<p>Since we're all parents with college-aged kids, we are responding to the OP's question/issue from that perspective. So, how does social status or class fit in to what we hope for our children futures? Here's my honest response:</p>
<p>I hope my D lives an ethical, moral life and treats other people with kindness and compassion and is never arrogant.
I hope my D finds her passion while she is young and it becomes a major force in her life.
I hope she's well-equipped to deal with adversity and recognizes opportunity when it comes her way.
I hope she finds the love of her life at the right time and that he is of good moral character.
She would be fortunate to marry a man (the love of her life!) of financial means since her life would probably be easier than if she married a poor man. She could pursue her art in a proper studio and not worry how she was going to pay the electric bill or feed the kids.
I hope she is happy and loved throughout her life.</p>
<p>I like to observe what is happening and try to figure out what is happening, not what people say is happening.</p>
<p>Well....why would you spit the dummy at individual posters and storm out of the Middlebury discussion? That was a whole group of people trying to figure out whether or not something is happening. </p>
<p>I'd love to know your specific definition of high social status--because it seems to be financial. Would you also refuse to associate with my FIL, born into dirt poverty and now a retired Fortune 500 CEO? Now that he has allo that money, would you judge him on the size of his homes? Or would you be able to guess how many he pulled out of poverty alongside him?</p>
<p>May I ask? Are you Catholic? Why is this conversation about who is Holier Than Thou more compelling that sly_vt's thread? Just curious.</p>
<p>And mini, I don't buy your gig that your degrees are irrelevant. They may be irrelevant in your hometown, but you are not really a hometown boy. You are a global player. On the global stage, Oxford gets you a swift intake of admiration.</p>
<p>Agreed, though, that your undergraduate degree would get a big glaze over.</p>
<p>*For the record, my FIL was a mid level manager when I met my DH. My DH was not wealthy when we met. They tell funny stories about trying to come up with his tuition. They told him he could go to a private university without telling him they couldn't afford it.</p>
<p>I never had particular financial aspirations as a college student. Everyone told me I would be poor as an architect and I believed them. I became more financially ambitious after I had children.</p>
<p>I hope my boys marry smart women with wide open intellects, a huge capacity for love and a good sense of humour. I pray they do not marry hot house flowers. I could care less about financial status.</p>
<p>Cheers, I don't what you are talking about, storming out of the Middlebury thread? I said what I wanted to say, I don't want to keep repeating myself. I still read the posts there.</p>
<p>That thread is similar to this one. In that thread a kid with a C was labeled a slacker. Some other kid was labeled as somebody who can't handle college work.
In this thread I hate labeling a kid based on the college where he graduated.</p>
<p>I hate labels. </p>
<p>Yeah, the way you wrote about me not hanging around certain people does not paint a pretty picture. And I did write something similar. </p>
<p>I'm not interested in taking the time to clarify that point, or defend myself further.</p>
<p>But by saying you don't hang out with rich people, isn't that a label of sorts? I'm genuinely curious if you live by that rule (I suspect you don't) or if it was a 'label' of sorts, meant to depict certain lifestyle choices. </p>
<p>The thing is, I sense hostility based on your presumption of my 'social status'. I wonder if it would surprise you to know that I drive a 13 year old Subaru, purchased when it was 9 years old. My H drives a 23 year old truck. We live in a very mixed neighborhood, with a group house for mentally challenged adults directly next door. A few of the severly schizophrenic, mentally challenged men visit our house every day.</p>
<p>They walk our dog and have a chat. We also have a restaurant club with them. We treat three or four of them--including some who have moved to other community houses--to different ethnic restaurants (our treat) every other month. </p>
<p>None of my neighbors, low to upper middle class, had ever introduced themselves before we moved in four years ago. Since we often hold neighborhood picnics, all the neighbors now know one antoehr much much better.</p>
<p>And yes, I am Catholic, though not practising at the moment.</p>
<p>So, in short, I hope my D finds herself at the top of Maslow's pyramid, but remembers those at the bottom.</p>
<p>Will attending the "right" college or rubbing elbows with those above her parent's social class get her there? I doubt it and think it's a crap shoot at best. I've told her to try to retain her dignity in life at all times. Throw in some education, opportunity, and love and see what happens!</p>
<p>I don't expect my Ds to be happy all of the time
I hope that they love and are loved.
anything else is gravy
That said- I do get a little charge when I think that my daughters are not only going to graduate from high school ( I did not), but they are going to graduate from college.</p>
<p>I get a little smile when I think about the school my daughter attended in elementary- yes it was private, but it was far from being the most prestigous or competive school in the region- but now teh children of much higher profile parents attend ( of course you could also argue that the top colleges and universitites 20-30 years ago were not half as competitive as they are now, so they have gotten a boost up as well)</p>
<p>However- for me- it primarily was about education- I have tried to procure the most appropriate and supportive educational environment for my girls that I can. If it means they go to school with children of gazillionaires or children of CEOs, oh. well.</p>
<p>are those same millionaires and CEOs shocked that their kids go to school with mine? Not that I have noticed- because I expect that most of them chose the school for similar reasons, because of the educational environment, not for "who they will meet"</p>
<p>Yes there are people who only want "those like them". They get nervous if some don't have the same percieved social standing, because it means they might slide down ( obviously I am guessing)</p>
<p>Some are very nervous "out of their class". My inlaws were horrified that we were (to paraphrase)" putting on airs" because we sent our kids to private school. You are supposed to know your place in life and stick to it apparently. * they were also insulted I didn't drink liquor before, after, or during meals most of the time, and stymied at why someone would need so many ** books** ! *</p>
<p>emeraldkitty--got a son my D can marry? You'd have to put up with my drinking before and sometimes during dinner, though, but we'd only see eachother on holidays. </p>
<p>We've heard much the same from friends about our spending so much money on boarding school for my D. We decided the HS education was a more important foundation than the college education, so put our money there. Now D (hs senior) has a better education than either of us did after college graduation. Says a lot for her HS and not much for our colleges! :) Only time will tell if we did the right thing.</p>
<p>Economic class: I know, very well, two children whose father was raised lower-middle class, if that, but is now almost on the Forbes 400 list. I feared that the children would turn out badly, but they have not. At college, one would never know that the boy had two dimes to rub together, unless you knew about his travels, which he does not flaunt. True, the girl, when away from college, has certain high-maintenance tendencies (which she will always be able to provide for herself), but she is in no way set apart from her college friends, with one exception. Boyfriends eventually come to know of her circumstances, which has turned out to be detrimental to relationships.</p>
<p>nope sorry no boys
( my daughters gay though ;) )
we also go out of town on holidays- so as not to have to struggle through family dinners.
It is sort of strange- I don't have a lot of formal education, but I do consider myself relatively well read, but looking at what my daughter is working on in school, and at how she is light years beyond where I was at that age,it makes me feel really old and out of it.
( it could also be that while she was never mouthy as a teen- the stress of senior year and thesis seems to have forced her to catch up)</p>
<p>The post about designer labels made me chuckle at a memory. My kids have never had designer clothing (this IS Vermont after all) but they do have nice clothing. But I recall my D hated any clothing with store logos on it. So, even though she was fortunate to own nice clothing from places like Abercrombie, GAP, American Eagle, etc., I recall if the clothing had even the slightest tag on the outside, she insisted on cutting off the labels!</p>
<p>I remember growing up in a town that had a huge influx of "new money" (as my mother would put it). All the girls in my private school spent every weekend "recreationally shopping" (again, as Mom would say....as opposed to shopping for needed items) and talking about their designer duds. My parents were so disgusted that they sent me to boarding school to get away from it...talk about irony! (the public school in my town was not a safe place to be and not a possibility. )So at boarding school there were all these trust fund bohemian type girls who were LOADED and lived in huge houses in Oyster Bay and Greenwich, but wore ripped blue jeans and ratty old shetland sweaters. I'd never known girls like that. (although my parents actually were kind of like that, minus the huge trust fund). It was a real eye opener. They'd bend over backwards to make sure that no one thought they had $$. I was fascinated by them.</p>
<p>My D also cuts out the tags of Abercrombie & Fitch clothes that I buy her. When I asked why, she said "I don't shop there." I guess there is a distinction between my shopping for it and handing it to her and her shopping for it!</p>
<p>She and her friends shop at thrift stores for vintage ripped up items and mutilate their new clothing in order to look like they're living in cardboard boxes. They're just weekend warriers though since they have a formal dress code at school!</p>
<p>According to a UChicago Economics professor, money is not the reasons kids aren't going to colleges. "Prepared" poor kids enroll at the same rate as rich kids. Problem not with schools, but with pre-k. this comes at the end of the article about how private colleges are trolling for those who can pay.</p>
<p>"So much for the money. The raging debate in student-aid circles today is whether money is the worst of the barriers facing the poor. "No," says James Heckman, a professor at the University of Chicago and a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. Among well-prepared students, he finds that the poor enroll at almost the same rate as the rich. For those who can't raise enough for tuition, targeted grants would be ideal. But to prepare and motivate larger numbers of poor kids, the most effective "college prep" may be enrichment courses for infants and toddlers. The research is proving it, Heckman says. Schools (and testing) play only a minor role in raising test scores. Stimulating tots produces more successful and smart adults."</p>
<p>Cheap way out. Colleges around the country - from Amherst to Smith to Occidental have proven pretty conclusively that students with lower test scores, coming from lower economic backgrounds, can compete successfully with their upper income peers DESPITE poorer preparation, fewer enrichment courses, etc. The old 1400 SAT is simply a 1200 plus $100,000 in family income. The emperor has no clothes, as far as the "elite" colleges go.</p>
<p>But if you ask me (this probably should go to another thread) poorer kids are less likely to go on BECAUSE of the systematic social stratification that occurs in schools, and more of the same is like prescribing the hair of the dog that bit you.</p>
<p>We know how much rich folks think it takes to educate a well-to-do child well, one with enriched homelife, all the opportunities that can be afforded outside of school, no 'learning disabilities'. $30,000 year, consistently for 12 years. (plus endowment income). Why would we assume it would be different for a poor one?</p>
<p>Money is not the only answer. It is just the necessary one. Money at grade pre-K, money at grade 6, money at grade 12, money at college. Once you know you are going to have continued access to the money, you can do all kinds of interesting things. Just like Exeter.</p>
<p>Now - back to the subject: that is a CLASS thing. The rich have sold us the bill of goods that money is not the answer to educational and social woes (since they would have to pay for it!) But watch what they do, not what they say. I've yet to see an Andover parent transfer his kid to DeWitt Clinton because he knows that, when it comes to education, money doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Mini? Are you fanning the flames and saying private schools with money are superior? That's not like you! </p>
<p>However, your dollar figure is too low, 30 x 12 is more like 30 x 12 PLUS 60 x 6, unless you live on the East or West Coast. Then the figure would be 45 x 12 PLUS 60 x 6. Rich families pay for grad school.</p>
<p>"Mini? Are you fanning the flames and saying private schools with money are superior? That's not like you!"</p>
<p>No, not necessary. I AM saying that the upper classes believe they are superior, and vote with their dollars. (I actually think homeschooling is superior to both, and have acted on that belief, as you know, which, by the way, when one takes into account lost wage-earning time, also comes out to well more than $30k/year for a minimum of 12 years.) Much in the same way they vote with their dollars for prestige private colleges and universities. They set the trend, and in typical "Theory of Leisure Class" fashion, we follow. (Except in my town, most don't - but we really don't have any rich folks to speak of.)</p>
<p>Money is a necessary condition (of class as well), but not a sufficient one. Dependability of money flow, over a period of generations, is most important of all.</p>