The Poorest Rich Kids in the World - Excellent article on the Duke heirs - Rolling Stone

[octoberlib]

Raised by two drug addicts with virtually unlimited wealth, Georgia and Patterson survived a gilded childhood that was also a horror story of Dickensian neglect and abuse. They were globe-trotting trust-fund babies who snorkeled in Fiji, owned a pet lion cub and considered it normal to bring loose diamonds to elementary school for show and tell. And yet they also spent their childhoods inhaling freebase fumes, locked in cellars and deadbolted into their bedrooms at night in the secluded Wyoming mountains and on their ancestral South Carolina plantation. While their father spent millions on drug binges and extravagances, the children lived like terrified prisoners, kept at bay by a revolving door of some four dozen nannies and caregivers, underfed, undereducated, scarcely noticed except as objects of wrath.

"We were so fearful. I would hide in cupboards smaller than that," says Georgia in her Southern-tinged lilt, pointing to a two-foot-tall cabinet in the kitchen of their spacious Park City, Utah, home where the twins, now 15, are reassembling their lives and residing with their mother, a woman who has seen her own share of trouble and who has only recently become a presence in her children's lives. Patterson anxiously paces across the house's open floor plan with its panoramic view of snowcapped mountains while he and his sister take turns narrating their harrowing history. Unfailingly polite, earnest and occasionally skittish, the twins radiate a sheltered naiveté that can make them seem far younger, or like visitors from another culture. For instance, Georgia confesses she's never heard of the children's party game musical chairs.

Having spent their formative years in a struggle for survival, the kids now find themselves trapped in yet another fight: A court battle under way with JP Morgan, the bank that manages the Duke trust, has found its way into the tabloids, as well as a parallel legal battle over their assets, which they claim are being raided by hangers-on. All told, millions of dollars are at stake. But that squabbling is part and parcel of Georgia and Patterson's miserable inheritance, as is their epic tale of pain, isolation and woe. "People can look at this as a blessing all day long, but it's blood money," Georgia says of their fortune and pedigree. Her green eyes – flashing now with anger – and slim, flared nose resemble those of her great-aunt Doris. "I never asked to be born into any of this," she adds. "Sometimes I wish I was never born."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-poorest-rich-kids-in-the-world-20130812#ixzz2ccxkASnz
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[Warpy]

1. I wish I could say this is an isolated story

but I've heard it all before from children of inherited wealth whose parents abandoned them to household staff from their infancy on. The more glittering the lifestyle of the parents, the worse it was for the kids, who barely saw their parents except when they were being used as lifestyle accessories. Being used as objects to direct one's wrath against was also common, but mostly they were lifestyle accessories, to be banished back into exile as soon as the photographers and interviewers left.

While I am grateful to my dad for leaving me enough to live on, I'm absolutely delighted I didn't inherit great wealth. I guess I'm grateful for the Great Depression because if it hadn't occurred, I might have been one of those children.

[Mopar151]

2. Tre are far too many in this country who worship money

Not to be confused with wealth - a pauper can be wealthy, in the right circumstances. "Prosperity theology" is but one example.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I hope to read this later tonight, but what little I did read...

was absolutely sick. It makes one wonder how many more children are being poorly or cruelly cared for by these spoiled and out of control adults?

I'm familiar with one young man whose parents spent much of the 60-70s with a house full of professionals where the liquor flowed from morning to night. Madmen in real life. Now, he is paying for it. After all, it was the only life he knew.

Imagine what's coming up in "Trustville" with this 1% crowd we are battling today. I can only guess.

[monmouth3]

4. I read the entire thing. I don't want to give spoilers for those who will read later, but this is

sadly outrageous. Especially the social services....

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. I'm somewhat speechless after reading that.

I'll borrow from one of the comments at Rolling Stone: "Can't these children be placed with intelligent, loving, kind, level-headed, normal people before it's too late for them."