PEDIATRICS Vol. 56 No. 6 December 1975, pp. 998
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RICH KIDS HAVE PROBLEMS TOO

Thomas J. Cottle 1

1 Children's Defense Fund

In light of the conditions endured by the poor, there are some who would say: "Who cares about the young people growing up in America's wealthy communities? Money will lift them out of any trouble. And anyway, they can always hide their problems." The fact is, however, that money isn't buying the rich immunity from sadness and difficulty, and it surely isn't guaranteeing them anonymity. Instead, money may be earning them isolation, a feeling of being out of touch with other communities, other people.

I have visited with some marvelous suburban families in the last ten years. Their homes are a joy, the relationships between parents and children so rich and loving, that one leaves these homes feeling envious but uplifted. I have also visited homes where wealthy husbands beat up wealthy wives, where drunken fathers and mothers are barely able to make it through the evening, where civil people cannot sit down to dinner without drinking. Where well-meaning adults eat fewer meals with their children in a month than a welfare family will in a week.

From a young man, fifteen years old: "Nowadays if your folks get a divorce it's no big thing. There's somebody to talk to about it, if you want to. All you have to do is go next door, chances are your neighbors on one side or the other have been divorced. It doesn't seem to bother lots of kids. For me, I'd have to say it was like being told my father had cancer and was going to die in two weeks.