alt Hacker NewsSurely these hyper competitive neighborhoods are full of already wealthy people? I hear about people "needing" to spend a ton of money on kids as part of this competitive scene and I just don't get it. If you're that worried about them, why not invest that money into a house (which costs the same as e.g. 4 years at Yale, but you could potentially rent it out until they're old enough, and finance it) for them so that they basically start life on barista-FIRE mode?
It's a good question I would just suggest to you a lot of the behavior around wealth doesn't really make sense if you are just doing that kind of back of the napkin math.
Like all the wealthy workaholics who just don't stop. They've so clearly made it and don't have to work anymore, but they can't even take it easy on themselves never mind their kids.
I suspect there is a lot in the psychology of an overachiever that isn't simply turned off when one hits a financial benchmark or has a child. In the latter case, this often seems to make things worse. A parents duty is to care for their child. Having your kid end up being the wealthiest barista sounds about as good a strategy as thinking someone will have good financial sense after winning the lottery. A fool and his money are easily parted. If you worry about what will happen to your kids after you die, as many parents do, simply passing down a bag of money often doesn't feel like enough, even if to others lacking such a luxury this appears indulgent.
But I agree it's a good question and also perhaps has similar implications for broader questions of public policy, such as state driven income redistribution, etc.
It's also good to remember that you never really know what is going on inside other people's homes. Wealthy neighborhoods have all sorts of wrinkles and disparities, even if on balance they are clearly privileged compared to whatever the national mean is. Perhaps the more opulent the neighborhood the more the scenario you lay out is prevalent. There are plenty of neighborhoods with overachievers who have done well that don't yet represent the sort of people you might say posess "generational wealth", where this sort of thing is basically the whole idea. But then again, it's a matter of perspective. I mean you could also probably live in a cheaper neighborhood and spend less money. Questions of work and wealth have always been tied to questions of morals and power. Top schools aren't just about earning potential. They are about access and prestige. They simply don't attract people who just want to get by.