<p>Exactly, Sally. Those of us who lived it don’t need or want to be lectured about it by someone who read it in a history book or watched it on a tv sitcom in primary school. Give it a rest already! Is negative attention really that much better than no attention at all?? Good grief! Please stop desperately trying to participate in conversations where you have little if anything to contribute. There are still latchkey kids, though easier to monitor with cellphones and cameras. And the tv show (we are not talking reruns) was on at night, after dinner, when usually one adult was home. Please stop already with the dribble no one believes. Its becoming pathetic.</p>
<p>Oldmom-
I attended the one and only public HS in my city. My graduating class was over 900. The demographics, percent who even went to college, or trade school, or who went to the local cc, etc is virtually identical to what you describe. I described the handful of students in my language class, and where we were attending college. We were not representative of our graduating class as a whole. We were probably that tiny number of which you speak.</p>
<p>I forgot about this. By the mid 1970s, the high school calculus teacher taught a SAT prep class on Saturday over 6 weeks. I didn’t take it but many kids did. I’m pretty sure Stanley Kaplan was around with test prep stuff.</p>
<p>Was that before or after the implementation of open admission policies at CCNY and the rest of the CUNY colleges? From what I’ve gathered, pre-'70s CCNY/CUNY were perceived as highly prestigious by many NYC area students and competition to gain admission from above-average/top students was quite keen.</p>
<p>Considering that history, it’s understandable why many older HS alums/neighbors who were of age in the '50s and '60s stated that back then, CCNY/CUNY was/one of the top choices for NYC area kids whereas private colleges like NYU were “backup schools” for kids who were turned down. This included a few current neighbors who were NYU students in the '50s. </p>
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<p>Most parents of kids in my old neighborhood including mine wouldn’t come home for dinner until well after 8 pm or much later due to work. It’s one reason why I had to learn to adjust when I found many other families and college cafeterias had much earlier dinner times. To this day, I find my college cafeteria’s dinner hours of 4-6 pm to be oddly early. </p>
<p>I graduated from high school in 1966, when city colleges (not organized into a system like they are now) were free and selective. I believe that kids from outside the city limits had to pay a nominal tuition but cheaper than SUNYs. Plus they lived at home and commuted.</p>
<p>Nobody believes you have a clue which, if any, neighbors went to college where and in what year. Sheesh . My dad went to NYU in the 40’s. Other than that I have no clue where past or present neighbors went to college, and neither does most everyone else.</p>
<p>*** edit-- I know one-- because I discovered, purely by fluke, that a neighbor (across the street) of my late dad’s was the college roommate of a cc’er!</p>
Oh but surely all those cousins and neighbors with whom you are so intimately acquainted and whose conversations decades ago always revolved around issues currently being discussed on cc would have kept an eye on you.</p>
<p>Some of Oberlin’s dining halls/food service facilities (not just the cafes) are open til 11:30 pm. Standard dinner hours are til 7:30- 8 with lighter fare til 10 and a “4th meal” til 11;30. Gotta keep up with current info.</p>
<p>Nahh. When I grew up in the '80s and early '90s, parents/older neighbors were much more hands-off regarding supervision than parents of kids in more recent generations. </p>
<p>Not only was this generational, but also due to necessity as long work hours from working as many as 2-3 jobs meant we kids back then had to learn to function with far less/no adult supervision for long periods starting from as young as 6. </p>
<p>Also, if one’s able to carry on conversations on topics commonly discussed by adults…such as current events from newspaper articles to the point they enjoy it enough to ask when we can meet to talk again for years, they tend to give such kids much more leeway regarding supervision as we come across much more as older teens/young adults. </p>
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<p>You’d be surprised at how deep even first and second graders can be depending on personality and whether they can resist pressures from peers and even some parents/older adults to “dumb themselves down” to seem more “acceptable for their age”. </p>
<p>One instance of this was how in early elementary school, we held a mock presidential election where some classmates and I actually went much more deep into some of the political platforms/issues being bandied about by Reagan and Mondale than I’d sometimes see even among actual adults. </p>
Spoken from someone who has no kids and zero experience with parenthood. This is ridiculous… Just because kids played in the street and weren’t trackable with cellphones doesn’t mean parents didn’t supervise.</p>
<p>So how about we get back on topic and not let this thread become yet another derailed “all about cobrat” show. Dont know if you are a salaried or hourly employee, but lets hope your employer doesnt pay for all the time spent on websites and forums unrelated to work.</p>
<p>". When I grew up in the '80s and early '90s, parents/older neighbors were much more hands-off regarding supervision than parents of kids in more recent generations."</p>
<p>So they were more hands-off … But you miraculously knew where all of them went to college, how they regarded other colleges, and their views on most every topic discussed on CC. </p>
<p>It’s a bit difficult to supervise one’s kids if one’s not even in the vicinity of one’s kids afterschool or on the weekends because they have to work to make ends meet. </p>
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<p>Funnily enough, my posting here is oftentimes a part of my work as one of the things I need to check is whether the computers/network configurations I work on are 100% functional. </p>
<p>Also, should I ask the same about you? Pot…kettle…black much?</p>
Another completely ignorant statement. Not that its any of your business but no, I am not wasting anyone else’s time or money (just my own)! I am self employed, semi retired, and at home today. Its really unlikely that your employer wants you to harangue people and weave fantasmagorical stories on a college website. Completely unbelievable, like all the other stories. </p>
<p>If you’re going to ask someone a snarky question, shouldn’t it be expected that the same snarky question could be turned back onto you?</p>
<p>Turning this back to the original topic, factors for higher SES parents to pay the $41k+ for pre-K promising to make kids “Ivy-ready” is how such services play into NYC area higher SES parental anxieties about public education in NYC, the crazed public HS application process, increasing competitiveness of college admissions and the anxieties which come with it, need to maintain differentiation/exclusivity in child’s social networks/contacts by doing all they can to avoid having their child attend the public or lower-tiered private colleges kids in their social strata strive to avoid attending*, etc. </p>
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<li>This part reminds me of Ucbalumnus and some other CC posters’ comments about how Rutgers is strongly disdained in many well-off suburban NJ communities despite its strong academic reputation in many fields. It’s very similar to why many wealthy NYC area parents/students are extremely reluctant to even consider the possibility they may end up at a SUNY/CUNY college.<br></li>
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<p>Sending their kids off to such expensive pre-k prep nurseries is one way of staving off that possibility in the eyes of such parents. </p>
Lets make this simple. If you are employed and on someone elses time and dime, you have no business wasting it spending time on internet forums. Its not snarky- its a reality, unlike your ridiculous stories of friends and cousins and relatives… And your sad attempt at a comeback was without merit, since the situation is not the same. You tried to be clever and made an assumption that was incorrect. Maybe you should get back to work?</p>
<p>…and sometimes sending one’s kids off to $41k pre-k nursery school can also be part of an effort by some parents to give voice to their controlling micromanaging inclinations…including the 12+ year Ivy/elite/engineering/[insert parentally imposed major of their choice] college or bust plan…</p>