A Silicon Valley parent worth $7 million just posted on Reddit asking whether they should force their college-bound kid to take out student loans. Not because they can't afford tuition. Because they want their teenager to "learn the value of money."
The responses were swift and brutal. "You're going to screw over your kid because of some bootstrap fantasy," one commenter fired back.
Welcome to r/fatFIRE, where America's wealthiest families gather to debate the most expensive psychological experiment in modern parenting: manufacturing struggle for children who've never known want.
The $800 billion guilt complex
These aren't your typical penny-pinching parents. We're talking about people who optimize everything—credit card rewards, tax strategies, investment portfolios. They'll spend hours researching the best flight routing to save $200.
But when it comes to their kids' college expenses? Logic goes out the window.
The numbers tell the story. Americans hold over $800 billion in college savings accounts, with wealthy families stashing away hundreds of thousands per child. Yet these same parents agonize over monthly allowances, debate the character-building merits of campus dining hall jobs, and create elaborate schemes to simulate financial hardship.
"I don't want him to be the spoiled trust fund kid that I hated in college," wrote one parent planning to give their child just enough money to survive—while sitting on millions.
The manufactured struggle industry
Wealthy parents have developed an entire playbook for engineering fake poverty. The most popular strategies read like a parenting version of fight club.
The Essentials-Only Approach: Cover tuition, housing, and meal plans, then cut kids off completely. One parent with $10 million in assets gives their college freshman exactly $0 in spending money, forcing them to work for "pizza and beer money."
The Quarterly Budget Challenge: Dole out allowances every three months, refusing to bail kids out when they run short. "I traveled to Thailand for a month after graduation with the surplus," one former recipient bragged.
The Credit Card Surveillance System: Give kids a card with a low limit, then monitor every purchase. Parents report calling their children to discuss "too many Starbucks purchases" while simultaneously funding their spring break ski trips.
The irony? These families often spend more time and mental energy engineering artificial scarcity than it would cost to just pay for everything.
The psychology of self-made guilt
What drives wealthy parents to cosplay poverty for their children? The answer lies in America's complicated relationship with inherited wealth.
Most r/fatFIRE parents are self-made. They clawed their way up through state schools, campus jobs, and ramen noodle dinners. Now worth millions, they're terrified their kids will become the entitled rich brats they once resented.
"Money doesn't spoil, shitty upbringing does," one parent argued, defending their decision to fund a full college experience. But they're in the minority.
The majority subscribe to what psychologists call "beneficiary guilt"—the fear that unearned advantages will corrupt their children's character. So they engineer elaborate workarounds to give their kids struggle without actual consequences.
The optimization paradox
Here's where it gets weird: these are people who've built fortunes by optimizing systems and eliminating inefficiencies. Yet they refuse to apply that same logic to their children's education.
Consider the math. A campus job paying $12/hour requires 25 hours per week to earn $1,200 monthly. That's 100 hours less studying, networking, or pursuing unpaid internships that could launch a career.
"What's the opportunity cost of that job?" one commenter asked. "I had to work 20 hours per week while in school to my detriment. I wouldn't wish that on someone who wants to make the most of their college years."
But for many wealthy parents, the inefficiency is the point. The struggle is the product they're purchasing.
The generational divide
The children of these experiments are starting to speak up. One recent graduate described getting a "substantial monthly allowance" while watching friends stress about rent money.
"I was definitely not a flashy, obnoxious trust-fund kid," she wrote. "That being said, I received substantial support and am very grateful for how it made my life easier and allowed me to focus on my studies."
The data backs her up. Students with family financial support are more likely to graduate on time, maintain higher GPAs, and secure competitive internships. Meanwhile, working students often take longer to graduate and accumulate debt.
Yet the guilt persists. These parents would rather engineer complexity than simply write a check.
The million-dollar therapy session
What started as a simple question about college allowances has become an expensive form of family therapy. Parents are paying premium prices to recreate the financial stress they once endured, then wondering why their relationships with their children become transactional.
"My relationship with my parents deteriorated over money issues," one former college student wrote. "It only took 13+ years to mend things."
In trying to avoid raising spoiled children, wealthy parents may be creating something worse: a generation that associates family love with financial manipulation.
As one parent finally admitted: "You've already instilled the values they're going to have. Giving them a more comfortable college experience is not going to change that."
The richest parents in America have spent decades optimizing everything—except their own guilt.