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Comment by Inconel | Hacker News Reader

Having absurd amounts of money certainly doesn't make bias go away, but it definitely makes such bias more bearable. I've been subject to numerous indignities due to "shopping while black", I've also gone hungry and had to resort to sleeping under overpasses, the two are incomparable.

$28k a year in free money was an almost unimaginable sum to myself and many of my friends, most black but some white, when growing up. It's my general experience that people at this level of privilege don't have the ability to truly understand how privilege, or the lack thereof, impacts the entirety of your existence, and should refrain from castigating others for their perceived privileges, it's splitting hairs at this point.

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If/when you have kids, assuming the economy looks roughly the same when they graduate college, would you consider providing them a similar $28k/year stipend if they decided to pursue their goal in the arts/a non-lucrative career? Maybe non-monetary support such as having a place to live with you at home? Or would you want them to learn lessons the hard way?

This is getting very hypothetical here, but I'll be glad to indulge your question. I'm unsure at this stage in my life whether I'll ever have the opportunity to have children of my own, but I would certainly like to. As I've spent some time in the foster care system, and seeing as it ended rather disastrously with me spending a good chunk of my HS years homeless, I'd very much like to get involved in being a foster parent. I'd certainly like to give my child, whether biological or adopted, many of the things that I didn't have growing up. First and foremost would be love, and safety, and the educational opportunities I didn't have. Travel would be the first of things I may categorize as "luxuries" that I'd like to gift.

As to a specific number, my gut feeling tells me $28K seems rather excessive. That's more money annually than I and most of my friends made in total yearly wages for a good chunk of our adult lives, and we all worked rather dutifully. I'm not entirely convinced that the creation of art requires such sums. And $28k could certainly help a lot of other children in need.

In any case, I'd like to think one of the most satisfying aspects of parenting is watching a child transform into an adult, I'm unsure whether a perpetual yearly stipend equal to the wages of large segments of this country is the best method to achieve that goal. But assuming my child was the recipient of such privilege, I'd hope I would have taught them the humility to understand just how privileged they were, and in general refrain from criticism based on generalities.

> I'd very much like to get involved in being a foster parent.

(Sorry to hijack) As a former foster parent, and now an adoptive parent, and a hopeful future foster parent: I strongly encourage anyone who is able to get involved to do so. There are so many kids who need the help only foster parents can give. There will never be a "perfect" time, trust me. But it makes me so sad to hear stories like yours about kids who are homeless :(

Thanks for responding.

I come from a more privileged background with a lot of family support, so I can see the good (stability and guidance allows you to learn, socialize, grow, stay out of the death spiral of the penal/judicial system) and bad (overdependence on parents, growing up in a bubble, not learning lessons in a visceral/hard way that will stick with you, mistaking luck and hard work) from where I've come from.

I appreciate you sharing your personal perspective, and I agree. I wouldn't want to provide any monetary support for my children post university (unless it is more of a business transaction with stipulations on what it can be spent on/payback period), but would want to provide stability and travel/educational experiences growing up, and be there when shit happens as it usually does

Per your privilege comment, travel has been the most helpful for me to get outside of my bubble, so I think you hit the nail on the head. It's like the fish swimming in water parable:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html

I apologize for not acknowledging your post earlier, I know it's not exactly within HN etiquette, but I just wanted to say thanks for such a thoughtful response.

I'm not the person to which you've replied, but I've had a similarly privileged young adulthood. I wasn't given $28k/year, but my parents have always been there for me, and have had the financial resources to help me significantly as an adult.

I have two daughters, who are five and ten years old. I do not intend to pay for their higher education, and I don't intend to give them anything resembling a "stipend" when they go off on their own. Instead, I expect them to build financial independence from my wife and I as quickly as they can, and am very active in making sure they have the skills and character to do so.

Now, that said, we are on track to being able to offer the kind of support in the article. If one (or both) of my children come to me with a plan to pursue college, reasonable projections of how much it will cost, and a timeline that shows a good ROI on that investment, then we'll reconsider. It will be a serious financial decision, though, and one that I expect them to put a lot of thought and planning into. It's entirely possible that my wife and I will simply pay for our children's tuition, living expenses, down payment on a home, or even just buy them a home outright - but any and all financial assistance we provide them will be predicated on one of two things: actual need, or net benefit.

I want my children to understand the weight of the financial decisions they make in early adulthood. I want them to understand and to feel the consequences of those decisions - but they are my children, and I won't let them place themselves in serious danger because of their early mistakes.

I've gone through this myself. I hope my children have an easier time than I did transitioning from childhood to adulthood, but if not, I plan to handle it in a way similar to that of my own parents. In 2004, I had lost a full academic scholarship to a state school and was suffering from clinical depression. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with my girlfriend (now wife), and my bank account was almost always negative. I worked overnights stocking shelves at a grocery store and my girlfriend was a retail clerk. My parents were there for me - they made sure I had reliable (not "nice", but reliable) transportation, made sure I had a basic cellphone that wasn't always getting disconnected, and were always willing to help make ends meet if there wasn't enough money for food at the end of the month.

From 2002, when I started college, to about 2005, I was barely able to function as an adult. In August of 2005 I married, and started putting my life together. I moved back to my home town in 2006 with a plan to get a career-oriented job at the only decent employer in the area, based mostly on my reputation as a nerd and the fact that I knew many people who worked there, since it was a small town. In 2007 I landed an hourly job there, and worked my way up. We had a daughter in 2008, moved to Virginia for a better job in 2013, had another daughter there, and moved back once more in 2018 to work remotely.

Even today, if I were to experience real financial stress, my parents are there for me. I haven't had to rely on them for many years now, but they're there. I'm 34, and only now am I to the point where I feel like I have an adequate safety net built for myself to withstand a significant event - I see no way I could have built that without my parents' being there for me.

It isn't only about the money. No matter what happens to me or my finances, we will not be homeless as long as my extended family is alive. The opposite is also true; my wife is an only child and her parents are beginning to get to the point in their lives where they're going to need more assistance. I'm taking on that responsibility as I can, and within the next ten years I fully expect that I will be responsible for making sure they're comfortable in their retirement.

To me, this is how families are supposed to work. It's how they've worked for generations. Parents sacrifice to enrich their children's lives, and children do what they can to honor that sacrifice. Extended family is always there to help with immediate issues, whether it raising a barn, helping someone move, or driving someone to a doctor's appointment three hours away. It works, I embrace it, and have made it a central tenet of my life.

Thanks for sharing your story. I agree with all of your sentiments.

What was the turning point for you in deciding to put your life together (if there was one single moment or realization)? Was it getting married and having the responsibility for taking care of your new, young family? It must have been hard to dig out of depression in what probably seemed like a hopeless situation at the time.

Getting married helped cement things for me, but honestly, complete failure was never an option. It took me time to turn things around, and I failed over and over until I finally made it happen.

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