Am I being naive?

I'm a senior in college and will be starting a job in IB in NYC shortly after graduation. My parents want to help me buy an apartment in NYC after I graduate. They would pay for 30-40% of the apartment in cash and I would take care of the monthly mortgage. This gift from them would obviously be very helpful financially. However, I'm worried that this will mean my (hopeful) future financial success would no longer really be my own. I would be getting a significant leg up that I don't deserve. Although my parents have a moderately successfyl family busines and I grew up fairly privileged as a result, all my accomplishments thus far have been my own. I got into an HYP college by working 70 hours a week in high school and got into a top IB role without leveraging any family connections. I want to look back at my life when I'm 70 and be proud of my accomplishments. It seems like I won't be able to do that if I accept a lot of daddy's money. However, I'm also worried I'm being too naive. I'm aware most rich people got to their positions way by leveraging every advantage including family money. Would I be naive to turn down my parents in order to be more "self-made"?

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This goes back to self-madeness. No one is “self-made.” You rely on natural and physical laws being the way they are in order to live. You rely on natural resources and your particular geography. You rely upon the laws and governance of your state (in the broad sense of a “state”). You rely on the genetics which you inherited from your parents. You rely on the things you’ve learned from them and everyone else around you, including countless forms of social capital. Your parents have likely purchased many things for you in order to sustain you. There are so many contributing factors to getting anywhere, that no one is self-made. Put in a terrible and condescending way that virtually nobody liked, “You didn’t build that.” But instead of using that to justify tax raises or endless unquestioned devotion to the government, I merely wish to impress that you already aren’t self-made, so there’s no use in refusing the help your parents are offering. You’ll be no less self-made than you already were. We all have advantages which come from sources outside ourselves; it’s incumbent upon us to be grateful for these advantages and be good stewards of them.

 

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