If this is true, what is it about wealth that is so destructive? While many possibilities come to mind, I propose the essential answer lies in two core losses that tend to accompany wealth. The first is lack of gratitude. Children of higher socioeconomic classes tend to be catered to in such a manner as to create a presumption of entitlement far more than children of humbler means. By virtue of being entitled to whatever it is they are given, how can they feel gratitude for it? And of course if they are denied it, it is a rather unjust result, since they were entitled to it! Yet without gratitude, there can be very little joy, peace, or mental health. The second cause of suffering by these children is their failure to develop true resilience; the grit to rise after a fall; being accustomed to the raw pain of emotional scars.
So perhaps, fretting over school choice is the right thing after all. Rather than concern myself with academic achievement, however, perhaps I ought to seek out schools that allow my children regular exposure to those without access to justice. While still keeping their bodies safe and their minds nurtured, I could look for schools that will not pick up my children after every fall, because there is little in life more satisfying than a victory that came after many failures. Perhaps I ought to sit with them more at dinner time as a family unit, rather than separately shuttle them to away games and tournaments in search of one accolade after another.
Perhaps the very next thing I do should be to introduce them to my Dreamer friend, and her dreams.
Perhaps the best school of all remains as it always has – the community that imparts the traits we ought to value above all: Compassion. Integrity. Determination. Humanity. The value of family, whatever that might mean to each of us. And the right to dream. This, in-fact, may be what my privilege demands.