MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images The Obamas want their daughters Malia (l.) and Sasha to do minimum-wage work.
Hard work — it isn’t just for the working class anymore!
Suddenly, the work ethic is everywhere, as celebrities and lesser-known members of the 1% are stressing the need to build character in their offspring.
Multimillionaire pop icon Sting is the latest Richie Rich to demand a fair day’s work for an unfair minimum wage from his kids.
“I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds,” he said last month, calling such easy money “albatrosses ’round their necks.”
The soulful singer’s comments came after the President and First Lady declared that their teenage daughters must do minimum-wage work.
“Every kid needs to get a taste of what it’s like to do that real hard work,” Michelle Obama, who worked at a book shop before earning her law degree, recently told People magazine.
Her husband, who worked at a Baskin-Robbins and waited tables before he became the leader of the free world, agreed, adding that it’s important for kids to see that “going to work and getting a paycheck is not always fun, not always stimulating, not always fair, but that’s what most folks go though every single day.”
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images Eliot (Coco) Sumner, front woman of the band I Blame Coco and daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler, will have to make sure the music career works out: Her father says none of the family’s six children will have a trust fund.
Much like the First Family, David and Victoria (Posh Spice) Beckham sent their 15-year-old lad Brooklyn to bend it like a barista in London this summer.
“We try to lead by example, (and) being hard-working is the best thing you can show children,” the soccer legend said last year.
More and more, scions of wealth will spend this summer keeping up with the cash register, not the Kardashians.
Just ask Christopher Natal, a 23-year-old in Brooklyn Heights. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth — he had the whole dinner set. But his parents — one a police chief, one a sheriff — laid down the law when it came to instilling a work ethic.
“My parents gave me everything, but I had to work for it,” says Natal, who got his first job at 17 and used the money to buy a car.
Natal’s parents paid for his education at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, but when he wanted to pursue a fashion career in the Big Apple, he took a 9-to-5 job as a sales associate at Nine West in the Financial District to pay the bills.
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fifteen-year-old Brooklyn Beckham, shown with his parents, David and Victoria, and younger brothers Romeo and Cruz, will experience life as a barista.
The ’rents help with the rent sometimes — Natal lives in an apartment with a doorman, private patio and gym — but other New Yorkers’ parents have a strict limit on what they’ll pitch in.
That’s the key, says wealth-management consultant Susan Bruno, who advises the 1% on estate planning, investments, education costs, starting up businesses and retirement planning. Her motto is simple: Spare the sacrifice, spoil the child.
“It’s human instinct. If you know big money is coming your way, naturally, it’ll reduce your motivation to work for it,” Bruno tells The News.
Bruno says she sees more parents combating entitlement by giving their offspring the old “heir cut” when it comes to regular contributions.
“When you privilege a child, you are completely killing their spirit,” adds Bruno, who cut off her own daughter, now 25, after she graduated college. “I’ve had clients who have said, ‘I didn’t live up to my full potential because I didn’t have to.’ Cutting them off is tough love.”
Tough love is the best love, says Upper East Side lawyer Terry Solomon. Her 24- and 25-year-old kids can’t touch their fortune until they’re 40.
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Steven M Meyer/Steve Meyer for New York Daily N Melissa Gerstein with daughters Sydney (in red) and Lily (in green) show some math from their lemonade stand earnings. Steve Meyer for the New York Daily News Enlarge
Melissa Gerstein’s children selling lemonade and computing the earnings.
“We want our kids to be self-sufficient,” says Solomon, who got her first job, as a waitress, at age 17. “They need to get their own skills and experience to be independent and also give money to a nonprofit charity of their choice.”
And her financial advising has paid off for her daughter, now in graduate school, and son, who works for a nonprofit.
“All my friends come to me saying, ‘Your kids are so modest and caring,’ ” says Solomon, 57.
Being a good kid wasn’t 23-year-old Emma Quinn’s motive when she started working at age 14 — living on her own was.
Quinn hails from a five-bedroom home overlooking the Hudson River. Her father works for the New York Rangers, so she grew up playing on the ice with big shots like Henrik Lundqvist and getting all-access passes.
But working, she said, “helped me learn how much effort my parents put in to be able to provide me with everything.
When you privilege a child, you are completely killing their spirit. I’ve had clients who have said, ‘I didn’t live up to my full potential because I didn’t have to.’
“My parents had money, but I always worked,” she adds, citing retail jobs at Nordstrom and Hollister. “I didn’t want to rely on them entirely.”
Her hard work paid off: She got hired after college as a sales coordinator in Midtown. Now she’s paying all her own bills — minus the one for the roof over her head, as she still lives with Mom and Dad — so she can save up for a city apartment.
The work ethic can be taught early, too. Upper West Side mom Melissa Gerstein has raised a trio of mini-entrepreneurs: Elias, 12; Lily, 9; and Sydney Rose, 5.
“They understand the value of a dollar,” says Gerstein, who, with Denise Albert, hosts “The Moms” on SiriusXM radio. “My children are going to have to work for what they want in life.”
She gives her kids an allowance only if they complete their household chores. When they wanted World Cup paraphernalia last month, she made them earn the money, standing on a hot streetcorner selling lemonade.
“They made $ 56 in one hour!” says Gerstein.
Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News Nine West employee Christopher Natal, 23 and living in Brooklyn Heights, is from a well-off Philadelphia family.
She let the kids buy their own souvenirs — but only after insisting they donate a percentage of their profits to charity.
Giving some of your money away after working so hard for it is itself a way to learn that life isn’t all about the Benjamins.
“All kinds of valuable things come as a product of work — and we gain a lot of benefits too that that aren’t just money,” says psychotherapist Matt Lundquist of Tribeca Therapy.
TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT MONEY
Wealth expert Susan Bruno says parents need to help kids understand these basic concepts:
1. Identify wants versus needs. Mom and Dad can help pay tuition, but won’t provide beer money.
2. Cut costs. If you have roommates, pool money to buy a Keurig coffee machine. Buy in bulk. Join Costco with your roommates.
3. Buy used, not new, and fix whatever can be repaired. And stop buying bottled water. That’s just wasting money.
4. Take a part-time job in college. “Your time management — and grades — will improve,” says Bruno.
5. And most of all, STFU. Kids need to learn that they need to learn. “It’s okay to start at the bottom and work your way up,” says Bruno. “Parents need to share real-life hard-working stories (so kids can) see what it takes.”
jsettembre@nydailynews.com
Lifestyle – NY Daily News