What's a Nepo Baby? Raising Hard Workers in a Privileged World

It was ninety-eight degrees in July, smelling heavily of cheap sunscreen and chlorine, when I realized I had created a monster. My four-year-old, Beau, was clinging to the edge of the community pool screaming bloody murder while the other kids cheerfully blew bubbles in the water. My cousin, who happens to be the head lifeguard and director of the summer recreation program, was giving me the hardest side-eye of her life. I had bypassed the waitlist for the beginner 'Guppies' class and sweet-talked my way into getting him placed straight into the advanced 'Minnows' group because, well, we're family and I didn't want to drive to the pool at 8:00 AM for the early session. Now, he was terrified, completely out of his depth, and holding up the entire class because he hadn't learned the basic skills he needed to actually be there.

I slumped down in my lawn chair, hiding behind my cheap sunglasses, and thought about all those late nights scrolling my feed while nursing my youngest. The internet is constantly arguing about Hollywood privilege, and if you're wondering what's a nepo baby, it's basically someone who gets a massive head start in life just because of who their parents are. But watching my kid refuse to put his face in the water, the brutal truth hit me like a wet towel. I didn't need to be a movie star or a millionaire to mess this up. I was doing it right here in rural Texas.

Hollywood drama versus my small town reality

If you've been on TikTok for more than five minutes, you know Gen Z is absolutely obsessed with the myth of meritocracy. They're furious when some famous twenty-two-year-old model claims she got a massive fashion campaign purely on her own talent, completely ignoring the fact that her dad is a famous actor and her mom is a supermodel. It makes sense why people get mad, because denying your advantages when you started the race halfway to the finish line is just deeply insulting to everyone else struggling to buy groceries.

But thing is I'm just gonna be real with you about. We love to point fingers at celebrities, but everyday parents pull the exact same nonsense. It's the coach's kid who gets to pitch every single baseball game even though he can't throw a strike to save his life. It's the mom who runs the PTA making sure her daughter gets the solo in the Christmas pageant. It's me, thinking I was doing my kid a favor by pulling a string so I could sleep in an extra hour, only to set him up for a massive public meltdown because he couldn't actually swim.

My grandma used to sit on her porch stringing beans and tell me that if you pave the road for the child instead of preparing the child for the road, they'll trip on a pebble and shatter their kneecaps. She also swore that rubbing whiskey on gums cured a fever, which is advice I actively roll my eyes at and ignore, but bless her heart, she was spot on about the road thing.

Equality of access without the execution

Some child psychology podcast I listened to at 2 AM trying to figure out why my middle child bites people claimed that there are two parts to privilege. First is the access, which is getting your foot in the door because of who you know. Second is the execution, which means actually having the skills to do the job once you're in the room. A true nepo baby gets the access and then gets a free pass on the execution.

This brings me to my oldest kid and his absolute refusal to build his own towers. For the longest time, I'd sit on the rug and stack all the heavy wooden blocks for him, just so he could knock them down and laugh. I was doing all the execution while he got all the glory. When I finally stopped and told him to do it himself, he threw a fit that could have powered the entire state power grid. We had to completely reset our expectations, and I ended up swapping those hard wooden hazards out for the Gentle Baby Building Block Set from Kianao.

I'm not going to lie and tell you a set of blocks fixed his entitlement overnight, but these things are made of a soft rubber that doesn't dent my floor when he inevitably hurls one in frustration. They have numbers and little animals on them, and I make him sit there and stack them his own dang self. He gets furious when his uneven tower falls over, but I just sit there folding laundry and let him be mad. When he finally gets three to stay up, he seriously looks proud of himself instead of just looking at me to fix it. If you want a soft way to let them fail safely, these are great.

While you're sitting there letting your kid cry over a fallen block tower without jumping in to rescue them, you might want to browse some organic baby clothes to distract yourself from the mom guilt.

The preschool art project conspiracy

Since we're talking about parents doing the execution for their kids, I need to get something off my chest about preschool crafts. Y'all, it's so painstakingly obvious when a grown adult does a three-year-old's art project. Last fall, we had to do a family turkey disguise project for Thanksgiving. I gave Beau some safety scissors, a glue stick, and some construction paper, and his turkey looked like it had survived a lawnmower accident. It was messy, half the feathers were glued to the kitchen table, and he was so proud of it.

We walked into the school hallway, and there were turkeys covered in perfectly hot-glued sequins, hand-knitted miniature sweaters, and professional-grade papier-mâché. Give me a break. You're not fooling the preschool teacher, and more importantly, you're robbing your kid of the chance to make something ugly and be proud of their own messy effort. When you take the scissors out of their hands because you want it to look perfect for Instagram, you're telling them their actual abilities aren't good enough. You're building a tiny, glitter-covered nepo baby who expects a masterpiece without doing the work.

Honestly, I don't really care if you let your kid watch three hours of cartoons on an iPad while you drink your coffee in absolute silence just to survive the morning.

But with the work they need to do to grow as humans, we've to back off. My middle child is going through a massive growth spurt right now, crawling over everything and getting into every cabinet. I dress him in the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie almost every day. Honestly, it's just a onesie, y'all. It's not going to change your life or do your taxes, but it seriously survives my washing machine without shrinking into doll clothes, and the organic cotton means I don't have to worry about weird chemical rashes on his skin. It stretches enough that he can tumble over the dog and pull himself up on the coffee table without me hovering over his every move.

Letting them face the struggle

My doctor said something interesting at our last checkup when I was complaining about how exhausted I'm running my Etsy shop with three kids under five underfoot. She told me that kids who are constantly shielded by their parents never develop the thick skin required to handle being told no. I guess the medical science is always changing, but that feels pretty universally true.

It's hard to watch them struggle, though. My youngest is ten months old and currently cutting three teeth at once, which means nobody in this house has slept past 4 AM in over a week. She is fussy, miserable, and constantly chewing on her own hands. I can't magically make the teeth come through the gums for her, no matter how much I wish I could take the pain away. Instead, I hand her the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy. It's got these little textured surfaces that she aggressively gnaws on, and the flat shape is easy for her tiny hands to grip without dropping it every two seconds. I throw it in the dishwasher when it gets gross, which is basically the only cleaning routine I've energy for right now. She has to do the hard work of getting those teeth through, but I can at least give her a tool to make the struggle a little less miserable.

That's kind of the whole point of parenting in a privileged world. If your family has advantages—whether that's a decent income, a stable home, or an aunt who runs the local recreation center—you don't have to pretend those advantages don't exist. You just have to make sure your kid knows they still have to put their face in the water and kick their own legs. If we open a door for them, we've to require them to walk through it themselves and work twice as hard to prove they belong in the room.

If you're ready to stop hovering and let your kids start doing the hard work of independent play, check out our wooden play gyms to give them a safe space to figure things out on their own.

Messy questions about raising kids in a privileged world

How do you explain privilege to a toddler without sounding ridiculous?

You don't sit them down for a college lecture, you just point out the little things in real time. When we go to the park, I'll say things like, "Aren't we lucky we've a car to drive here when it's raining outside?" It's just about planting seeds of gratitude early on so they realize that not everyone has a pantry full of snacks or a warm bed. It starts with just acknowledging the good stuff out loud.

Are we ruining our kids if we help them too much?

Look, I'm not a psychologist, but probably a little bit? When we rush in to fix every single problem—like me trying to bypass the swimming lessons—we basically tell them we don't think they're capable of handling hard things. They need to fall down, scrape a knee, and realize the world doesn't end. If you never let them fail when the stakes are low, they're going to absolutely crumble when the stakes are high.

What if my family really does have helpful connections?

Use them, but make your kid earn the keep! If your brother owns a landscaping business and gives your teenager a summer job, that's great access. But your kid needs to be the first one there in the morning and the last one to leave. They need to be held to a stricter standard than the kid who walked in off the street, otherwise, everybody is going to resent them, and they'll think the world owes them a paycheck just for breathing.

When should I step in if my baby is struggling to learn a skill?

There's a big difference between a baby who's dangerously stuck and a baby who's just frustrated. If they're rolling around trying to reach a toy and grunting because they can't quite grab it, let them grunt! That frustration is exactly what builds the motor skills to finally scoot forward. Obviously, if they're in danger, grab them. But if they're just mad that physics isn't cooperating, let them fight it out for a minute.

How do I deal with other parents who clearly do everything for their kids?

You smile, nod, and mind your own business while drinking your lukewarm coffee. Seriously, you can't control the mom who hot-glues her kid's science fair project. Just focus on your own lane. Let your kid take the C+ on the messy project they really did themselves, and know that you're playing the long game while that other mom is going to be writing her kid's college admission essays in ten years.