UglyAmerican
Nobility
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
- Messages
- 336
- City
- Philadelphia
- Country
- United States
A friend of mine lives in a lush 1.5 million dollar home in a nice gated community. It is nice and of course safe but he doesn't space or acreage. His neighbors can easily look into the west side of his backyard. In California one wants land space and acreage in a nice and safe neighborhood it is going to cost a pretty penny.
Of course they could have found a house the size of Frogmore Cottage (not the grounds and acreage though) for under a million dollars- but it wouldn't have had the space between homes for privacy, been close to family and/or friends, or be in a good location that is optimum for financial deals and business.
Yes, that's my point. Safety is a need, and maybe privacy is, too - though one really only needs 2-3 acres, not the eight that they currently have, to be out of earshot and eyeshot of the road and the neighbors. They could have met that need somewhere else for less than 10% of what they paid. They could easily have found a home the size of Frogmore with grounds the size of their Montecito home for under $1 million, but it wouldn't have been in Montecito and probably wouldn't have been in southern California. Their reasons for wanting to be in California, and in Montecito specifically - proximity to friends, family, and Hollywood business opportunities - are wants, not needs.
There's nothing wrong with spending $10 million or more to satisfy your wants if you can afford to, and maybe they can. But if they have that kind of money left over after paying for their needs, there's no reason anyone else should have been paying for their basic needs to begin with. And if they can't afford it while also meeting their own and their children's need for safety, they should have prioritized safety and security, not proximity to friends and fun. These are tradeoffs almost every other adult has to make at some point, and most of them don't have $20-$30 million inheritances to use as a starting point.
As an analogy, many people are born with medical conditions that mean their basic needs are going to be more expensive than most people's throughout their lives. It's no one's fault, it's just the way things are. Even if the parent knowingly chose to have a child with that condition, I don't think that means the parent is obligated to foot the bill for that condition's costs forever, regardless of the child's ability to pay for it themselves. If the child can't afford it and the parent can, then the parent should help them out. But if the child can afford it perfectly well and would just rather put their money towards other things they want but don't need, I don't think the parent owes it to them to subsidize that choice. That's even more true if those other things are extremely extravagant. Being born royal was no more Charles's fault than it was Harry's, and I don't think the fact that some (at this point, a small percentage) of Harry's higher security needs stem from his royal birth rather than his own choices obligates Charles and later William and maybe George to foot that bill in perpetuity.