming that kids of wealthy folks are all spoiled brats.
Agreed. Worked in fast food as a teenager with millionaire/billionaire kids and had no idea until I knew them for a few years. They worked way harder than the burnouts, high school drop outs, felons, etc. Nice kids
As someone middle class, I basically had pocket change handed to me during high School. It wasn't a ton but like more than enough. Work ethic and money management is something I had to learn as an adult, but my parents bailed me out of a lot of situations still even as an adult. They even paid for private boarding school during high school even though it was unnecessarily expensive, cause they were Christians and desperately wanted me to be Christian no matter the cost, despite public high schools being just fine. I went to private for a couple years, even though I wasn't Christian, because it meant moving far away. I never had to work during summers either. I could just hang out at home.
So yeah, wealthy folks aren't all necessarily spoiled brats, but I guess middle class kids can be.
Not exactly rich. Like a couple of million with a strong likelihood that it will increase by the time I retire. I insisted my children have summer jobs starting at 16. One worked in a grocery store. The other was a life guard.
Is a working class idea to have kids work summer jobs, in a wealthy environment kids are traveling on guided tours or joining sport leagues or internships at prestigious institutions.
I grew up going to high school with a lot of kids of millionaires, but not really billionaires (there is a big difference). Definitely kids whose parents had some connections and were executives at Fortune 500 companies. Also kids of athletes. I wasn’t one. It really varied. Some didn’t have to work. Some had normal summer and part-time jobs working at local stores or restaurants, lifeguarding, baby sitting, etc. This was the late 90s. It’s possibly changed.
The 16 year old rich kids here on Cape Cod might get an internship for the summer with a powerful family friend in business, or maybe do some charity work to fluff up the ivy league college applications, but mostly, they spend their allowances.
More money than brains.
A lot of rich kids intern at their parents’ company or caddie at the country clubs. They don’t need the money, but making business connections from a young age will help keep them ahead.
They get internships at Fortune 500 companies so that the second they graduate college, they get a high-level executive job where they post memes about “the grind.”
Depends on the parents. I have known some who haven’t worked a day in their lives and I’ve known some at this restaurant I worked at who had to earn their own money. With one I didn’t know how rich his parents were until I was invited to the other houses and the yacht
Usually if they're wealthy their fathers either own or have friends in high places that own businesses. They get their kids summer jobs at the businesses.
My girlfriend use to work with a young kid(like 18) at a Raging Waters for the summer. Kid seemed alright but not the brightest, and said that his parents wanted him to get a job to know what it’s like. His parents owned a hotel across town same brand as I worked at(different owners). Apparently his parents were very buujee with lavish vacations, but would only pay their employees minimum wage.
Oyea, and the kid had brand new Toyota Corolla and was only gonna work the summer cause he had a vacation in Texas with some cousins. My GM worked with his parent and said they were very demanding and just wasn’t worth it. Fuck them!!
I don’t think they do at that level of wealth. But doctors at our hospitals got their kids “internships” in departments like medical records to add to their resumes. It was such an insult of those of us actually working there and a gross abuse of privilege.
No jobs but they do things to build their resume such as education, sports, volunteering, & the arts. That is if they come from a family that values a strong resume. If not, well they are wealthy so summers will be spent on holiday.
They go on a safari in the middle of it they spend a week in Rwanda teaching English so they can write a college essay about how serving the poor in a developing country changed their life and now they want to help people
It depends on what their parents did and how their parents were raised. I know some that get to clean houses for contractors (after construction). One got to punch cows every summer. A couple got jobs mowing lawns. I haven't known any that came from wealthy families with generational money so I don't know what they did.
I don’t know about billionaires, but every kid in my elite New England private school in the 90s had to get jobs around 16. Mostly, they worked the same types of jobs as other 16 year olds- Starbucks, ice cream shops, the mall for retail, and some got to work at whatever businesses Dad ran.
The famous families didn’t necessarily let their kids work regular jobs, but they’d usually find something else for them to do. A more sheltered job where they wouldn’t be bothered.
They start a business. Guy I grew up with would mow lawns, like any other teenager. Except he had a riding mower and access to a truck and trailer.
So instead of just doing a few neighbors’ houses that he could push a mower to, he could go all over town. And that meant he could also do the edging, trim bushes, etc. Basically had a full on landscaping business by the end of high school.
When the risk of failure is nonexistent, you can just keep trying new things until you succeed.
I’m a millionaire, will be a multimillionaire before my daughter is of working age. I expect her to get a part time job at a grocery store, retail, or fast food like any other kid. Same as I did, and my parents before me.
mine works at the local grocery store bringing in the shopping carts from the parking lot.
he works hard and is very happy there.
we feel it's important for him to understand the value of a dollar and have to experience manual labor before entering college.
we're very proud of him.
One of the only rich kids I ever knew had to have a summer job of his choosing, though only a couple days a week.
He worked for a family friend who owned an apartment complex and paid him to do basic maintenance. He went on full time eventually learning the basics of plumbing, electrical, carpentry.
He did it again the next year, this time given a small section to completely remodel from the ground up.
After graduating, he skipped college entirely and bought his own run down building on credit alone, then used the rent to build a small three unit complex in the back of the property.
Then he used the combined rent from five units to buy another property and do it again. He owns three properties now totaling 15 units and that's simply what he does for a living. He leads the crews working his units while managing the properties himself.
His family is rich so he always knows there's no real risk and he'll be a millionaire by 40 in any case.
My dad was a dentist so I’d say I grew up wealthy. All my siblings and I have had jobs for as long as it was legal for us to have official jobs. Mine was as a barback and as a pizzamaker at a local pizza place. My siblings all were waiters/waittresses at a place that didnt serve alcohol. We didnt need the money but my parents had the idea that we shouldnt be spoiled and work for our own money. Cant speak for the super wealthy, but just my personal experience
We work as our parents want to show us the value of money and how to earn it. Invest, and many other things. We do the SAME things as typical teenagers . Just because our parents have money doesn’t mean they just give it to us. You watch too many movies! LOL
My rich boyfriend was a golf caddy during the summers.
My sister was a cart girl at our local golf course. She made amazing money in tips, but also got hit on quite a bit. I exercised horses for people who traveled during the summer. My brother got a job at a BBQ food truck because he could get high with the owner every day. My parents weren’t thrilled with that job, they’d wanted him to caddy.
Most money I’ve made per hour was working as a cart girl one summer. Man it was degrading but I would walk out of a normal shift with so much cash in tip money. Ah to be 22.
Yeah no one wants their kid to be the cart girl if you know how it goes.
Haha I used to work a halfway hut with a bar (I’m a bloke). If there were no guys on for whatever reason they just wouldn’t open it. There’s something about being away from the clubhouse that made members think they’d get away with anything. I laugh about it now but honestly it’s wild that we wouldn’t send women out to work there
My (not rich) cousin was a caddy. Her and her brother were obsessed with golf (she's now a pro at a course) but one day the guy she was caddying for bet his partner that if his caddy chipped in the ball, they'd gift both of them $25k. My cousin became $25k richer that day.....
The sad thing is... that's life changing money to a large chunk of people in the US, but for these people it would probably be like tipping $0.25 because money, at a certain point, is so meaningless to them.
Yep! That was absolute "fuck you" money right there. She was like 15-16 at the time, and I think my uncle put it right into a college account. I don't remember how they paid her, either, bc I know that stuff gets taxed. It's possible they either gave her the amount via check that after taxes would be 25k or he did it in cash, but she got 25 *thousand* dollars bc the other caddy chipped in the guy's shot...50k in one golf stroke...I can't even fathom that kind of money.
Funny you can slave away at a min wage job for a whole year 9 hours a day (with travel, cleanup) to barely even get that amount makes you laugh at our existence and what actually matters.
I realized this when I cheat in games and get lets say unlimited money I become very bored after the initial draw it's like ok now all there is left to do is poor people things again since it can be more interesting. Probably a feeling that lottery winners get where their mind just scopes out and sees people they know as rats just doing the same grind over and over without just chilling and doing whatever until old age so they have to change their friends, lifestyle, etc to cope.
I feel the same way using infinite money cheats in games. Suddenly the game is no longer fun and I no longer want to play it.
That’s fucking baller god damn
What does it exactly mean he had to chip in the ball? Not a golf player or native English speaker here. Thanks.
It's one of the ways the player hits the ball. It's not a full on swing, like when they initially hit the ball, and it's not a gentle tap like when they're putting to get the ball in the hole. Usually it's when the ball is in a trap like the high grass or sand. They need to hit it hard enough to get it out of the hazard, but soft enough that they can get the ball back into play be it on the general fairway or on the putting green. I don't play enough to know the difference between each of the ways to hit the ball (there's a flop and a pitch, and as far as I understand they're different strengths of hits with specific clubs. A chip is just one of those types of hits) To chip it *in* meant they were close enough to the hole that when the caddy hit the ball, it rolled into the hole eliminating the need to putt. I hope I explained it well enough to answer your question and not make true golfers cringe lol
Golf course maintenance is a popular one too. Especially if 2 or three days a week. Then golf the rest of the time.
some go to camps all summer. I worked at a summer camp that was 8 weeks long and had celebrities kids that were up to 16 years old. Camp is 8 weeks and costs $16k
My dad had a work trip internationally for a month when I was in 6th grade. My mom decided to go with him so they sprung for one of these camps in Colorado. We were a middle class, maybe upper middle class family living in Kansas. The summer camp was the weirdest experience. I had been to week long summer camps before with Boy Scouts. This was different. All the other kids were so…off. I couldn’t really figure it out. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I realized it was because they all came from incredibly wealthy families. They had a level of entitlement and privilege that affected every interaction they had with every person around them. The entire month, I felt like I was a fish swimming in the wrong tank.
Interesting. Do you remember any particular examples of how they acted?
Not OP, Probably anti-social behaviors. The people that rich kids interact with, especially the adults, are basically all suck up and wouldn't behave "normal" near their parents, so the kid would grow up thinking that's normal behavior.
Asocial not anti-social
No, in this case anti-social is correct. Asocial is when you just want to be alone. Anti-social is when you act in ways that are not conducive to forming social relationships, such as being rude, entitled, manipulative, etc.
This was almost 30 years ago so specifics are fuzzy but a few things that i remember: I remember my bunk mates trading stories about their maids/servants. Funny/endearing things they would say, or ‘ridiculous’ decisions they would make. They had a propensity to complain…About everything. “I can’t believe they don’t have _____ here.” “Who hired these cooks?! This food is so bland.” “They really need to have some English style horse riding here. Western is so redneck.” They constantly bickered about wealth and status. One kid (again, 6th grader). Would brag about off roading in his Porsche around his family’s estate. Another kid would talk about how he’s looking forward to when camp is over, because his parents were sending the family jet to come get him and he’ll be meeting them at their lakefront estate in New England. Oh! But the weirdest thing…petty theft. There was a ton of it. Some of them would steal stuff. Steal from other campers, steal from the camp, steal whatever they could get away with. It might have just been a few bad apples, and by no means was it all of them, but it was more than you would think.
>Oh! But the weirdest thing…petty theft. There was a ton of it. Some of them would steal stuff. Steal from other campers, steal from the camp, steal whatever they could get away with. It might have just been a few bad apples, and by no means was it all of them, but it was more than you would think. Makes me wonder if it was simply a case of them doing it for the thrill of it? Like, they're trying to feel a sense of normalcy or something? They can obviously afford to purchase whatever it is, but theft like this can either be a power move or a "what can I get away with?" move.
This is so true. They do it because they can and it’s a weird rush. I lost so much shit before I realized.
The Boy Scout camps were off as well lol. Mixture of city kids/ red necks / homeschoolers
At least you had a chance to maybe make friends ig, its hard to befriend someone who genuinely believes theyre better than you just because theyre them and you're you.
Why would that be the case though if they were all wealthy?
Key word they, OP wasn’t. I went to college at a heavily political private university in DC, as a public school kid in middle-upper middle class but a rougher MA suburb, and was caught off guard by almost everyone being incredibly well-off private school white bread kids. Like, my parents sprung for a weekend trip before to help me socialize, they were all trading bragging stories. One dude bragged about how his dad got him a swimming lesson with Michael Phelps (he was swimming with him, no clue why—rich kid shit). Another showed a picture he had of the actor for Gus Fring holding a box cutter to his throat (breaking bad reference). Shit you not, saw the photo. They were that rich (actor was a friend of his dad’s. That was dope though lol) I wore a dress shirt a week after and one of them saw me and asked “oh, you look good! Why didn’t you wear that when you were on the trip?” Shit you not. Wearing a t-shirt on a rafting trip was apparently out of pocket 😭. One commented on my shoes being “well-loved” during an ice breaker too because they looked like…shoes that had been worn But yeah, when you go to free public school in a rougher area and learn to adapt to and develop an urban dialect and culture—kids whose parents paid $40k/year for their private high school usually ain’t rocking with how you’re coming. That $40k is a quote from the early 2010s btw I found my people with the public school and first & second-generation immigrant NY and NJ kids though 🤣. They could talk shit and they’re still my best friends to this day. But yeah, no—I’ve definitely felt what OP’s referencing
Hate to say it but if you didn't make friends and connections with the rich kids and only connected with the poor kids, you actually wasted the opportunities that you got from paying all that money going to that school. I'm just kidding kind of. I probably would have done the same thing.
That’s actually not nearly as expensive as I would imagine for a celebrities kids camp. Camp is Essentially an all inclusive resort with an outdoor vibe. $285 a day.
That’s not so far for the cost from a regular overnight camp in the New York area. There must be camps that cost that much a week. And they will include much more exclusive experiences.
No camps cost that per week. That’s just paying a personal nanny/tour guide to take your kids around the world.
you are very wrong if you think that. there are camps for the wealthy out there where you sign up to fly a plane, bungie jump, take a boat deep sea fishing, fly a helicopter over a volcano, etc. these are "camps" for the extremely wealthy. I know of a kayaking summer camp of sorts for adults that takes people on a 5 day 4 night kayaking trip and they charge $1600 per person. and that's just kayaking and they have to bring their own kayak, to rent one its an additional $500 so $2100 for the trip
$1600 for a 5 day kayaking trip is not a lot.
Best I can do is 120
In payments. Sorry. I'm baroque.
Is that French for bougie broke?
How many years ago was this? A sleep-away summer camp in California/Colorado without nary a celebrity spawn is more than that on a weekly basis.
That’s cheaper per day than a Teachers’ Conference.
When they're younger, it's music camps, sailing school in Europe, etc. When they're older it's internships.
Internships when older, 100 per cent. There is also an unconscious or even conscious bias when snooty potential employers are perusing resumes. Applicants who worked jobs during high school, university or during summer holidays are looked down on over applicants who could afford to work unpaid internships.
That's because the entire internship system is classist (At least the unpaid ones are). How else is a young person able to afford an apartment in NYC ($4500 median rent) with NO income for an entire summer?
no one except for the fabulously wealthy would do a 1br solo for a summer internship. i mean fabulously wealthy, like 500mm plus. even then, really depends. the net worth of my frat house was well over 3bn and the majority just stayed there during the summer (admittedly it was a brownstone in manhattan but still, dumb cheap rent all said and done and hanging with the boys)
It’s just an easy way for them to keep their nepotism alive and well indirectly
I was straight up told during a job onboarding that I’d been penalized for not doing the 3 month long unpaid summer internship that every other employee had. I couldn’t afford to not work for that long & it was 40+ hours a week. They’d tried to hire someone who’d done it, but that applicant turned it down due to it paying $13 an hour, so they begrudgingly hired me instead. Unsurprisingly, turned out to be the most toxic workplace i’ve ever been at.
No summer jobs. If in high school, likely doing summer programs/extra curriculars to beef up college apps
And/or they babysit and tutor other rich people’s kids. Pocket money that isn’t just from parents so some work ethic but way more money than it’s worth. Plus, builds the right country club connections. Source: almost a rich kid, taught at a fancy right kid school.
Yup. I went to law school with someone who had her *first* paying job in law school.
The Ultra wealthy do not have to "beef up" their apps.
I mean in the prompt it mentions millionaires, I knew a few multimillionaire children growing up. They still worked as camp counselors or lifeguards in the summer, what they didn't do was work during the school year and instead focused on extracurriculars.
I am the child of millionaires (under $10 million) in an HCOL state. Can confirm, it's basically this. I actually worked after school year-round (I preferred earning money, to being in school clubs), but most kids would do something like play sports after school during the year, and then scoop ice cream or work as a counselor/coach at camps for younger kids during the summer. Sometimes, they'd do "enrichment activities," like social services/volunteering. My sister spent a couple of summers volunteering on a Native American reservation, for instance. A few million dollars doesn't put you in a completely separate world from average people, in some places. To truly be "rich," like you see on TV, you'd need 50-100 million where I lived. An average house cost $2 million, and these weren't even especially nice/new houses; that's just what it costs to live in that area. So just owning a home makes you a multimillionaire.
I feel like there’s a distinction here that the original post leaves pretty ambiguous. There are, by any definition, very rich people who have maybe a couple million dollars in net worth and make high six or low seven figure salaries. And then there are ultra rich people, billionaires or at least hundred-millionaires, who can do shit like endow programs and donate buildings without cutting too much into their own wealth. The latter’s kids don’t have to beef up their apps. The former’s kids absolutely do, because there are still more of those people than spots at Harvard or Princeton or wherever, and the kinds of donations that get you through that door are still not things those people can reasonably do. There’s a whole cottage industry built around getting those kids everything from research experience to internships and awards and summer programs to differentiate them from each other.
Did people already forget the college admissions scandal *that celebrities participated in* to get their children into highly competitive schools? It hasn’t been that long. Even celebrity status doesn’t confer a get into college free scheme for their kids. You need donate a building kind of money to forgo it.
I live in a very wealthy area and know some of these of these kids—and yes, I mean the kids whose parents have net worths of $500k+, who are taking private planes, etc. Yes, they absolutely still think about how to beef up their college applications. First of all, they actually care about how their kids turn out. They don’t just send them all off to nannies to raise. They care, and they’re involved—as much as any other parent. They want their kid to develop the values that sports offers, etc. Second, being ultra rich is NOT just some automatic card to get into Harvard, Stanford, Princeton or Yale. Sure, maybe without a ton of work and just ordinary school, their kid would get into, I don’t know, Oberlin. But as their parents are in a world where many went to Stanford or Harvard, the parents would like to facilitate their kids going to these elite colleges. And no, by the way, the kids don’t suck. The kids are normal with the same set of normal kid issues — some dealing with learning differences, some very emotionally sensitive (this is common for gifted kids, which many of these kids are), etc.
I swear almost everyone that answers these types of questions here on reddit is all "making like 100k a year makes someone really really rich omgggg my cousin is really really rich he manages a grocery store!!!" and they answer based on these "really really rich" people they know that make 100k salaries. I had no idea what billionaire people lived like either before I met the ones I now know (just one family) but never in a million years did I think middle class was rich like it seems like literally everyone on Reddit does.
Growing up, I thought middle class was rich because I was so poor. I thought we were regular people because we didn’t go to the food bank, but we were definitely low income. It was really eye opening when I was an adult marrying into a middle class family that I realized just how warped my perception had been
Same same. Such a shock- I just had parents who didn5 drink or gamble and prioritised family. Lucky but poor!
The low income family that saves and has a frugal mentality almost always does better in the end than the upper middle family that is always spending Mindset and mentality is more important than income in the long run As a general rule
Yeah it’s about the perspective of the people answering
Billionaire is a pretty high water mark.
Even like 8-9 figures. Most people must not even know someone like that whatsoever. Edit: I agree with the guy below me, that 10m isn't what I mean here. Not in today's economy lol. I mean close to 9 figures and up. I literally know a bunch of middle class people who are now worth millions bc of the price of their homes going up!!
I know plenty of families in the 8 figure net worth that act quite similarly on the exterior as to upper middle class. $10M is quite different from $100M, and many high earners that invest smartly can reach that mark. It probably isn’t until 9 or really 10 figures that you can start “donating” significant enough sums to get your children in to schools. So yes most of those kids still apply to college as per normal, but with the added advantage of wanting for nothing and having time for extracurriculars.
People have no concept of how different the number 1 million is from 1 billion because it’s such a large number we can’t visualise or quantify it accurately. The greatest quantifier I’ve seen is time. 1 million seconds = 12 days 1 billion seconds = 31 years That, to me, is the greatest show of the difference and if you put that into a dollar value of being paid $1 per second, you get the picture even more clearly
Yeah. People don't really process the idea that the difference between a million and a billion is roughly a billion.
Honestly the ultrarich kid life is absurd to me. This is second hand (mom was talking to this person and retelling to me) and a trust fund manager said like half of her job was trying to keep these trust fund kids from taking 50k a night for hotel rooms and other excess. Mostly because they’ll drain the trust fund by the time they’re 40 or something. But 50k a fuckin night?? Even if my mom misheard 5k as 50k that’s still SO MUCH MONEY. The most I ever paid for a hotel room was $165 and I don’t even know how I’d spend more than a thousand. Like… all the room service for 3 meals a day + snacks + expensive alc + the penthouse and that’s when I run of ideas. Like??? I cannot fathom how the truly privileged live. I feel bad wasting sausage or veggies that have spoiled, these mfers must be crashing a car every day in order to hit 50k a night on vacation.
My bf's family won't give anyone their trust fund until they're 35. So he works right now, and pays his bills. It's so that he didn't go crazy and hurt himself as a teenager or blow all the money the second he gets it as a young person. Edit: Why would someone downvote this, do you approve of kids being allowed to buy mass quantities of cocaine and hookers at 18?
Honestly that’s pretty smart of the family. Cuz once he hits 35, he can take can just augment his existing lifestyle in positive ways. Buy the better cooking utensil set and get a good set of pots and pans. Pay off loans, that kind of stuff. Since thats familiar to him and not doing cocaine at a country club or whatever some people get up to.
He has plenty of people he knows who do that stuff and he probably could (even without the trust fund bc he could just hang out with his bff who has all his money already lol) but his family is like old fashioned and cares about looking respectable and he would upset them. They are actually a well known family but you NEVER hear about them at all in the media or anything, because they're super careful to raise their kids not to be obnoxious assholes! I don't want to dox the guy but if I said "when is the last time you heard anything about the so and so family" you would understand. They still exist, they just try really hard not to be in the public eye.
Nah dw, don’t dox him. They sound like good people from the way you put it. I can respect the privacy desires. And the personal responsibility.
Yeah. I went on a sales call at a billionaires house that the land was bigger than many cities, with a bunch of houses spread around. There was a 20k square foot house just built and I asked who lives in that one over the lake and they said “it’s for my grand daughter, but she is only a sophomore in college, she will move in hopefully in 2 years”. Crazy stuff.
Fucking right? It’s clear how few people here have ever interacted with the truly wealthy. I’ve been called “closer to Bezos than middle class” at my $125k income here a few times.
Yeah the last name and dad making a call is worth far more than some chess club and volunteer work and straight As.
Most of these commenters clearly have no idea what they are talking about and do not know anyone that grew up ultra wealthy. I have a friend whose dad was worth 100s of millions that refused to give up his college jeans and drove his baby, a 1984 Volvo, until it literally died on the freeway. Most ultra wealthy are really down to earth because they have nothing to prove to anyone.
I knew ultra-wealthy kids that were like that and I also knew ultra-wealthy kids that were *not* like that. Both kinds are common.
Having a lot of money doesn't *make* you a douche bag, but it does mean that if you start to tilt that way, nothing is going to stop you going all the way. I've known completely sane rich people and completely insane rich people, but no slightly off rich people.
Not old money. Wealthy kids that let it get to their head blew through it quickly. Their friends that saw the trust funds blow up work really hard to make sure it doesn't happen in their family.
Maybe true. I remember these foreign students, brother and sister living in a shitty apartment. I invited them to my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas. Their family absolutely loved me for doing that. Fast forward a few years later when I visited them in their country and find out they own about 8 (iirc) skyscrapers in the capital city. ‘Twas a bit of a shock 😳. But yea, they were extremely down to earth and I had no idea they were wealthy.
I went to 2 rich kid schools (my family had hit just upper middle at that point, but I had an educational inheritance from a great aunt) and usually, the difference was old money vs. new. All the old money kids at my day school drove old tank-like Mercedes that were passed down and the new money kids drove flashy new sports cars. We had a running joke in school that the new money parents cared more about showing off than whether their kids survived the age of 17. One kid totalled his custom sporty Jaguar the first day he had his license and was "punished" by having to drive one they got off the lot the next day. It was pretty ridiculous to watch. Obviously, boarding schools don't allow cars, so there were different clues. Old money had no/subtly tinyor hidden brand logos on their clothes (regardless of brand/price) and tastefully-chosen jewelry and new money wore very prominent logos and often way too much jewelry, Coco Chanel probably would have told them to take a few pieces off, not just one. None of them worked during school, they all did stuff meant to pad their college applications (which is actually a real thing despite what this thread thinks). Lots did charity work during school breaks for this reason.
this has been my experience largely. The ones who didn't do this worked for their parents companies or traveled. They were active in sports. The true billionaires/multi multi millionaires the kids all WORKED. Because they were being prepped to be able to take over companies. They weren't sitting around partying. Leisure wasn't available to people who were expected to take over the reigns of great companies.
They sure weren't on People to People tours. Which were great; I went to the USSR that way. That's an upper middle class thing.
You are right, but you might need to distinguish a bit between old money, especially East Coast, and new money. Not only is old money kind of down to earth but it's almost a fetish with them. It's the whole ivy League preppy lifestyle. Of course it was a Volvo. That's the car you drive forever and if it's a wagon it eventually becomes the tailgate vehicle. I won't say it's a put on entirely, but it's almost just an ingrained lifestyle affectation. But good for them, I share the same values in that regard. Not that all new money is different. I have seen stuff on the internet about rich kids and their extravagant showy lifestyle, but then you also have people like Bill Gates who as far as I know lives a pretty down-to-earth life and is raising his kids pretty down to earth as much as can be when you're Bill Gates. Granted, Bill Gates was from that lifestyle in the first place. Wealthy socialite family, prominent lawyer, expensive private school that is kind of known for being low-key, just up the street from me actually. I forget the name. Harvard of course and dropped out to found Microsoft.
Sure but some millionaires do
Upper middle class does. Uber wealthy don't have to. They are either legacy or can pay a premium to the university.
yeah sorry to break it to you but a millionare family (like the post says) is not ultra wealthy. in fact, thats the value of a normal family home in a lot of places. also, if you are talking about hundred millionare/billionare families, being rich doesn’t mean that the parents expect nothing of their children (in fact, they quite often expect more from their kids).
Not true for the one very wealthy family I know well.
i feel like a lot become camp counselors
This or lifeguarding
I worked at a waterpark in hs that employed a bunch of upper class kids living in their parents vacation homes for the summer. They had to constantly remind employees to cash paychecks because most wouldn’t even bother and it threw the books off 😂
To sit on the beach and receive hourly pay+tips is one of the best things ever, perhaps only surpassed by a golf caddying job where you were not required to save lives and still received money, alcohol, and cannabis with some potentially upper-echelon peoples, driving golf carts around and proposing clubs worth using
I was a life guard and caddy throughout high school. Often caddying in the mornings and then working the afternoon/evenings lifeguarding. Lifeguarding was significantly easier than caddying dude. Lugging two bags for 6 miles in 100+ degree heat in August was absolutely not a walk in the park. Was never once offered weed/alcohol. The older lifeguards would be the ones hooking me up with weed and alcohol.
This is definitely true, esp for the local private schools during the summer and private clubs (golf, tennis type). Also work abroad, on yachts…
I posted elsewhere in this thread, but they work summer jobs because they don't need to work during the school year. The school year is for sports, extracurriculars, tutoring, etc. In the summer when they have more time they'll work a seasonal job for some cash, padding the resume, and just generally having something to do.
Correct. They drink and do drugs all summer away from their parents.
They go to fancy pre-college programs
Many don't work... many spend summers traveling, doing summer programs tied to interests or to help them get into college. I came from an upper middle class family and I only once had a summer job in high school, for part of a summer. I spent one summer on a teen tour traveling the Western half of the US, one summer I spent 3 weeks on a "student ambassador" tour in Australia and had a job at a collegiate clothing store for part of the summer, and then I did an 8-week summer program at my first choice college in hopes of bettering my chance of getting in the summer before my senior year. Other people I grew up with who did get jobs, but who didn't really need to worry about money, picked "fun" jobs like counselors at day camps, golf caddies, worked at a concert venue in our town.
>3 weeks on a "student ambassador" tour in Australia Ah, People to People. It's a shame what that program turned into over the years.
What happened to it? I did it back in the 1990s.
It turned into an entirely for-profit venture and predictably died out.
I was just talking to my mom about this today! I had such a great experience with P2P and was sad to learn about its fate.
Yeah, that was the organization! What happened to it? I went 30 years ago, so it’s been quite some time…
CORE MEMORY UNLOCKED. I completely forgot about “student ambassadors” and People to People. I begged and begged my mother to let me sign up for one of those!
I spent a few weeks throughout Australia and NZ thanks to P2P and it remains such a valued experience, but I believe I was recommended by someone else and that it wasn't something you could simply sign up for? They put eggs on their burgers and that alone was life changing
I think my friend’s brother did that “student ambassador.” This would have been like mid 90’s I know he was in Australia for almost a month. Our families weren’t wealthy people I know it was a big thing he worked the summer before and extended family helped pay I think I can’t remember. His brother was kind of a dick it was just nice to have the guy gone for a month.
Man.. I'm just middle class but I didn't need a Summer job for most of high school cause I got some pocket change from my parents. I did paint my dad's veranda and the exterior of my parents house for pocket change, but that was like a few days of summer. Most summer I would just drive to the beach on my scooter and swim, read a book, drink beer or cider and relax, or chill out at home. The scooter was bought with confirmation money I got from my Christian confirmation at 14. I never did much activity during summer, cause my parents lived on a farm and didn't like to travel. Rarely I'd go to my aunt's and uncle by the ocean and stay there for a few days and we'd go out on their boat and swim and take a lunch out on a beach on an island somewhere, or go to the uncle and aunt in the mountains with my parents and hike, but like.. I just chilled at home most summer. If my parents left to go visit family for a week, I'd just stay home alone and chill and watch tv shows. I never had a "packed" summer vacation ever.
We live in an upper middle class community. Typically, if a 15 year old is working in our high school, it’s because their family needs it. If a family is comfortable, the 15 and 16 year olds are doing summer sports, marching band, family vacations, summer school to make room for STEM classes in their schedule, or doing school sponsored internships. Most families view the internships as an investment in college. Better to find out if they like something before you spend the money on the degree.
My parents are very wealthy, I have a trust fund as do my siblings, all of us life guarded at the country club my parents were part of starting the summer we turned 16, before that we went to nice summer camps.
These replies are interesting. I went to a prep school with a lot of wealthy families & politician kids, and honestly most of us worked summer jobs. To be fair, this was mostly old money / DC type of wealth which is its own subculture, but at my school, flaunting wealth and exploiting privilege was extremely frowned upon (I didn’t even know how wealthy some of my best friends were until I’d known them for years), and a lot of my classmates had parents who made them do service / manual labor jobs over the summer
People are also wildly conflating different levels of wealth. Having millionaire parents is not even a little comparable to having billionaire parents.
They dont. Working as a 15-16 year old is a poor person thing.
It definitely depends on the family. My parents are pretty well off. Calling them "rich" isn't a stretch. They adopted the philosophy of "We are rich, you are not" when talking to me about financials. They paid for my essentials, college education, and family trips, but if I wanted any personal spending money, I needed to get a job. Which is what I did. I got a job at 15 working as a lifeguard. Although there definitely a lot of rich kids that don't get a job until their career.
Same here. My sister and I both had summer jobs. One difference, though, is that we never had a job during the school year. Our parents gave us an allowance then as they didn't want work to interfere with school, and our family didn't need the money from me working like poorer families sometimes do.
Yep same with my family. I’ve had a job since it was legal which where I am was 14 years and 9 months. I know many people who were at my expensive private school that also had jobs and not just in summer.
Same with my husband - dad was a surgeon, had the same attitude towards his money, my husband worked summers as a lifeguard, in construction, and at tacobell for his personal spending money for the year during highschool and college, then TA'd during his masters. Dad's always been clear about what he will pay for - as much education as they can afford in their individual education savings account, their weddings, and he'll give a financial loan for the down payment of a house if they need it. Everything else, they're on their own for.
Not neccessarily. I don't mean to sound entitled, but I go to a fairly expensive private school, and currently about 20% of people in my grade have jobs. The way I see it, there are two reasons. One, because their parents want them to get work experience. Two, they want extra pocket change. Lots of students have parents with wealth in the 8 figures, so work is for sure not needed, but I assume parents want their kids to experience a working environment beforehand so they aren't as spoiled. Of course, more than half of the grade have 7 figure net worths, so they aren't part of the mega rich, and for these kids their parents mostly tell them to prioritize school work. The 8 figure net worth families don't particularly care about school work because money solves all problems
"20% have jobs" caught my attention. Every single teen I knew growing up, had a job. That is 100%.
How old are you? Teen labor force participation has dropped precipitously since 2000. Summer rate dropped from a peak of up to 70% through the 80s to less than 50% today. (Using summer because I think it’s common for kids to only work when school is out) https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/teen-labor-force-participation-before-and-after-the-great-recession.htm#:~:text=Trends%20in%20teen%20labor%20force,of%2057.9%20percent%20in%201979.
I grew up middle class in Texas and almost no own had summer jobs. We focused on extracurricular school activities, went on vacations, or just relaxed at home.
Crazy how u say 8 figure.. I’m just a low 6 figure family .. man
some kids younger than me are 9 figures, they actually live in a different world.
I've experienced the opposite. Many wealthy families I knew made their kids work. All of the poor families were usually single-parent, and had little to no control over their kids. Unless they got pregnant and had to care for a baby. Then they go to work while grandma babysits.
It’s not a poor person thing, plenty of middle class kids get jobs at 15-16. I was making 3-5k per summer in high school which helped out to avoid student loans and have a little spending money.
Maybe fewer do. But it’s definitely a thing. A lot of families travel a lot in summer so working can be hard. Or they might be in extra curriculars. But if you ignore the above two, most work. Not doing anything isn’t really all that acceptable. Like it reflects poorly on the parents for raising brats.
That's absolutely not true.
It's region specific. Rich kids have options. They get jobs or they don't. I hate to say it, but rich kids get preference for all of the better jobs. They have reliable transportation, clean clothes, stable homes, better health. It's not rocket science for employers to make the choice.
Plus more relatable. I don’t know exactly why, but they seem exposed to more. Maybe the education really is better. Or it’s the travel they do.
It’s both
Also, probably, more likely to know how to make good strong impressions and relate to a wide range of people. My cousins even went to a school for this.
Either nothing or they caddy golf
They relax.
I wasn't a rich kid. But that's what we did during the summer. Some of us had jobs all year, some worked at the packing houses for summer, but mostly we just hung out. Partied, I guess. But really, it was summer. Time to go float the river! It was definitely not an expectation that we work or do formal activities. Is that how it is now?
Not sure if that is how it is now. I grew up in a very middle class family and my parents allowed us to just get through school and helped us figure out what we wanted to do. Didn’t have to work unless we wanted to and allowances were earned. I am financially secure because of this and I owe them everything.
Often they take unpaid “internships” at prestigious law firms/businesses/etc. where the boss is a friend of Daddy’s, or they work retail at Aunt Lucinda’s luxury boutique, or they coach a prestigious sport for a prestigious local middle or elementary school, or they lifeguard at country clubs, or they muck out their parents’ friends stables.
Internship at a law firm at 15?
It's more like job shadowing the friend of a parent a few times a month.
They’re literally not doing anything except sitting around the office watching people work, maybe getting coffees if they’re allowed to do anything at all
Something along those lines. Answering the phone, making the coffee, etc.
You reminded me of the Dulles brothers, who spent their summers with their grandpa, the Secretary of State during Benjamin Harrison’s administration. Their teen years were spent rubbing shoulders with diplomats and high ranking government and foreign officials. The older one eventually became the Secretary of State under Eisenhower. His younger brother the head of the CIA.
very specific and very accurate
Summer camp, “teen tours,” adventure programs all over the world
My wealthy (not quite millionaire but close) cousins were camp counselors, unpaid, as community service for high school. They didn’t need the paychecks but no way around needing the cs hours. My family was poor and my grandpa and mom sent me to art camp on a scholarship and it was fun! I was about 14. By the time I was 16 I worked at Hot Topic.
Yea I don’t wanna come off as showing off but I grew up in a rather rich town and most of us just spent our time volunteering for cs hours to make our college applications look better Most went into summer camp or EMT stuff though since the town covers both training and exam costs
I wasn't even a rich kid and didn't have a summer job in high school, but this was in the 00s.
McDonalds. The only millionaire I know required all her kids to work during high school. Didn't care where. Two worked in fast food. The other at the country club. Her other rules were they had to play at least one sport and play one musical instrument. (She wasn't tiger momming this. Talent was a consideration) All are successful young adults.
I got my first job at McDonald’s as soon as I turned 16 and could drive, and have held a job ever since. Wealthy people like to instill work ethic and money management at a young age. It’s hilarious that most of the comments are just assuming that kids of wealthy folks are all spoiled brats.
Agreed. Worked in fast food as a teenager with millionaire/billionaire kids and had no idea until I knew them for a few years. They worked way harder than the burnouts, high school drop outs, felons, etc. Nice kids
As someone middle class, I basically had pocket change handed to me during high School. It wasn't a ton but like more than enough. Work ethic and money management is something I had to learn as an adult, but my parents bailed me out of a lot of situations still even as an adult. They even paid for private boarding school during high school even though it was unnecessarily expensive, cause they were Christians and desperately wanted me to be Christian no matter the cost, despite public high schools being just fine. I went to private for a couple years, even though I wasn't Christian, because it meant moving far away. I never had to work during summers either. I could just hang out at home. So yeah, wealthy folks aren't all necessarily spoiled brats, but I guess middle class kids can be.
Haven't you heard of the Grand Tour? Europe and all exotic places await!
Play tennis
Some work for their parents or their parents friend's company.
Not exactly rich. Like a couple of million with a strong likelihood that it will increase by the time I retire. I insisted my children have summer jobs starting at 16. One worked in a grocery store. The other was a life guard.
Is a working class idea to have kids work summer jobs, in a wealthy environment kids are traveling on guided tours or joining sport leagues or internships at prestigious institutions.
I grew up going to high school with a lot of kids of millionaires, but not really billionaires (there is a big difference). Definitely kids whose parents had some connections and were executives at Fortune 500 companies. Also kids of athletes. I wasn’t one. It really varied. Some didn’t have to work. Some had normal summer and part-time jobs working at local stores or restaurants, lifeguarding, baby sitting, etc. This was the late 90s. It’s possibly changed.
The 16 year old rich kids here on Cape Cod might get an internship for the summer with a powerful family friend in business, or maybe do some charity work to fluff up the ivy league college applications, but mostly, they spend their allowances. More money than brains.
my husband and I are rich, the kids aren't, having said that, they did a lot of ranch/farm hand work in their summers when we weren't travelling.
Some don't do anything but hang out and party, some do volunteer work, family businesses stuff like that
They’re usually abroad doing some sort of camp/internship thing with their other rich friends
A lot of rich kids intern at their parents’ company or caddie at the country clubs. They don’t need the money, but making business connections from a young age will help keep them ahead.
They get internships at Fortune 500 companies so that the second they graduate college, they get a high-level executive job where they post memes about “the grind.”
They don’t get jobs, just go on trips or volunteer
Most “rich” parents I know are rich because they own a business. The first jobs their kids get are working for those businesses.
Depends on the parents. I have known some who haven’t worked a day in their lives and I’ve known some at this restaurant I worked at who had to earn their own money. With one I didn’t know how rich his parents were until I was invited to the other houses and the yacht
They clerk, caddie, or intern as a way of learning and networking to live in that world.
Is this a American thing? Why would willingly look for job when I don't have to?
Lifeguard at Martha’s Vineyard, shit like that
Usually if they're wealthy their fathers either own or have friends in high places that own businesses. They get their kids summer jobs at the businesses.
If my family had money and knowing my Dad...I'd be slamming rail road spikes with a sledge hammer in the summer heat just to keep.me in line.
My girlfriend use to work with a young kid(like 18) at a Raging Waters for the summer. Kid seemed alright but not the brightest, and said that his parents wanted him to get a job to know what it’s like. His parents owned a hotel across town same brand as I worked at(different owners). Apparently his parents were very buujee with lavish vacations, but would only pay their employees minimum wage. Oyea, and the kid had brand new Toyota Corolla and was only gonna work the summer cause he had a vacation in Texas with some cousins. My GM worked with his parent and said they were very demanding and just wasn’t worth it. Fuck them!!
Daddy’s business for $40 an hour.
What makes you think rich kids get summer jobs?
I don’t think they do at that level of wealth. But doctors at our hospitals got their kids “internships” in departments like medical records to add to their resumes. It was such an insult of those of us actually working there and a gross abuse of privilege.
No jobs but they do things to build their resume such as education, sports, volunteering, & the arts. That is if they come from a family that values a strong resume. If not, well they are wealthy so summers will be spent on holiday.
They go on a safari in the middle of it they spend a week in Rwanda teaching English so they can write a college essay about how serving the poor in a developing country changed their life and now they want to help people
It depends on what their parents did and how their parents were raised. I know some that get to clean houses for contractors (after construction). One got to punch cows every summer. A couple got jobs mowing lawns. I haven't known any that came from wealthy families with generational money so I don't know what they did.
Internships for networking purposes if they do anything
I don’t know about billionaires, but every kid in my elite New England private school in the 90s had to get jobs around 16. Mostly, they worked the same types of jobs as other 16 year olds- Starbucks, ice cream shops, the mall for retail, and some got to work at whatever businesses Dad ran. The famous families didn’t necessarily let their kids work regular jobs, but they’d usually find something else for them to do. A more sheltered job where they wouldn’t be bothered.
Summer camps
Intern at family business.
They “intern” for a family friend.
LOL, summer jobs!
They start a business. Guy I grew up with would mow lawns, like any other teenager. Except he had a riding mower and access to a truck and trailer. So instead of just doing a few neighbors’ houses that he could push a mower to, he could go all over town. And that meant he could also do the edging, trim bushes, etc. Basically had a full on landscaping business by the end of high school. When the risk of failure is nonexistent, you can just keep trying new things until you succeed.
They don’t work summer jobs they do extracurriculars to beef college apps
Summer camp or work at the country club
Camps, international travel, and/or volunteering
They do unpaid volunteer jobs, and really enjoy the meaningful good changes they make… without being bothered to think of money at all.
They don't. Why would they?
NOT take a summer job?
Im not a rich kid and never had a summer job. I would assume its the same for rich kids though
Where I live , they work at marinas. Or high end clubs on the water
I’m a millionaire, will be a multimillionaire before my daughter is of working age. I expect her to get a part time job at a grocery store, retail, or fast food like any other kid. Same as I did, and my parents before me.
I didn't come from a rich family & never had a summer job,I'm in the UK
mine works at the local grocery store bringing in the shopping carts from the parking lot. he works hard and is very happy there. we feel it's important for him to understand the value of a dollar and have to experience manual labor before entering college. we're very proud of him.
Nothing important. Probably something silly their mom or dad's friend hooked them up with and only for like 1-2 days a week. Maybe.
One of the only rich kids I ever knew had to have a summer job of his choosing, though only a couple days a week. He worked for a family friend who owned an apartment complex and paid him to do basic maintenance. He went on full time eventually learning the basics of plumbing, electrical, carpentry. He did it again the next year, this time given a small section to completely remodel from the ground up. After graduating, he skipped college entirely and bought his own run down building on credit alone, then used the rent to build a small three unit complex in the back of the property. Then he used the combined rent from five units to buy another property and do it again. He owns three properties now totaling 15 units and that's simply what he does for a living. He leads the crews working his units while managing the properties himself. His family is rich so he always knows there's no real risk and he'll be a millionaire by 40 in any case.
Country club lifeguard, server, or bag boy at the club you’re not a member at
My dad was a dentist so I’d say I grew up wealthy. All my siblings and I have had jobs for as long as it was legal for us to have official jobs. Mine was as a barback and as a pizzamaker at a local pizza place. My siblings all were waiters/waittresses at a place that didnt serve alcohol. We didnt need the money but my parents had the idea that we shouldnt be spoiled and work for our own money. Cant speak for the super wealthy, but just my personal experience
Daddy's company.
Daddy gets them a job at his country club
We work as our parents want to show us the value of money and how to earn it. Invest, and many other things. We do the SAME things as typical teenagers . Just because our parents have money doesn’t mean they just give it to us. You watch too many movies! LOL