There actually is a book on this

The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Deeply Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine

Believe it or not, the author does not reside in the 5 Towns or even LI. She based this book on her experience living in California, which actually offers parallels to affluent NY Jewish life. If you think I'm being unduly harsh, consider the conversation I head a woman having into her cell phone at the gym: "I feel bad about spending $250; it's just a beach bag. It's not like it's leather or anything -- you can't buy a leather bag for $250. He [referring to her husband who has to bankroll this beach bag] is good about these things, but I can see where he's coming from [in questioning the purchase; neverthelss, her mind is made up]. I want it."

Here are some quotes from an interview with Madleine Levine that appear in:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/31/AR2006073100643.html

What affluent parents tend to do is to see the child they wish they had -- not the child they have. Parents have this notion that their child is supposed to be a certain way, because performance is so highly valued in affluent communities. Parental love has become contingent on performance, which is very damaging.
I just had parents who came into my office with their crying daughter and said, "We just wasted $160,000." Why did they think that? Because they sent their kid to a private school and she wants to go to the University of Colorado instead of, say, Georgetown.
Kids aren't having the experiences that are mandatory for healthy child development -- and that's a period of time to be left alone, to figure out who you are, to experiment with different things, to fail, and to develop a repertoire of responses to challenge. They have no interior life. It's all about performance -- and performance is not real learning.