Another in the series on middle class upbringing. Why is it that students from the middle class tend to do better in academics than children from economically challenged homes or from very well off homes? A classmate at B-School articulated it well.
Imagine a child visiting a fair with his parent. As they pass the toy stall, he asks his parent to buy him a couple of toys, say a monkey and a soldier. If the parent were a rich person, she would buy both those toys and they would move on. If the parent were economically challenged, they would be able to buy neither and might even scold the child for making unreasonable demands.
The middle class parent would check out the prices and give the child a choice. "You can have one. Would you like the monkey? Or the soldier?" The child is now forced to think, to make a choice, evaluate the trade-off. "Would I rather have the monkey? Or the soldier? There are already enough soldiers amongst my friends... the monkey on the other hand..."
The advantage comes from being forced to think from an early age. It is this setting that trains the mind to realize that decisions have consequences. We carry this into our adult lives too. Do I want to fly or take the train? Would I rather spend more money at the destination or in getting there?
The day you stop thinking about these trade-offs, you are at the top of a slippery slope that leads to running your life inefficiently. The next thing you know, you are swimming in debt, or worse, credit-card debt.
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