<p>I can cook eggs with toast and microwaved bacon in under 10 minutes. ;)</p>
<p>Yum. Bacon.</p>
<p>Lol…</p>
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<p>Where in Southern California? There do seem to be certain areas which are very “flashy”, like seeing private boats that look like small cruise ships, or Rolls Royce or Bentley cars.</p>
<p>However, international undergraduates being from very wealthy families is not too big a surprise, since it is pretty expensive to send someone to the US for undergraduate study.</p>
<p>All the older freshman dorms at my alma mater were designed with the idea that servants would be living in the attics.</p>
<p>The parents failed. </p>
<p>I don’t care how rich you are- learn to take care of yourself. </p>
<p>OTOH, I wouldn’t mind if a rich classmate overpaid me to do their laundry. A dollar’s a dollar ;)</p>
<p>Last year my roommates and I were the only non-international students in our apartment complex. All Asian, almost all Chinese. Yes, many had huge new fancy cars. I saw more than one of them be towed/come back smashed to bits/parked in three spaces (it was spesh… really). It got so bad that another international student got so annoyed that he posted a comic on the back of our apartment door explaining how to park a car without being an a**hole (it’s really what it was called).</p>
<p>Might as well spend the money if you’ve got it. Sure, this seems ridiculous to most of us, but that’s because we don’t have the money. If you had 100M, you’d do it.</p>
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<p>This is the main stereotype I hear about Michigan State.</p>
<p>If I had a 100m I wouldn’t do it and I certainly wouldn’t pay someone to do it for my child who DIDN’T earn 100m.</p>
<p>For me, it’s not that people don’t want to take care of themselves (w/e) it’s both the attitude that their children shouldn’t or can’t adequately take care of themselves AND basic “I’m too good” for menial labor approach. I think it creates elitism and frankly, I find it a bit morally bankrupt. AND case in point…kids who get things for free don’t value them (hence the broken mercedes).</p>
<p>If a kid wants to work extra to pay for their laundry service that’s great. It a parent pays for it because their kid shouldn’t have to do laundry (or plan a party, or call a tow truck or clean their apartment) that’s sad.</p>
<p>I know wealthy kids 1% who have lots of opportunities (trips, a pony, clubs) and still clean their rooms, do chores, etc. In fact, one of their chores might be scooping pony manure. They are fortunate for the things they can afford but chores, etc. aren’t beneath them.</p>
<p>It’s NOT the money. It’s the attitude.</p>
<p>D2 had a maid to herself for 2 years while we lived abroad. She had her clothes folded and put away everyday. She never made her bed for 2 years. Now she is freshman, her room is spotless. She vacuums her room weekly and does her own laundry. She has a job on campus. No whining and no attitude. Does she still have more clothes/jewelry or go on trips than other kids? Yes. But she doesn’t talk about it much. When other kids tell her about their European vacation homes or their family plane, she is not in awe or jealous either. She certainly doesn’t assume they are spoiled without knowing them better.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of these students wrote an admissions essay that made them sound like Mother Teresa – saving the world, helping the poor, and all that. I think she would be shaking her head.</p>
<p>What make you think that’s what they wrote in their essays? Not sure why people think that’s how people get into colleges. My kid didn’t sound like Mother Teresa, she wrote about books she read and her experience living abroad (looked at social, economic difference between different cultures) and her great experience at a summer program (paid for by the sponsor). This assumption of anything which is different than what we would do must be bad or evil is very self serving.</p>
<p>Please, there are just as many spoiled rich American kids who can’t do anything as there are internationals hiring concierge services. When I was in college I had a friend who had never had to go to a salon to get her hair cut–the stylist came to her house. She was a seemingly regular girl from Ohio. She was paralyzed by fear about having to call a salon and make an appointment–we all had to help her. And my freshman-year roommate came from a wealthy “new-money” Boston family in which the parents didn’t want her to have to pay for anything, yet on top of covering all her books, food, and entertainment they sent her a lavish monthly stipend. It should come as no surprise to anyone who went to a private college in the 80s that she spent it all on cocaine.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the idea that simply paying someone to do things for you makes you spoiled. If people have money they may choose to spend it to escape drudgery. I don’t see the big deal.</p>
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<p>I agree completely…and because this is an anonymous board, I can also admit that I do my college-aged kid’s laundry. </p>
<p>Most of my friends make a big deal about their kids doing their own laundry on one hand, then on the other hand, complain about the expense of all the ruined clothes. </p>
<p>My kids are capable of doing it…not particularly difficult, but I have more time and I’m still doing it for those at home anyway. If I’m hit by a bus, they’ll have to step up. The dorm washers and dryers are grimy and god knows what has been in them, and it’s actually a frugal move because their clothes have lasted a long time.</p>
<p>I went to school with someone very similar to who sally305 described, except she was from Chicago. She didn’t do drugs. She graduated top of our class and went on to law school. She is one of who’s who business person in Chicago, and have 2 highly accomplished children.</p>
<p>Unless it’s illegal or immoral, I don’t care what people spend their money on. It’s their own business and to each his own.</p>
<p>Actually, the entire concept of anyone doing their own laundry is a relatively new one.</p>
<p>My parents were born in 1917, at a time when an electric washer and drier in your house were not typical, and doing laundry was extremely labor intensive.</p>
<p>During WWII all manufacturing went towards the war effort. My parents married at the beginning of the war, and it wasn’t until after 1950 that they could afford or could even find a home washing machine to purchase. </p>
<p>Until then, they sent out all their laundry to be done. Including underpants. </p>
<p>My father was an intern (physician) at Charity Hospital in New Orleans in the early 1940’s. His pay was free room, board and laundry.</p>
<p>My D is at college in the same city- she often comes home to do her laundry because the laundromat is such a hassle. However, she does it herself.
Regarding those rich Chinese kids with the big, shiny, German cars that they regularly crash, many of them seem quite unhappy- homesick, depressed, hung over…I know American college students away from home can experience those emotions, too, so that part is normal. But to me it is heartbreaking when they write in their essays about how they never saw their father (or mother) when they were growing up, or their parents left them to be raised by their grandparents while they worked in another city, or worst of all, how their parents bought them a house in the San Gabriel Valley and left them here alone in the US to go to high school/college. (These same parents expect them to transfer to UCLA). We have helicopter parents- they are “parachute” kids- just drop them off and let them float to the ground. (I don’t ask them to write on these topics- it just comes out).
Yes, they have fancy cars and maids, but I wouldn’t want to have that kind of money if it means having that kind of upbringing. Many of them are here to study in the US because they could not get into a college in China. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is, I am not at all envious of their wealth. I just find it ironic that they drive such better cars than the teacher.</p>
<p>Last year on a college visit to a small LAC, the tour guide told me that she was making $100 per week, doing a hallmate’s laundry and cleaning his room. He was happy…she was more than happy to have the money to help her through school and it was as flexible as work study and paid more. I wish my family paid me $100 per week! :)</p>
<p>My D attends a school that has a significant number of International kids. She sees that these kids hire people to help them navigate various issues in their everyday life.</p>