Message to Rich Kids: Get a Job

Whenever I write about rich kids and their dysfunctions — such as a lack of motivation — I get email from angry rich parents. They say I’m stereotyping, and most wealthy kids are actually hard-working, grounded achievers. Maybe so. But every week seems to brings fresh new evidence of how the latest wealth boom is also creating a new generation of entitled and positively clueless aristokids . The latest is this startling interview on ABC’s 20/20, with Fabian Basabe. It’s unclear what Mr. Basabe does for a living, other than crash cars, party and collect a large allowance from his businessman dad. But here’s his own description of his life: “Premium liquor and champagne flowing, and … caviar bars, and you know, all the stuff that you see in movies, and it’s great.”

He tried working on Wall Street. Just how he got a coveted job in finance after being kicked out of at least six schools isn’t clear. What is clear is that he didn’t care for work.

“I met people, I saw an office, you know, the cubicles, and you know, lunch at your desk, and I saw a lot of that,” he tells 20/20. But while he claims to have found that “great,” the working life “just wasn’t interesting enough for me. And it’s a tough life. I mean, they work until one in the morning.”

Gainful employment, he says, just isn’t his thing: “A lot of people that will say, ‘Get a job.’ And it’s like, I can get a job tomorrow. But I’m really enjoying my life right now. I’m going to live forever, by the way, so I’m going to have a lot of time to work and get involved.”

Another kid interviewed for the show, Toby Marriott, says he was addicted to drugs and alcohol until his father cut him off from his estate. Then he was forced to find a job — and get a life.

As Ted Turner says later in the show: “You know … [kids will] feel a lot better about themselves if they make it, rather than just, have it given to them.” He adds that he made sure his own kids worked — “and they liked it. Work was fun.”

Mr. Turner is both right and wrong. Work is not fun. It’s not supposed to be — that’s why it’s called work. But work gives people purpose, focus and a sense of personal achievement — things that inherited money can never offer. It’s the very unpleasantness of work, and the difficulty of true achievement, that makes it worthwhile. Struggle is an essential part of any success — ask any self-made billionaire.

So rather than sending their kids to pricey wealth-education camps, or paying psychologists to help train children as “responsible stewards of wealth,” today’s rich parents might consider giving their kids something even more valuable: a job application.