My daughter asked me this. How would you explain wealth inequality to a 12-year-old?
For context: ex-wife cheated on me and married this extremely wealthy Chinese guy. Crazy wealthy as in entire apartment building in Beijing’s CBD and a mansion out in the Shunyi district as his “main residences”. Daughter lives in China with my ex-wife, her husband and his son. Daughter lives with me during school breaks / holidays.
Depends on how smart she is.
To not sabotage things, you can always leave it at a “mix of luck, talent and hard work”. And you’re working hard, and maybe you even have luck, but step dad might have all three.
If she’s smart, you can drop the whole thing on her: first of all, you love her, her mom loves her, her step dad hopefully does too or at least likes her and that has nothing to do with money. Then you can just be transparent on how much you earn, how much time that means in effort, and how much “lots of money” takes to earn. Then you can just do some math, and her step dad’s numbers won’t add up.
It’s a sensitive topic though, you can say your piece, communicate with your ex and the step dad about that she asked and what you said. They might have a different take.
Might even spin it into making her think about what she wants to do in the future.