Are children from rich families happier than those from poorer families?
Children from rich families have some obvious advantages in life compared to poorer children. They usually live in spacious houses, with large gardens and even swimming pools, where they have plenty of space to play in. They have a great many toys and games and usually have television sets and computers in their rooms and the latest in mobile telephones.
Rich parents often give their children a lot of treats, whether these take the form of meals out, trips to the zoo or seaside, or luxury holidays overseas. They also make sure that their children have the opportunity to take part in as many leisure pursuits as they wish, and arrange for them to be driven to these in comfortable and expensive cars.
All in all, it would appear that such children have an enviable lifestyle, but are they happy? Of course, this varies from person to person. Some rich children will be happy and some will not be, just as some poor children are happy and some are not. However, it is certainly the case that being rich does not necessarily make a child happy.
Even when you are an adult, riches can make life more comfortable, but they do not necessarily make for a happy life. This is even more true of children.
What makes for a happy childhood? Certainly, the love of parents is an extremely important factor, whether their parents are rich or poor. Indeed, often parents who are rich have less time or fewer opportunities to show their children how much they love them than poorer parents do.
This is because rich parents have often made the money which finances their affluent lifestyle by working very hard at their careers or their businesses. Not infrequently, this means that they work very long hours, leaving their homes very early in the morning and getting back late in the evening. This has the inevitable result that they see little of their children. The best the children can hope for is a few hours of quality time, often at weekends, and even then, the parents are often too stressed from the week’s work to enjoy this time or to make it enjoyable for the children.
Of course, most children whose parents work long hours are not actually neglected. The parents employ nannies, au pairs or childminders to look after their children when they are at work. Unfortunately, there is often quite a swift turnover of staff involved in childcare and this could mean a distinct lack of stability and emotional security in the children’s lives. All the luxuries in the world would then not make up for such insecurity.
Sometimes richer children are lonelier than their poorer counterparts. Poorer children may feel uncomfortable in surroundings that are so incredibly dissimilar to their own home environment. Hence, however tempting the expensive toys are, they often turn down invitations to the homes of richer children because they feel inferior. Also, children are sometimes less likely to ask friends or classmates home if they are being looked after by professional carers rather than by their parents. The result of these circumstances is that rich children are left alone among their very comfortable surroundings, feeling miserable.
Sometimes poor children do not have enough to eat and do not have decent clothes to wear. They might live in what appears to many other people to be substandard accommodation. However, do not assume that they are necessarily unhappier than rich children. They may well have a secure, happy relationship with their parents, siblings and friends. Money is not everything.
