I can't imagine you're this obtuse for real but I'll bite.
Pretty sure the backlash is against the "kids" part of rich kids - as the phrase "rich kids" insinuates second-gen wealth, a mass of money without having the responsibility or maturity to have earned it.
Very different story than for many of us self-made engineers, coming from the lower end of the economic bracket and taking advantage of scholarships and financial aid to get the skills that have now landed us well-paying jobs as adults, which we've worked 8-12-hour days to earn and keep.
We may be "rich" but we're not spoiled "rich kids", that make more sense?
What makes you say that "rich kids" implies second-generation wealth? Everyone I know who uses it in a pejorative sense is pretty clearly referring to how most of the people in question are still being carded at bars. A 23-year-old making $120K is on the lower end of upper-class and can safely be assured of moving upward barring very unusual circumstances. And if you work in startup-ish/leading-edge tech, I'll lay even-odds on "spoiled" fitting. (Where do you think all the Mom-replacement startups, the feed-me-and-do-my-laundry startups, come from?) I am profoundly fortunate in my choice of career and the benefits I've realized from it--and I don't apologize for it, but I at least try to keep perspective on my extreme good fortune. There but for the grace of God, so on and so forth.
The backlash is not against "kids", but unreasonable defensiveness about the word "rich," because "oh, I'm not rich, I'm just getting by even though I have a stupid-good 401k and benefits and make enough money to never look at a bank statement." When you have to own up to just not really working all that hard and just not really having a struggle in your life that you didn't create, lots of people feel real bad. (And the ones that are hurting people with real problems should feel bad. "But economics" does not clean one's hands of one's contributions to even faceless evil.)
Fair enough, "rich kids" can also mean fresh-out-of-mom-and-dads' with too much money and not enough impulse control.
I guess the reason I assume the backlash is against 'kids' and not 'rich' is, to use my own anecdote, most everyone I know in this industry who might be incorrectly classified as "rich kids" came from much humbler circumstance, and they also try to keep perspective on their extreme good fortune as you do.
Perhaps it's the circles we run in, but most of the people I know personally who would be caught in the crossfire of "rich kids" are aware and grateful daily of their massive advantage because of the stark contrast to their childhood economic experience - and it makes them work twice as hard to make sure they maintain it, as well as pay greater attention to those evils.
I feel like the truer crime called out by "rich kids" is reveling in privilege, oblivious at its cost to others - that total lack of societal awareness I tend to associate with children, which I guess is why 'kids' seemed more backlash appropriate.
I think you and I are probably pretty much on the same page! I dig how you put it in your last paragraph, but I tend to see that as more immaturity than the actual state of being a child. And many (I'd say "most" but it could just be that the many are loud) of the folks I deal with on a daily basis are deeply socially and societally immature; my hunch is much more that that's an artifact of being so insulated than anything. I do tend to work with leading-edge, startup-bait technologies and for the organizations that use them, which may further color my perspective.
I don't think the tech industry or the people of it want to coexist with other people, and I very strongly feel like the mean streak of turbocapitalist libertarianism shooting through tech encourages a culture of not feeling a need to coexist.
