This is also what I observed when I compared my life with my younger brother's life.
While growing up, I was surrounded by a peer group of high achievers. I had a generally stable home environment and my reading, math and writing abilities were better than class average.
My younger brother on the other hand never had that peer group. His best friends were bullies and destined to be jocks. He was never into reading, math and writing. This shows in his grades.
What really helped my brother not get sucked into the usual teen bullshit is a good home environment and constant reminder that other kids are not necessarily doing the right thing.
Peer group and family background are pretty much the strongest indicators of future success in life. Also, they are a great indicator of a potential mate. I pretty much use this as a yardstick while dating these days.
You had me until you said, "Also, they are a great indicator of a potential mate. I pretty much use this as a yardstick while dating these days."
Compare to a key point in the article:
Over the last 40 years, college-educated, rich Americans have clustered together, enjoying all manner of positive network effects much like the ones I just described. Americans without college degrees are living together too, suffering from the same sort of network effects, except in reverse: crime, drug use, low expectations and bad schools.
So by rejecting potential mates who are not so lucky as you, and even encouraging others to do the same, you are furthering the clustering of the lucky and the unlucky, furthering the gap in inequality, adding to the tragic Mathew Effect the defines our world.
No. I'm open to potential mates who are not so lucky as long as they give me some indication of a successful marriage and will help me in a good upbringing of my offsprings.
To put it bluntly, I don't want gold-diggers who value themselves only by their appearance instead of their educational/intellectual/athletic abilities && ability to maintain a stable environment.
I don't care if they haven't achieved anything on paper because of lack of resources. But I need strong signals that indicate that they are more than what they look like.
A good family background != (a rich family | an unseparated family | a family with resources)
A good family background for me == Good morals & curious & interesting personalities & no stupid debt
> So by rejecting potential mates who are not so lucky as you, and even encouraging others to do the same, you are furthering the clustering of the lucky and the unlucky, furthering the gap in inequality, adding to the tragic Mathew Effect the defines our world.
You're proposing we ought to 'take one for the team' and date people who we have nothing in common with and don't necessarily respect (in as much as their life hasn't led them to be as high achieving as them) ?
No, I'm saying look beyond the "indicators" and "peer groups", and look at the individual person.
I personally would have far more respect for someone who bucked the odds and fought for everything she had than for someone who is "high achieving" but got there relatively easily on a path well paved (if not paved with gold).
I also find that people who made it through a hard early life tend to be less spoiled and selfish, to be more sympathetic to the plights of others, and to have a greater capacity for love and trust, and to know what's really important in life.
Parenting is a huge job, you have to give this new person everything they need to survive life. This is pretty much all inclusive from tutoring, personal growth, overcoming issues, being successful in relationships, creating the scenarios their first accomplishments come under they feel are their own but really you set them up to be successful and gave them something that they could really chew on successfully setting them up for their next success, and their next success and so on.
The graph demonstrating the different levels in education was interesting. At first I thought there most be some mistake, because one field was high school education or less and the other was college education or more, but the two lines didn't add up to 100%. I realized that the cause for this is people who started college but did not graduate. Because the bachelors degree or greater line stayed the same this must mean that less people have started college. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case.
While growing up, I was surrounded by a peer group of high achievers. I had a generally stable home environment and my reading, math and writing abilities were better than class average.
My younger brother on the other hand never had that peer group. His best friends were bullies and destined to be jocks. He was never into reading, math and writing. This shows in his grades.
What really helped my brother not get sucked into the usual teen bullshit is a good home environment and constant reminder that other kids are not necessarily doing the right thing.
Peer group and family background are pretty much the strongest indicators of future success in life. Also, they are a great indicator of a potential mate. I pretty much use this as a yardstick while dating these days.