Does Affluence Guarantee Happiness?

Does a life of affluence insure your child’s happiness?  Our kids may be well fed, and well dressed, but what about their well being?  This was the subject of Dr. Suniya Luthar’s presentation at the opening meeting of the Scarsdale High School PTA on Wednesday night September 23rd. Dr. Luthar has spent the last ten years studying teenager’s attitudes and behaviors and comparing affluent children to those brought up with far fewer resources in the inner cities.  She has studied suburban children and affluent city-bred teens, high schoolers, middles schoolers as well as students on the East and West Coasts to determine their comparative levels of anxiety, depression, drug and alcohol abuse.

A Westchester resident, and the mother of an 18 year-old son and a 15 year-old daughter, Dr. Luthar has first-hand knowledge of the challenges we face raising healthy children and she brings her personal experience to her work. She has witnessed the peer pressure and academic pressure her own children face in a highly competitive environment and designed clinical studies to explore these issues.

The resulting data is fascinating and debunks many of the myths about what’s best for our kids. The studies showed that overall, children raised in affluence (household income $125,000+) suffered from higher levels of anxiety and depression than their peers brought up in the inner cities.  In addition, the affluent children drank and used illicit drugs at higher rates than inner city kids.  When comparing girls versus boys, Dr. Luthar found that the affluent girls were experiencing even higher rates of anxiety, depression and substance abuse. Furthermore, it was not the “outsiders” who were taking drugs and drinking, but instead the data showed that the popular crowd and the athletes were among the prime abusers.

So why are kids anxious, depressed and trying to escape via drinking and drugs?  Dr. Luthar presented more data in an attempt to get at the root of our problems.  She compared parental expectations, the amount of time teens spent with their family and the amount of time they were unsupervised or left home alone.  She found that the affluent children spent more time engaged in sports, academics and art while the inner city students were volunteering and engaged in civic activities.  

Though Dr. Luthar could not identify a single factor that emerged to explain the variance in mental health between affluent and lower-income teens, she did surmise that isolation, perfectionism and peer pressure are leading causes of anxiety.  She also surmised that the ever-growing competition for spots in top colleges was also a contributing factor. She urged parents, teachers and administrators not to point fingers and blame, but to work together to address these issues.

Did the problems dissipate when the students went off to college? Not according to her data.  She found that among affluent college-aged students there was a higher incidence of prescription drug abuse and eating disorders than their less affluent peers.

In an effort to further examine these issues, Dr. Luthar is now studying the attitudes of mothers, to determine their levels of self-doubt, anxiety and personal authenticity. She is exploring how women feel about their different roles -- not only as mothers, but also as spouses, friends, workers (in and out of the home), individuals with various hopes and fears -- and how they cope with the challenge of balancing multiple roles.

She presented fascinating data that plotted a mother’s level of education against her level of “personal authenticity” and found that the happiest group of mother’s had a college education but that these levels decreased for mothers who held a master’s degree or a doctorate.  She also examined the quality of a mother’s marriage against her level of education and the same trend emerged.  If you would like to be a part of her study go to www.MomsAsPeople.com to learn more.  

What’s next?  Dr. Luthar is currently planning a long-term study of student resilience and is selecting a community to examine.  Our own Scarsdale seniors may be her subjects!