Thursday, January 01, 2015

Wealth and Siblings

The print edition of the Miami Herald this morning features on the front page of its business section an AP article by Bernard Condon that the Herald headline writer entitled "Wealth gap deepens sibling rivalries."  It features Jayson and his sister Jackie, Jason materially successful and Jackie not so much.  Jayson is college educated, in his mid-thirties and single. Jackie has no-college (yet), is in her late twenties, and she married her high-school boyfriend.  But if you read to the end of the article, you see these two people moving toward each other in their views and growing in their respect for each other. 

The article on the AP website (and on the Herald's own website) has a more accurate headline: "How wealth gap complicates sibling relationships."

The Herald headline, however, advances the newspaper's agenda:  that we should all have the same outcome regardless of the choices we make and that government should make it so.

I concede that that the article also includes quotes from a psychotherapist who "says she's never had so many clients troubled by sibling wealth."  However, a sample taken from a lone psychotherapist's practice hardly makes the case promoted by the Herald headline.  Nor do Jason and Jackie. 

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