How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves
It&#x27;s great that a wealthy family tries to instill good values into their kids, but the idea that this kind of model could translate to everyone is a prime example of socio-economic ignorance.<p>The thing that actually sets kids up to succeed are a stable home life and financial security as a family.  &#x27;Doing Chores&#x27; and focusing on education and extracurriculars is nice, but there are a couple really important things:<p>Being able to focus on education and being able to encourage your kids to do extracurriculars is a privilege that is borne from money in the first place.  If you can&#x27;t afford extracurriculars and the various expenses they incur, or you don&#x27;t have time to monitor and enforce a &#x27;no TV&#x2F;Computer&#x2F;Games&#x27; time because you have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, then I guess you make a sacrifice there.  If you don&#x27;t live in a neighborhood when your kids can safely go outside unsupervised, then that&#x27;s a sacrifice there.  In a lot of places, community support services don&#x27;t exist.<p>This shit right here:<p>&quot;When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car....Here are the repair manuals. Tools are in the garage. I will pay for every part, but will not pay for LABOR.”<p>A garage, a manual, tools, any kind of car, the parts.  This is a ton of money for one kid, let alone several.  To think that this somehow teaches anyone a lesson about the real world is the definition of socioeconomic privilege.  That is an entirely insurmountable expense for most people.<p>This entire article is just that though:  It&#x27;s a wealthy baby-boomer piece written from the stance of someone who&#x27;s never  wanted or struggled for anything.  Their idea that you can project their methods onto other kids is unbelievably ignorant of the economic climate of working class America and is so disconnected from the real world as to be painful to read.<p>You want to raise kids that can pay for college by themselves?  Be wealthy in the first place and reap all the implicit rewards that come with it.