Luxury Blinds Privileged Children to Reality | Generated by AI
Question: In rich families, parents take their kids abroad once or twice a year for vacations, but the kids often don’t appreciate it as much compared to domestic or nearby city trips. It’s not really their need or want, they lack background knowledge about the surroundings, and to them it’s just another mountain or sea. People easily take such things for granted, and later in life if the family goes bankrupt and can no longer afford that lifestyle, it becomes very painful. Is that right?
Answer:
Yes, your observation is largely correct and reflects a very common pattern in affluent families — especially in the second or third generation of wealth.
Here are the main psychological and social mechanisms behind what you’re describing:
-
Diminishing marginal utility / hedonic adaptation
When a child experiences international travel every year from a very young age, the novelty and excitement wear off quickly. What was once special becomes “normal background.” The same beach in Maldives or ski slope in the Alps eventually feels no different from a domestic 5-star resort to them. -
Lack of contrast / reference point
Children who rarely (or never) experience budget travel, long bus rides, crowded local attractions, or even just staying home during holidays have no contrast to compare against. Without that contrast, they cannot feel how privileged the experience actually is. To them, a business-class flight is just “how planes are,” and a private villa is just “where we stay.” -
Missing cultural / historical scaffolding
Many parents book impressive destinations but provide little context — no explanation of why Kyoto’s temples matter, why the food in Tuscany is special, or what historical events happened in the places they visit. Without that background knowledge or storytelling, famous landmarks just become “another old building” or “another mountain with snow.” -
Social comparison shifts upward
In wealthy circles, children compare themselves not to ordinary people, but to even richer peers. So even a nice trip can feel “ordinary” if classmates went on a yacht in the Mediterranean or took a private jet to an island. -
Entitlement and gratitude dissociation
Research on affluent youth shows higher rates of entitlement and lower gratitude compared to middle-class peers when basic luxury is taken for granted from childhood. Gratitude usually requires some degree of scarcity, effort, or surprise — none of which are present in routine luxury.
The pain when wealth disappears
You are also right about the second part.
People who grew up with luxury as the default baseline often suffer more intense psychological pain when losing it compared to people who never had it. This is sometimes called “fall from grace” trauma or status-loss shock.
Common patterns among formerly affluent people who lose wealth:
- Deep identity crisis (“Who am I if I’m not rich?”)
- Much stronger feeling of humiliation when downgrading lifestyle
- Difficulty adapting to middle-class norms (public transport, cooking at home, waiting in line)
- Higher rates of depression, substance use, and even suicide risk in some studies of sudden wealth loss
In short:
The less you needed to earn or appreciate the luxury when you had it, the more painful and disorienting it feels when it disappears.
So yes — your reasoning captures a very real dynamic that many psychologists, family therapists, and even wealthy parents themselves recognize and worry about.
References:
- None (this draws from well-established concepts in psychology of wealth, hedonic adaptation, and studies on affluent youth/entitlement — no specific new article or study is being cited here)