Just a thought I had, like what can a ten year old do(besides mass murder & accidents) that messes up their life so badly that it is unrecoverable?
It has to be something that is self inflicted and not something that is the cause of others around them.
If, when you’re born, you don’t choose to be rich, that messes you up forever.
If you’re not born rich you can become rich (or “comfortable”) later in life. It doesn’t mess you up forever.
I think the changes of that happening are statistically neglible, though (comfortable maaaaybe if you’re really lucky but becoming rich is probably a one digit change, if that).
Socioeconomic mobility over a lifetime in the U.S. has always been dramatically overstated, but in the past 20 years its gradually gotten worse
“In the US only 32% of respondents agreed with the statement that forces beyond their personal control determine their success.”
"According to a 2012 Pew Economic Mobility Project study[24] 43% of children born into the bottom quintile (bottom 20%) remain in that bottom quintile as adults. Similarly, 40% of children raised in the top quintile (top 20%) will remain there as adults. Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the bottom quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults. Around twice as many (8%) of children born into the top quintile fell to the bottom.[24] 37% of children born into the top quintile will fall below the middle. These findings have led researchers to conclude that “opportunity structures create and determine future generations’ chances for success. Hence, our lot in life is at least partially determined by where we grow up, and this is partially determined by where our parents grew up, and so on.” -Per Wikipedia
2012 was 12 years ago, mind you.
Also found this 2021 Guardian Article that claims
“What about rising from rags to riches? In the US, 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are able to climb to the top 20% as adults, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%. Equality of opportunity is also much less viable in the US than in other OECD countries…”
Thanks for that! So my hunch seemed to be oretty right, unfortunately (not sure if it should be everybody’s goal to become rich, that seems unsustainable but I wish it would be possible for more people to live a happy life …)
It takes work, and if people don’t want to put in the work then they will never get there.
It takes education, you can work your whole life at being a pro golfer, but if you never receive guidance, you will not reach your potential.
Being a pro golfer isn’t the only way to make money.
Working isn’t the only way to amass capital either. In fact, it is surely the slowest method.
No, sorry, we actually just sold out of upward mobility. Our next shipment comes in never though, maybe you can come back then?
Despite declining social mobility, mke_geek makes a fair point, being born poor isn’t absolutely guaranteed to mean that you won’t be able to have a meaningful or fullfilling life. I’m sure that many people who are born in remote villages with a subsistence lifestyle, that we would view as living in poverty, are happier than many people who are born in “first world” countries.
Anyway, OP is asking about choices, not situations that are inflicted upon them.
Quite frankly, the idea that it’s likely that you can get rich through your own work/intellect/ingenuity is more and more false. Social mobility is not at all on the up and up.
You can also easily fuck up your life by failing at the attempt to become rich, or by ordering your life around that attempt. See crypto bros etc.
I’m confident it was never true. Case in point, for America: Most people are either black or female. Even looking at white men, “mysteriously”, the vast majority of the great men of the past came from fancy backgrounds.
Very true, good point.
Oh gee, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll go tell the African children. /s
Just eyeballing the life stories I know, and looking at the actual statistics on social mobility, if you do everything right you can expect to climb up like a single rung of the socioeconomic ladder. On average. There’s a great deal of luck involved there, even, and it’s possible to do everything right and go down the ladder if, for example, something unexpected cripples you.
Hey now, that sounds like a lot of work that’ll get into the way of my doom scrolling and being a miserable bastard time
And you become a successful businesswoman carrying a chocolate bar with her at all times because of your childhood fear of starvation. Sure, that doesn’t sound messed up at all.
Your comment makes no sense.
I was watching a Netflix documtary about killers, the guy said he was on drugs by age 9…so pretty sure that messed up his life before the murder. It is debatable on if surroundings or self choices are why you try drugs I guess.
It takes a certain kind of environment to enable that.
Agreed. Also Nancy Reagan told me not to, and I was not in a position to argue.
Well, if Nancy said so, it must be true.
Right, “should I do drugs?” is not a typical choice for a 9 year old to have to make, they should be protected from that. I have heard stories of particularly shitty parents giving drugs to their own young children.
9 year olds don’t have “self choice” to use drugs.
Evem adults most often don’t have it. Addiction starts with trauma, often in mother’s womb. If mother is under stress while pregnant, huge and long stress, child has much bigger chances to become an addict.
Any significant injury that results in paralysis would be a potential candidate. These become possible as soon as you become old enough to climb things like trees.
Diving head first into shallow water comes to mind
Also: eating random slug you find on the street.
Nah. You could still be nominated for director of HHS.
yeah. rat lungworm.
A kid in my class put his arm inside a… I don’t remember if it was a lion or tiger cage back on the 70s before safety was a thing. Being armless isn’t the end, but I bet he regretted that decision.
There went all his hopes for an army career. No more pitching for the Mets. No more professional arm wrestling. No more rowing competitions, or stirring huge pots of gruel.
I can do you one better: decide to explore near that baby gate that got left open.
Playing with fireworks, firearms, or chemicals can be a solid way for anyone of any age to ruin their life.
But doesn’t that count as an accident? Kids who play with fireworks don’t cram a steel can full of black powder imagining how cool it would be to loose your fingers and eyes.
Maybe kids are too short sighted to see the risk, but who says they don’t do that? Among the stupid things I did as a kid was try to turn any tube into a gun/cannon/firework mortar, and hold it in my hands to aim and launch. We even had the benefit of my grandfather losing a couple fingers as a cautionary tale, that we completely ignored. If something happened, could you really call that an accident?
Or the time we were playing with fireworks …. In a barn full of dry hay? I don’t know how my grandfather let us live after that one
…… but there’s a threshold of stupidity where you really can’t call it an accident. I’m happy to have survived in one piece all too many bouts of stupidity but the adult me wouldn’t call it an accident if something happened
Hmm. I guess there is a category that isn’t entirely premeditated and intentional, nor is it a freak accident either. It’s sort of like an accident, but it’s caused be reckless stupidity, as opposed to something beyond your control.
As people have noticed, there are lots of reckless decisions that can ruin your life. I guess that fits the description of what OP was looking for.
Being conceived by shitty people is more than enough to have a life arguably ruined permanently before it even began.
So much can happen to ruin a person’s life at any stage, even pre-conception.
OP is asking about wrong/bad/poor choices etc, the last sentence of their post specifically says it’s not about situations that are inflicted upon them.
You’re right; those were poor choices by the parents.
Really, the question is more about “When do we stop attributing bad choices to the parent and start attributing them to the child?”
Because babies and toddlers can make lots of stupid decisions.
I would argue that babies and toddlers wouldn’t be held accountable for their bad choices, even though they could foreseeably be life changing for the worst, if they stuck their hand in a blender for example. Although you could argue that in this case a parent/carer should not leave a young child near a dangerous object.
Most people would agree that a person that is fully accountable when they are considered an adult, we usually apply the arbitrary age of 18, although I do find it strange that a person that is 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old is a child and one second later they’re magically an adult.
There is definitely a grey area in the early teens or possibly even younger where you can definitely make a decision that ruins your life. An example that comes to mind is when two ten year old boys stole a toddler, then tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered him. They were judged as having the ability to act with criminal intent, found guilty and sentenced to prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger?wprov=sfla1
I grew up in a hoarder house and I’m pretty sure I ruined my life by teaching myself to do the dishes as a kid. I was expected to keep the place clean for the rest of my childhood, and that turned into me being the only one to do chores of any kind. I was actually guilt tripped into skipping college so I’d be available to drive my sister to classes.
So yeah forget all the drugs and murder and shit. The real worst thing a child can do is wash a dish.
You’re never too young to die, so the saying goes.
I remember as a kid, I met these other kids that would drink from the side of the street. That sewer water was full of nasty including gas and oil runoff from the roads and who knows what else.
I also had an ex that would drink the chemicals under the sink as a tiny kid.
That’s crazy… where did you grow up?
Los angeles
Oh, yall need to clean up over there… what do the politicians in LA keep doing with all the money meant for the homeless issues?
I moved out of that mess. lol just bought land in another state.
The most formatting event in everyone life nowadays, and the one most negatively impactful is being born poor, that is age zero.
Actually, the younger you fuck up, the worse are the consequences. A 13 year old go in a school fight, he is kicked out of school, has to go in another school further away, sleep less, see his grade fall down, and next year he’ll be pushed to start an apprenticeship rather than high school.
A 31 one year old (otherwise a good citizen) does the same. He’ll spend a night in police custody and at worst pays a fine (with a high probability that change are dropped because judges and prosecutor are busy)
I agree with your general point but I don’t agree with your example because apprenticeship can still lead to stable employment and a fulfilling life
That’s a very unusual example. If you’re prepubescent you can get away with straight up murder in a lot of jurisdictions and basically go back to your life after a few years, of lots of therapy, and legal supervision.
Be born a woman in Afghanistan… come out the womb to “And that’s when she knew she had fucked up.”
I’m not certain if this is in the spirit of your question but even a murderer in the US has privileges denied to a lot of other people.
Drugs at any age. Sure you can get clean but it takes a very pacific type of person to do that and there are more people who have failed then ones who have succeeded. I made the mistake of using drugs at a young age and it has destroyed my life beyond repair. If there are any young people reading this just remember it’s not worth it. Trust me nobody hates drugs more then drugheads.
Any age? Sure someone can drug and rape a 5 year old. But even with 8 it’s hard to get the cash for a proper addiction. You mind sharing about what age you fucked up to calibrate my compass?
In the end, this was about self inflicted damage. Not someone abusing you.
Well, no one does date grape for fun. No one’s addicted to date grape and it doesn’t matter if you have the money as long as you have the taste for it. I started doing drugs at age 14. Things like weed, benadryl, LSD, glue and shooms. In the long run I shouldn’t have done it but I will admit I do have some nostalgia for doing them with my old friends.
Being born homeless.
To be fair, OP is asking about bad/poor/wrong decisions, the last sentence of their post specifically says it’s not about situations that are inflicted upon them. No one gets to choose where they are born.
Depends on what color you were born and what side of the world you were born on. Michael Render put it best, in the west? “Even if you make seven figures, you still…”
Having success in sports, entertainment or anything that pays out real money. There’s not a lot of happy stories about child stars.
