The Peak Generation

The worst thing that can happen to a poor family is for them to suddenly be perceived as a "rich" family.
Why?
Because usually they're not prepared to keep and grow their wealth.
Because the children born into these families rarely possess the skills or knowledge that is required to replicate the level of financial and/or social success that was earned by their parents.
Because the families usually have a distorted perception of the value of their wealth.

This is why those from Old Money families dismiss those from the bourgeoisie New Money families.
It's as though the New Money families are seen as one-hit-wonders.
The Old Money families utilize their wealth to ensure the perpetuation of their family's social and economic position.
The New Money families use their wealth to validate their position in an environment that doesn't welcome them by becoming consumers of what the Old Money families produce.

I live in a town where many Blacks make a nice sum of money but few possess any real wealth.
Sure, they buy all of the niceties usually associated with wealth - but this lifestyle is short lived.
These families bring a ghetto mentality into a regional, national or global game.
These families fail to adopt the social norms of success - only dismissing them as "Acting White", "Selling Out" or "Thinking She's (He's) Miss Anne".
These families are likely to be the "Peak Generation" in regards to their family's wealth.

But what they fail to realize is that these norms were learned by the Old Money families too.
They fail to understand that the Rockefellers, Kennedys and others started out as "New Money" at one point in time.
The difference was that these families learned the tricks to passing wealth and power from one generation to the next.
No one popped out of the womb speaking in SAE, possessing manners, working long hard hours, or spending money without wasting it.
These traits were learned.

I'm in the middle of making arrangements to walk away from a family that I've mentored for the past eight years.
This family has two primary wage earners (Both work at refineries and make the standard $1ook+ yearly wage.) but this is the first time anyone in their family has owned anything.
The great-grandmother rented homes from my grandparents for years and never owned any property of her own.
The grandmother first lived in her own house after my cousin gave her one.
The children and grandchildren live off of the wages of the primary earners and remain in one of their homes or the other. (They acquired a rental home after I advised them on how to make an old home pay for itself.)
If it wasn't for my mentoring, this family would still be in the hood with grandchildren who didn't graduate from high school and great-grandchildren at reform school.

The problem isn't that they make enough money to buy anything they'd want (just not everything they'd want) - but that they require constant nurturing in order for them to maintain any quality of life.
I'm tired of the advice given to children being disproved by their parents making up for their long hours at work by buying everything the kids desire without the kids having to have done well in anything or showing any effort.
(Why try when you'll get everything you want anyway?)
When the children mess up or get into trouble, the parents blame the teachers, the kid's friends or society in general.

The amount of material goods bought blinds them to the fact that they are just ghetto with a good job.
When told that they need to up their game, they just point to all of their nice possessions as validation of their way of thinking.
They can't understand that no one else is going to compensate for their children's shortcomings - in fact, society will punish these children worse.
When their children end up back in the hood - they will be too soft to be down, but too under-prepared to be up.
These children will be like Al Bundy talking about what he (they) used to be and what they used to have.
But these children can't see it because they are blinded by the shower of luxury items regardless of their performance.

Yes, I preach sustainability and generational wealth.
I preach teaching children to do for self and learning to overcome bad situations.
I preach building on the accomplishments of prior generations instead of having each subsequent generation reinventing the wheel.
Why?
Because these families shouldn't be the Peak Generation. These families should be the Foundational Generation.
These families should be investing in their children's children's well being - not in that of Ralph Lauren and Phil Knight.