Son is 16, best friend is 17, they go to the same high school. Best friend’s family’s wealthy. He bought son a brand new iPhone 16 Pro Max & a pair of AirPods Pro 2, so they can “match”. Son’s obviously very happy, but I think it’s a bit too much. I called the parents and they said it’s fine, it’s just pocket change.
I am personally a huge fan of taking advantage of wealthy people.
You don’t really have iPhone 16 pro Max and Air pods money to throw away like this without having a one sided relationship with labor, in my opinion.
But that’s my cynical leftist view.
I imagine the biggest reason to not keep it is fear of your son getting spoiled or demanding gifts from you that are this same caliber.
However, he is 16. Certainly not the most rational age for many people, but he can understand the difference in financial statuses between you and his friend.
I think it would be distressing for you to take away this expensive thing on the grounds of “we’re too poor to have nice things” especially since it was a gift from his best friend. But having that discussion of “hey don’t let that get to your head. I still love you I just could not afford such an expensive gift. Here’s a vague breakdown of our expenses”
My dad had a similar discussion with me when I was getting ready to go to college the first time and he flat out told me how much he and mom made and broke down where the money goes. It really helped me understand our economic position instead of just assuming my parents made a good amount of money (they didn’t)
taking advantage is a pretty negative thing to do, its more of a parasitical relationship, not friendship. just like with codependancy, its not healthy.
Taking advantage of someone and being friends with them are incompatible things. If you assume by default that the best thing to do with someone wealthy or poor is to take advantage of them, what do you think that says about how much relevance you are assigning to “how much money they have” regarding someone’s value as a person?