> aaaaaand raise my kids to give them the best chance of doing the same.

There's the tough part. Money buys houses in good school districts (or a spot in a private school) which buys fewer highly-disruptive peers, a much better worst-probable-outcome for available peer groups, and a safer (=less stressful) environment. It's hard to live on the cheap housing-wise with kids, since housing costs are a proxy for school/peer quality, and housing's a big percentage of one's spending. Plus it's harder to find housing in good school districts with enough space for more than ~1 kid in car-free commuting range of business districts in most cities, et c., et c. Harder to achieve that paid-off house which is so very important to early retirement. Plus, you've really got to maintain decent health insurance, which in the US means steady employment with a somewhat stable company.

Then you're both working because you need that money to cover the higher priced housing without risking rapid homelessness in the case of a layoff, but now whichever of you's lower-paid and might otherwise stay home is probably working around or below minimum wage, effectively, because child care is so damn expensive.

Whole thing seems like a trap designed to eat all your money. Having three kids took us from "will probably retire very comfortably by age 50, without even having to try that hard" to "will very likely never retire".

> Money buys houses in good school districts (or a spot in a private school) which buys fewer highly-disruptive peers, a much better worst-probable-outcome for available peer groups, and a safer (=less stressful) environment

I think this might be a myth. This is anecdotal but my experience is that the "rich kids" have just as many problems as the poor ones. They just receive less scrutiny unless they are public figures.

I grew up in a middle class area outside SV. The supposedly rich kids were often just as messed up as the poor ones. Its like the stereotypical "Preachers Kid."

It's no myth that kids in the poor schools around here are surrounded by peers who generate frequent school-wide lockdowns over (often realized) fears of significant violence, disregard authority and the importance of school to the point of cursing at and threatening teachers all the time (I'm talking lower elementary school kids here, not high school) and often, eventually, end up on the wrong side of the law. Kids in middle class and higher schools aren't dealing with that crap. In legitimately upper-middle-class (professional class, if you prefer) schools there's additionally peer pressure to do crazy stuff like study for the SAT outside of just the super-nerd clique, which, by that age, is vastly more effective than anything a parent would do to encourage that kind of thing. Norms and expectations among one's peers in school are, as I understand it, so hugely important that they overshadow most other factors in education (aside from basic home-life stability stuff, like not being abused and having food).

If you have kids, the difference between middle-class and "suboptimal" neighborhoods is stark. It's the difference between your kids having a normal, if not bland, suburban walk/drive to a decent school vs. them dodging bullets and stepping over junkies on their way to a gang-controlled school that's 95% English learners.

They may have 'as many problems' as the poor ones, but there's a particular category of poverty, where you aren't getting three meals a day, and half the time your parent figure's home, they are abusive, drunk, high, or in withdrawal from their poison of choice. Or in the best case, just not present.

It doesn't matter how good the school is, if the home environment is a living hell.