Mitt Romney Says to College Students: "Just Borrow Money from your Parents"

[Torie]

Even better than getting "loans" from your parents is getting "grants."

Rich parents puzzle me. One would think they would say, hey, I will pay for your education as long as it seems productive forever, but after that, you don't get a dime baby, and the estate other than for some modest amount will all be going into a foundation or given to charity. Don't plan anything around an expectancy because it just won't be there. What rich parents do tend to do in my experience, in an unfortunately high percentage of cases, tends to leave their kids a dysfunctional sense of entitlement mess.

I don't think opebo would like me too much as a parent.

[Torie]

Rich parents puzzle me. One would think they would say, hey, I will pay for your education as long as it seems productive forever, but after that, you don't get a dime baby, and the estate other than for some modest amount will all be going into a foundation or given to charity.

So, why would they bother having kids then if it just creates more miserable poors?  I suppose if the purpose of having children is some sort of sadism this makes sense, but usually people want their kids to sort of 'carry on' the 'family escutcheon' as a kind of representative of oneself after one dies.  Who wants their escutcheon carried by some poor craven worker bee?  It would be repellant to this class of people and an obvious humiliation to anyone.

I think perhaps you just don't understand breeders, Torie.

Oh, I understand "breeders" well enough, and have seen the results in my practice. It is not pretty. This may shock you, but the idea one would think is to raise kids who will be at once happy and fulfilled productive citizens with a sense of purpose to give meaning to their lives, and given all of their advantages, make a contribution to making this mortal coil a better place. The idea of creating some sort of "dynasty" I guess is one of those upper class  concepts which frankly rather nausiates me. I guess that is an aesthetic preference. But the destructive effects on kids with a sense of entitlement and an expectancy is not about aesthetics so much as simply a real world on the ground observation. It is an empirical statement in short.