`Nepo babies' are nothing new, and neither is the value of overcoming adversity

I seldom see eye to eye with the liberal hosts of “The View.”

Now there is something else we disagree about: “nepo babies,” a reference to the age-old practice of nepotism.

There's truth in the familiar saying: It's not what you know but who you know.

Americans like to talk about the sanctity of “merit” — usually when trying to maintain the exclusivity of a club and keep out the unqualified, unworthy or undesirable. But we know the score. The boss's kid usually winds up with the internship.

Yet what happens when you become the boss? Should you make sure your kid gets the gig?

The hosts of “The View” would probably respond in the affirmative. On the show, a recent discussion about “nepo babies” — a phrase being tossed around by celebrities with golden pedigrees — raised the question of whether affluent or well-connected parents have a duty to make life as cushy as possible for their children.

My answer: They most certainly do not. Nor is it parents' responsibility to use their contacts, fame and fortune to give their children a head start in life, or to ensure that their children are successful and have more comfortable lives than they had.

I'll go further. Many years ago, I interviewed a married couple who wrote a book arguing — fairly convincingly — that it is not parents' obligation to make sure their children are always happy. Let's add that item to the list.

Parenting — a job that, as my three teenagers can tell you, I struggle with every day — is difficult enough. In my case, the difficulty comes from finding a balance: between work and family, being strict or lenient, giving my kids enough to support them but not so much that it hobbles them, setting high goals but teaching that it's OK to fail. After all, Dad fails a lot.

Parents need not, and ought not, take on additional burdens that aren't in the job description. Making our children wealthy and successful is not our responsibility. Free yourselves, people.

The “View” hosts seem to have a different perspective. Recently, a few of them got worked up defending celebrities who got a boost in life from having rich, famous or otherwise well-connected parents.

Sunny Hostin observed that nepotism is woven into the fabric of America. “We had one Bush president and another Bush president,” she said. “We had one Cheney and we had another Cheney . . . . We got the Clinton, you know, thing. We got the Obama thing.”

On that point, we agreed. Then, the conversation shifted from how the world works to how people should parent.

“I don't know anyone who wouldn't give their kid a step up if they could,” Whoopi Goldberg said.

Whether you should give your kid a “step up” is something you think about a lot when your children apply to college.

Recently, my 18-year-old daughter sauntered up to the craps table of college admissions and rolled the dice. She applied to more than a dozen schools, and she'll learn the outcome in a couple of months.

Several years ago, when she was 11, I made a promise to myself. I wanted to ensure that my daughter knew that, whatever she accomplished, she did it largely on her own steam.

With parenting, I'm usually all in. My wife and I feed our kids, provide shelter, check homework, give driving lessons, pay registration fees, and shuttle them to school and the mall and track meets and summer jobs. But, I resolved, when it was time to research colleges, take exams, juggle deadlines, write essays, do interviews, fill out applications and all the rest, I would back off. For the most part, I have adhered to that pledge.

Hostin — who noted that her son, Gabriel, is now a student at