Why is it that the wealthier the family the more dysfunctional?

Question

I don't know, I'm not going to say most. But I am 17 and my family/household is a very wealthy one. But we have a lot of problems, we're not close and very dysfunctional. Everyone thinks because of what I have everything is okay. I have friends that really don't have much but it seems the ones that don't....their families are always rich in love. Friends that I have had that "have it all" always have dysfunctions regarding the family. Something is always terribly wrong.

When I have kids I am going to make sure our family is not just wealthy in money but rich in love.

Answer 1

People make the mistake of thinking material things are what matter and give kids their every want and desire. Love and bonding brings a family closer, not money... Money can make your life more comfortable, but can't buy happiness.

Answer 2

I guess to make a long story short, the wealthy family never really develop the closeness need to form the respect for each other that is needed to really care fore each other ,,they don't see the sacrifices that are made in their behalf and there for they never develop a true caring nurturing love for one another that , I believe, all humans need to be happy. They don't learn from the previous generations that happiness only comes from inside yourself. It is a _conscious decision each person must make for himself. They try to buy it . to wait for it to be given to them..they even believe that they~deserve~ it. But to no avail..and finally one generation 'loses' it all and destroys the family while society looks on and can't understand why they weren't happy ..after all they had it ALL.. and pity that poor family on the other side of the tracks that has nothing at all....who in reality, actually have it all .....in having nothing. (it's a mind game played out with the heart).

Answer 3

i guess it would be tempting to try to compensate for fears, insecurities, etc, by amassing a bunch of material things. none of which will provide an individual or a family with self worth, compassion, love etc. and im sure that not all wealthy families are dysfunctional
seems like all the material things are used as a crutch to avoid pain and/or close relationships with family members. also wealthy parents may be so burnt out from working(if they made the money and did not inherit it) they may be too unavailable for closeness, and base everything on material success. of course, these things...we cannot take with us.
i believe there are things that we can take with us. the things that we discover within ourselves, and things that we share with others . these things....are forever. :)

Answer 4

Families with money tend to pay for things that should be done in a primary relationship (not for money but for love).
Tutors oversee homework, nannies change the diapers, drivers pick you up from soccer practice. Its like living with strangers, no love, and money in between everything.
Poor families have dysfunctions too, they are just different. It could be argued as to which is more dysfunctional, a family with no love or a family with no education.

Answer 5

People with money make the mistake to believe that money can buy everything... including love.

Rather than spending quality time with their kids... they buy them an expensive toy. They think the toy makes up for love.

I know many wealthy families... and most of their kids are failure at school because their parents have given them toys instead of helping them with their home work.

Money does not buy happiness. It only helps to provide happiness if you combine it with love. But people are extreme. When they have a chance to make big money... they become addicted to it.

Answer 6

Sorry but I'm unable to answer your question.
I will however make a comment.
At least you know now that being wealthy, having money and the materialistic things it provides does not provide happiness.

Answer 7

I don't think its ever safe to generalize about any group of people. Who is dysfunctional and who isn't is usually about who the people are and how well balanced they are, regardless of their income or wealth. Sometimes families with low incomes who have problems blame the low income. Sometimes people who have families with wealth blame that. There are also middle-income families who have dysfunction as well.

Having said that, though, I do think that sometimes the personality it takes to build a certain type of wealth may be a personality that is better at building wealth than at relationships. Sometimes people who have enormous closeness with family are not willing to do some of the things it takes to become very wealthy (even something as simple as moving away from family or moving children out of schools they are in).

I'm not qualified to have an opinion about "super-wealth" (the kind of family someone like Paris Hilton comes from), but there is "moderate wealth", and I tend to still think that it doesn't make all the much of a difference if its only moderate wealth. If people have a solid core and solid values I don't think moderate wealth has to equal dysfunctional.

Maybe sometimes, though, if people have come to build their identities on their academic achievement, wealth, or all the hard work and sacrifice it took for them to get where they are; there is the chance they may come to value themselves and other people only based on academic achievement, income-building achievement, or level of wealth they have. After all, they've invested so much time and energy into these things. They've believed they were important enough to sacrifice other things for. They have an emotional need to believe this stuff is the important stuff and the measure of a person.

People of more modest income situations may not have the impressive degrees, the history of building a thriving business or other business accomplishments, or wealth. They are faced with the reality of knowing they need to find other things to measure a person's worth or accomplishments by - and they often invest a lot of energy into building a close family and trying to instill integrity and other personal values in their children. These people try to tell their children that they are as good as everyone else, and that money is not the measure of a man.

Maybe, too, though, some wealthy people inherit their parents' wealth - in which case, they don't even know what it is like to have to work to build wealth. Also, though, sometimes having financial comfort means having the time to be thinking about one dysfunctional issue or another. Think of the poverty-stricken villages in Africa. Those people aren't spending their time worried about what is dysfunctional. They need to figure out how to eat over the next three days.

You may actually be someone from a family where more attention to wealth than is balanced has been paid, and maybe you've actually come to think it has more significance in the state of dysfunction than it really does. Just the fact that you seem to notice that your friends with ok-enough families have less and you have more would say you may be noticing incomes/wealth more than you should. Maybe you grew up among people who believed that being wealthy should automatically bestow some level of superiority, and maybe now you're just realizing there are certain types of superiority wealth doesn't necessarily bestow (the superior family strength some of your friends seem to come from is what I mean in case that wasn't clear).

Don't forget either that "the grass is sometimes greener...". Young people have a tendency to wish they had something their friends have and they don't, no matter what it is. They get to a certain age where their families can't do much of anything right in their eyes. There could be some element of that going on with you and your friends too. You could actually be weighing some of what you see as the realities of life, and forming opinions about them for yourself.

Remember, too, that you and your friends are only a tiny sampling of families. The world has families with more wealth than your has that are not dysfunctional, and it has families with less than your has that are extremely dysfunctional. You can't form an opinion based on only you and your friends (even if you have twenty friends or more).

One note: It is generally understood that people need a certain degree of being comfortable and being able to meet needs in order to be happy. Less than that creates problems. More isn't particularly necessary.

Bear one other thing in mind: When you're as young as you are you have your whole future to look ahead to, and you can plan to do what it takes to make that future a great one. One reality of being older, though, is having gone through enough to see (even if not in my own family) how life and sometimes other people have a way of kind of foisting a dysfunctional response on people who had never previously shown signs of being anything but solid. An example is the nice family where a teenager caves in to pressure to use drugs, becomes an addict, acts up at home, and gets parents to the point where they're yelling and not knowing what to do to stop the whole nightmare. Those parents didn't start out dysfunctional. They're just acting like it because their kid has them terrified about what will happen to him if he doesn't stop.

People who believe that providing extremely well for their family have to sometimes be away from their family more. That doesn't make for closeness, but they think they're doing the right thing.

Hold off on judging your family. Don't assume that just because they aren't demonstrative about love they don't have that love. Decide (as maybe you already have, based on your question) that you will learn as much as you can about building a close, loving, family when the time comes.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling once you're past your teens and into your twenties you may have a better appreciation for whatever positive things your family does enjoy.

Answer 8

Because they live in a whole other world from ours and they have no sense of responsabality or respect. They aren't living in reality.

Answer 9

Show me some proof of that statement and I'll try and come up with a reason.

Answer 10

ol' saying grass looks greener on the other side of the fence