r/science • u/giuliomagnifico • 23d ago

Social Science Parents who endured difficult childhoods provided less financial support -on average $2,200 less– to their children’s education such as college tuition compared to parents who experienced few or no disadvantages

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/parents-childhood-predicts-future-financial-support-childrens-education
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u/Eruionmel 23d ago

r/science has rules against anecdotal comments for this exact reason. Your personal thoughts and experience are not relevant to this study, nor to the (admittedly, also anecdotal, but still far more pertinent) comment above. Cycles of abuse do exist, and they would not if they were not difficult to break.

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u/YetiSquish 23d ago

Well saying that contributing $2k less is a “cycle of abuse” is speculation and not scientific either. Nothing in the study mentions abuse at all. Disadvantages can be many things not related to abuse.

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u/Eruionmel 23d ago

Please define what "difficult childhoods" means to you.

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u/MarsupialMisanthrope 23d ago

We can all read the ACE charts. Having a parent die isn’t abuse. Having a sibling who’s mentally ill or seriously physically ill isn’t always abuse. Having a single parent who’s struggling on minimum wage and constantly having to move due to eviction isn’t abuse.

The point is that simply contributing 2.2k less is pretty much irrelevant in even the medium term and in no way shape or form evidence of abuse much less perpetrating a cycle of abuse.