Money can be a blessing and a curse. Especially if you didn't have to work hard and just happen to have it.
According to clinical psychologist Dr. Tian Dayton, children of wealth often begin life with prescribed identities and a sense of social and financial superiority.
The absence of struggle and adversity can hinder their development of resilience and empathy, leading to a distorted worldview where entitlement replaces gratitude.
Interested in real-life examples of this, Reddit user ThrowRAmagicia posted a question on the platform, asking people to describe the worst cases of "rich kid syndrome" they had ever seen. Here are some of the most memorable replies.
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Not sure if this is worse case... but... actually a rich kid being nice.
In college, there was a Saudi Arabian kid who's father bought him a new Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV. Paid in full.
I was casual friends with him and his roommate.
His roommate was a year behind him, and just an average dude from the US.
He graduated and is in process of moving back to Saudi Arabia, to work at his father's company.
He just handed the keys to his roommate and gave him the Jeep, signed the title over to him. The roommate didn't have a car.
He said his roommate was a good friend to him and wanted to give him a goodbye present.
The roommate drove that Jeep until he couldn't drive it anymore, many years.
Me: You can't park here, it's a handicapped space!
Them: That just means it costs $250 to park here
And that's when I realized fines should scale to income
Sweden and other Norwegian countries do set fines based on income.
"Those born into wealth do not necessarily learn the lessons of climbing the ladder towards success," Dr. Tian Dayton, the author of Emotional Sobriety, told Bored Panda. "The necessity to work can develop self-discipline and doggedness, it is normalizing in that one is thrown in with others who are also trying to move forward in life. One has to learn to work with others; to get along, to take the lead, or to follow and be a team player."
According to the psychologist, "wealthy people can sometimes afford to isolate themselves in a world of privilege that doesn't develop these traits." She also added that wealth can set high standards of what we think of as achievement, making a child born into it feel that nothing they do will ever measure up to their family's.
"This can be debilitating," Dayton said. "If the family values equate money with achievement, they may feel that acquiring wealth is one of the only ways to feel successful."
Barbie and her daughter. I worked at a bank and a young girl came Into the bank complaining her credit card wasn't working. I told her it was maxed out and she needed to make a payment. The absolute look of shock and confusion on her face... you can tell she had absolutely no idea what the f**k we were talking about. "What do you mean a payment?? This is my money! I go shopping and put it all on this card what am I supposed to do? You need to figure this out!" When I tried to explain that credit cards aren't free money she said I was a liar and to figure it out cause I'm obviously new here. The manager gets Involved and she's so pissed she calls her mom... Barbie to come in. She literally looked like Barbie and that was also her name. SAME ISSUE! had no idea what we were talking about. Cards just pay for things! She has never paid a bill in her life. Hers has always worked... I explained that her card was set up that her husband would automatically pay it in full each month and she didn't understand. Long story short finally the husband comes and tells them to go to the car. Asked me to make it so all the daughters bills come out of his account. Worst part is she came back in and gave me this "see told you you're an idiot" look. The bill was f*****g wild too... She got this card a month ago and put over 10k on it. The wifes card was so outrageous I wouldn't even believe anyone could support that. What I dont get is how neither lady even understood the concept of money... It was just "I get whatever I want and this card does it"
I worked at an upmarket boarding school for a while, living in the girls dormitory as a dorm matron. One of the girls was (we suspected) the daughter of a Russian oligarch and was obscenely wealthy and badly behaved.
One of the biggest social events of the school year was a winter ball, and the girls had their dresses planned months in advance. The oligarch's daughter had a designer gold dress that she told everyone who would listen about how it cost 6k. Bear in mind she was just barely 14.
Anyway a couple weeks before the ball she did something truly heinous, and I ended up grounding her from attending the ball. Oh boy, the tantrums and attempted manipulations the next two weeks were absolutely bonkers, but I'm not budging.
She ended up cutting the dress into ribbons and throwing it in the dumpster in order to "punish me". Unfortunately for her I'm not her real mum and didn't pay for it so I didn't care.
We also got in touch with the person who started this discussion, Redditor ThrowRAmagicia.
"I live in a college town where there is a pretty significant population of rich, entitled families and also students," they started, introducing the origins of the post. "So I am aware of some students whose families pay $2,000/mo for their rent during college and I was curious to learn more about these types of people/families."
The Redditor said the common theme amongst the replies was "just a completely skewed and sheltered worldview that rich kids have."
Worked at a mine in Northern Canada. Owners delayed the cargo boat for 5 days, at millions of dollars in penalties, so that they and their friends could come and watch it come in. Disrupted everyone's leave because of it. When they finally got there, they decided to get drunk and missed the boat coming in. So millions of dollars down the drain, disrupting everyone's family life, just to act like morons and miss it.
I had a roommate in Uni who threw her change away. Anything under 5£ would go straight to the bin.
I put a "change drawer" in the hallway outside her room, and we threw an end of year party with the funds. One can hope it taught her that even coins have value, too, but I doubt she changed her ways entirely.
Dayton agrees that wealthy kids can be seen as those who have it all, which can also present a fair chunk of challenges. "This can mean that people don't judge them for who they are but for what they have," she explained. "Peers may turn their natural envy into judgment, or they may choose to be with them not only because of a natural affinity but for the inevitable perks that surround being connected to wealth."
"There is no more serious form of this than in marriage," the psychologist highlighted. "A wealthy young person may have someone who wants to marry them to attach themselves to wealth rather than basing the marriage on true love. This is an injustice to the wealthy person and a danger wealthy young people may face."
"Another function of status is that it can get comfortable, and it is bestowed on the wealthy person simply because they share a family status. The status can have the effect both of making them feel overly secure because of the way they are seen or insecure because while they do have status, they have no sense of having earned it," Dayton said.
Encountered a bunch over the years directly and second hand, but the most recent one that sticks out was from a friend who's a drum teacher at a fancy private school. He's not technically employed by the school, so he bills the parents directly. Went to check his account and found a few more 0s than there should be in his teaching account. Turned out he'd accidentally billed one set of parents 40'000 instead of 400 and they just paid it anyway.
Guy in my family was doomed from the start. His grandpa left him a 200k trust just for being the first born and before you know it, he's got an unwarranted sense of self importance. Went on to squander that 200k because he refuses to do an honest day's work, preferring the impossible dream of becoming a CEO immediately and having millions at his disposal. Despite having an MB in business management, he's run 6 endeavors into the ground to avoid getting a job while conning his parents into enabling him.
Now he's 50 and has no prospects. But still refuses to just work. Every time I feel sad about not having enough income to realistically retire, I remind myself I could always be him, 50 years old with a 30 year gap on my resume. At least I'm TRYING.
When I was at university I was friendly with a guy who lived on my floor who was from a rich family, like his family had villas in Spain and Italy as well as a big house in the countryside in the UK.
He was actually quite a nice bloke, but he regularly came out with things that only a rich kid could say.
He once tried to be relatable by mentioning how annoying it was when you didn't realize your cleaner or gardener were in the house and how awkward it was.
Like, brother, most people just clean their own homes.
As I said, he was quite a nice bloke, he wasn't being malicious but he was just so sheltered from what the average person has to go through.
Views of why people are rich have changed significantly over the past years, with a growing share of Americans (65%) saying the main reason someone is wealthy is because they possess more advantages than other people. Far fewer think it's because they have worked harder than others (33%).
ThrowRAmagicia shares this sentiment and thinks that because of it, the rich and the average folk can never truly understand one another, either. "Rich people are either born into their lifestyle or they had a ton of luck. They will never comprehend what it's like to never be able to get what you desire," they said. "Getting everything they want is just a given."
When the heir to a fortune threw a fit because his personal chef was on vacation and they had to settle for a takeout order
Guess lobster doesn't quite hit the spot if your personal chef doesn't catch it and throw it in a pot right in front of you...
well, lobster vs Red Lobster just isn't the same. In that the former doesn't taste like a*s.
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Apparently, he wasn't that rich, couldn't even afford to have two personal chefs. Peasant.
Saw a post about a kid who was angry because his parents bought him a new high end BMW instead of a Mercedes. He intentionally wrecked the BMW.
My kid would blow a gasket if I got her a Mercedes instead of a BMW. Mercedes has blinker lights.
I worked for billionaires a few years ago as a nanny. I sat in for story time @ the kids private school. We were reading a children’s book about African students who go to school in mud huts. Basically, we learned that the kids need to work together to rebuild the school after every rainy season because the mud hut washes away… or something like that.
The teacher asked if any of the kids had questions after we finished the book. The first question was “is this about public schools?” The children were 8 years old.
However, Dr. Tian Dayton is more optimistic. "Underneath it all we all have very conventual, human needs, the need to be seen and accepted, and valued, and loved for who we are."
"If these values are placed before others, understanding follows," she said.
Ex friend of my wife, daughter of fairly wealthy business owner. This girl threw a hissy fit at a friendly gathering, complaining about how her father (CEO) had given her (VP of operations-honorary title) a $200K yearly bonus… after she had already prepared her taxes. She was now going to have to go back to her accountant.
I saw a kid who threw out his clothes after he wore them. He legit didn’t understand the concept of washing clothes. When he came to college he had a copy of his parents Amex platinum card. He would literally stop by a store after school and buy clothes for the next few days.
John F. Kennedy didn't know the depression was going on while growing up. (could be apocryphal)
"Kennedy later claimed that his only experience of the Great Depression came from what he read in books while attending Harvard University. For John, this privileged childhood was interrupted repeatedly by chronic bouts of illness."
the difference between 1930 and the 2010s+ is access to information. an 8 year old today has access to a substantial amount of info at their disposal. a kid in 1930 had their parents, a newspaper, the radio etc... they couldn't just look anything up whenever they wanted.
Me and a buddy were in our PC tech class senior year talking about how cool it would be to get Alienware gaming laptops. A junior that had class with us piped up and unironically said "why don't you just tell your dad's so they'll buy them for you". We had to explain that our dad's couldn't afford to do that and he truly didn't understand. Apparently his father is a chemist and helped invent the main component in luminol that makes blood glow.
I went high-school in a working class neighborhood. Most of the students were middle class, and most of my friends were on the lower end of that scale. One girl I hung out with was smoking hot, but dumb as a post. She started dating a guy from a near-by private school. One night a bunch of us went to Pizza Hut and she brought him along, first time most of us had met him. He had no idea what Pizza Hut was or what they served. We had to explain the place to him and he actually said, "I've heard of pizza, never tried it." Dude was in high-school and never had pizza, Apparently, the only restaurants he had ever been to were high end fine dining places.
My old job did this event in Minnesota, where all accountants had to attend to learn about the company’s culture and stuff. So we were all sitting down into tables, and they decided to do a workshop exercise where they scattered all accountants into random groups, and gave us these cards with questions we had to answer; as a fun exercise.
Everything was fine up until one girl pulled out the question, “What was the worst thing you have experienced, and how did you handle it?” So accountants at the table were going in turns to talk about different things, passings of parents/spouses, addiction, sickness, divorces…..etc, and I kid you not, this 21 year old Kyle said this when it was his turn, “Yeah my dad is a pilot and my mom is a surgeon and I’m a lonely child. So on my birthday, I usually travel the world, and one time, when I were in Japan, I tried Kobe Beef for the first time, and it was amazing. When I went back to the US, I had an argument with a restaurant owner because they were also serving kobe beef but I knew he was scamming the customers because actual Kobe Beef is not legitimate unless they are prepared in Japan. They kicked me out of the restaurant and I was never kicked out from anywhere.”
Everyone was quite and speechless, and one lady said she is not in the mood to continue the game after he was done lol.
I’m gonna be real, that question never should have been asked to begin with. My trauma is not a fǔcking corporate exercise, and I don’t especially want to hear about other people’s trauma in a professional setting either.
Not sure if this fits this question entirely (maybe more so just entitled here but still want to share) — We are currently on vacation in Mazunte, Mexico and one of the nights we went out to dinner, a huge American family came in from Michigan and just started being obnoxious. They were so loud, rude to the waitress, and just annoying — the grandparents (or maybe parents) were basically fighting the whole time, so it just helps paint a good picture of what was going on in a tiny restaurant and their party of about 17. One of the younger girls (maybe mid to late twenties) was just saying the craziest s**t the whole dinner. One of which included her stating that anytime she goes out with family (and they are paying) that she makes sure to order the most expensive things on the menu. Fast forward to her needing the bathroom — we had seen someone else go and we knew you needed a key and the bathroom was around the corner, I tried telling her but she either didn’t hear me — or chose to ignore me — she got up— kind of poked around a little bit and then opened a random closet. We saw her disappear into it and we through for SURE she would come out quickly because we knew she would have to realize quickly that she wasn’t in the bathroom. Unfortunately not the case — this girl stayed in there for a good amount of time — made some loud noises falling over miscellaneous metal material / typical shed things and came out a bit later. She came out unfazed. When another member of her party quickly asked where the bathroom was — she clearly stated you needed a key and told them it was around the corner. At this moment we were pretty sure she used the bathroom in this shed.
The audacity of this girl. She knew exactly where the bathroom was and just completely disrespected and intentionally disregarded using the actual restroom knowing where it actually was.
We quickly ate our meal and got up to leave, but I we just needed confirmation that what we thought happened happened — so I went into the shed and sure enough — she went to the bathroom on the floor. We were just in shock — I came out and just stared at her. She wouldn’t even look our way.
We couldn’t believe it. Can’t even imagine what type of person would do something like that as a visitor to another country while she knew she did something terrible and wasn’t bothered a bit.
We informed the owner as we paid and pointed her out in front of the entire restaurant and her whole family.
Literally insane.
Exiting the shed, I would've screamed loudly enough so all the restaurant to hear "Who the hell would p**s on the shed floor" then point her out to the owner, so he could kick her out and everybody would know what she did and that she did it!
An international student at my university had never been exposed* to even the _idea_ of porn. When he was informed of its existence, he bought three more computer monitors so he could take in as much “content” he’d missed out on as possible while simultaneously doing his homework, gaming, and/or watching (non-porn) movies. He wasn’t even jerking off to it, just immersing himself in the experience.
And the aftermath? None. He absorbed it and continued being the same cheery, respectful, accepting guy. After graduation he returned to his home country and inherited a hazily-defined company worth more money than god.
*He was _horrifically_ sheltered growing up: When asked if his family had a house or apartment, he replied that the closest translation he could find was “compound”, and that he’d only left for weddings and funerals.
His personality sounds amazingly wellrounded for such a bizarre upbringing...
Said "eat the Rich!" unironically than drove away in their new Bugatti to go back to their family mansion
It may cost a fortune, but it looks like a weird vacuum cleaner attachment.
My cousin married into a rich family.
At one point he was saving up for his dream car and his sister in law had bought an expensive one but gave it to him for free and bought another because the one she bought was the wrong colour.
My cousin drove it whilst waiting to save up for the one he wanted.
The SIL gave a nice present, pretending that the car did not suit her, just not to embarrass OP's cousin.
I used to be a busser at a high end restaurant. I’m talking one of the top 5 most expensive in my state.
Most customers were rich, but most were nice.
I remember this one kid, who was a prick.
Whilst I was carrying a stack of plates from another table, the kid asks me to take his empty soda glass.
Whilst taking the glass, I drop all of the heavy plates. Kid and his whole family start laughing at me whilst I go get a broom.
Please don’t be an a*****e st restaurants 🙏
Kid had a 'laptop smashing party' at my old college, so his parents would be forced to buy him a new one.
If they were indeed 'forced' to buy him another one, I hope they bought him the most basic, cheap model they could and said 'it's this or nothing.' But somehow I doubt it.
It happened recently with another adult at the charity organisation I work at. It's a charity organisation so the money is s**t. That means either you're in poverty or you have a rich partner/parents usually.
I was talking to a colleague who is also from another country and told her I wasn't going home for Christmas. A flight to my home country for Christmas would've been like $1500usd. Just too much for me to spend right now. First Christmas without my family. My colleague was confused and asked why my family didn't all just fly out here then lol
this stock photo chick is often in shambles it seems. she has really s****y colleagues.
My ex girlfriend. She was born rich. Old money in the family. She *mostly* was a normal human. But her older brother had some interesting takes on life. He would get very exasperated with peasant concepts. I remember him saying "Why would anyone ever buy something if it's not the best?!" when shopping for a new jet-ski. He literally couldn't understand what would make someone buy a not-quite-best product in any category.
They weren't even rich-rich, just upper middle class. They each received $50 gift cards from their grandparents to The Gap one year for Christmas. Only "they wouldn't be caught DEAD in Gap clothing!" So they threw the gift cards out.
I had a dude I worked with that said he was mad at his dad because of he took 50k from his trust to go to Vegas for the weekend his dad would stop paying his rent. I was making 15 an hour and living paycheck to pay check. He used to also pull a few grand out and go to the strip club and give it to people who went with him. Then he would get hammered in 30 mins and leave, leaving the money with the people he went with, who would leave with his money. I was super jealous of him and his ability to spend money while I came from a poor family. In hindsight his life had to have been miserable, all of his friends were only his friends for money, he was constantly trying to show off his money, and used prostitutes constantly. He had to have been so lonely for relationships.
I knew an escort that used to go to the casinos with guys like that, she would slip as many cash chips into her purse as possible and go back the next day and cash them. She could make more money like that then "escorting" most of the time the guys were so drunk they weren't able to use the service she offered.
Knew a girl who wouldn't wear the same outfit twice. She would spend thousands a month on designer clothes that she would literally wear for 6 hours then give away. At least she didn't throw them out! I got some nice clothes out of it! But damn! Really?
A girl I went to high school with once was making fun of people who wore Areopostale because she only shopped at American Eagle or nicer. Pretty sure she drove a Mercedes in HIGH SCHOOL. Where I live there's a mix of people. Not just rich or poor.
Why do people care about the most expensive stuff when there is better quality for the prices that it costs? I never understood that.
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In HS, this kid "Bob" was a super rich douche bag. His parents bought him a "Super Bee" (a Dodge sports car) and he ran it through the parking lots leaving, marks?(I don't know what that is called). One afternoon, he's doing this high speed twirling thing, and just then, the gym teacher and her dog were approaching. The shaite killed her dog! Never got punished. He died the next year in a car accident.
If it's roughly circular we call it "donuts" where I'm from.
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I went to university with an heiress, like Private Islands, rich. She was so nice and we are good friends to this day, but she didn't understand that not everyone had money like she does. For instance, she could not understand why our other roommate and I needed to be back on campus before the dining hall closed and why we just didn't go a local bar to eat. Um, the dining hall was included in our scholarships, it was the only way we could afford to eat.
I studied abroad and met some of the worst privileged people there. During the height of the pandemic we were stuck in our home country with online classes due to travel restrictions to our university’s country and at the same time our country was going through one of its worst economic recessions in like a century because of the disruption in tourism at the time, making almost everyone struggle to live. My family is probably middle class and although we can’t afford to eat out frequently, we always managed to get 3 meals, but at that time even that basic necessity was nearly impossible for our family. So I couldn’t even imagine how hard it must have been to those who used to struggle beforehand. Anyway one ex-friend of mine from university was complaining how depressed she’s feeling being stuck at home (we all were feeling the same) and so her parents paid for her to go on a month long vacation to the USA where her sister was studying…
I had an ex-gf whose father owned a construction company. I never knew exactly how rich they were, but they were certainly richer than anyone I knew. We were in our mid-20s when we were going out. She was telling me one day about how, when she was home alone, she'd call her dad while he was at work, tell him she was hungry, and he'd send a member of his staff to the house, and take her to a restaurant. I was gobsmacked when I heard this. I asked "was this in high school or something"? And she said "no, now. I did it the other day". I couldn't get over it.
I was an awkward invitee to a party well above my wealth (about tuppence ha'penny) and social class (still no idea how that happened) and got the joy of watching an old money millionaire school a dotcom billionaire in the art of shutting the fsck up. Remember, kids - money talks, wealth whispers, and extreme wealth is invisible.
To me, these posts just tells us that there are people in this World that would not be able to function or survive if the money disappeared.
In HS, this kid "Bob" was a super rich douche bag. His parents bought him a "Super Bee" (a Dodge sports car) and he ran it through the parking lots leaving, marks?(I don't know what that is called). One afternoon, he's doing this high speed twirling thing, and just then, the gym teacher and her dog were approaching. The shaite killed her dog! Never got punished. He died the next year in a car accident.
If it's roughly circular we call it "donuts" where I'm from.
Load More Replies... I went to university with an heiress, like Private Islands, rich. She was so nice and we are good friends to this day, but she didn't understand that not everyone had money like she does. For instance, she could not understand why our other roommate and I needed to be back on campus before the dining hall closed and why we just didn't go a local bar to eat. Um, the dining hall was included in our scholarships, it was the only way we could afford to eat.
I studied abroad and met some of the worst privileged people there. During the height of the pandemic we were stuck in our home country with online classes due to travel restrictions to our university’s country and at the same time our country was going through one of its worst economic recessions in like a century because of the disruption in tourism at the time, making almost everyone struggle to live. My family is probably middle class and although we can’t afford to eat out frequently, we always managed to get 3 meals, but at that time even that basic necessity was nearly impossible for our family. So I couldn’t even imagine how hard it must have been to those who used to struggle beforehand. Anyway one ex-friend of mine from university was complaining how depressed she’s feeling being stuck at home (we all were feeling the same) and so her parents paid for her to go on a month long vacation to the USA where her sister was studying…
I had an ex-gf whose father owned a construction company. I never knew exactly how rich they were, but they were certainly richer than anyone I knew. We were in our mid-20s when we were going out. She was telling me one day about how, when she was home alone, she'd call her dad while he was at work, tell him she was hungry, and he'd send a member of his staff to the house, and take her to a restaurant. I was gobsmacked when I heard this. I asked "was this in high school or something"? And she said "no, now. I did it the other day". I couldn't get over it.
I was an awkward invitee to a party well above my wealth (about tuppence ha'penny) and social class (still no idea how that happened) and got the joy of watching an old money millionaire school a dotcom billionaire in the art of shutting the fsck up. Remember, kids - money talks, wealth whispers, and extreme wealth is invisible.
To me, these posts just tells us that there are people in this World that would not be able to function or survive if the money disappeared.
