Are there any other parents like us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are educated professionals. We both have careers we're passionate about and have found nice, balanced niches in typically intense fields (think finance, law, etc). We like travel, great food, arts & culture, hosting other families, and great discussions about deep issues. We love trying new activities and going new places.

It seems like literally everyone else in our cohort (i.e. people we work with or went to school with) are organizing their lives around sending their children to "top" schools (usually private), helping them become achievement machines, and networking with other families in those schools. They do sometimes complain about the admissions processes, how expensive everything is, how the schools expect extra time and money beyond the crazy tuition, how annoying it is to keep carting the kids around to their activities. But they would never consider living any other way.

We feel very strongly that the point of education is not to reinforce socioeconomic inequality or fight for your kids at the expense of others. Rather, the point is for all kinds of kids to go to school together. Thus, we go to a regular public school even though we could afford private or an exclusive school district. We're also balanced on activities - nothing too intensive or expensive, and kids have time to play outside, help out at home, etc. People are polite about it but clearly think we are weird and/or wrong. We also try to be polite about their choices, but also feel strongly that they are stupid - (a) because education should not be used as a tool to get your kids "ahead" and (b) even setting that aside, elite pressure cooker environments are not good for kids' mental health.

It feels like we can never have real relationships with people like us because we are diametrically opposed on such an important issue. We're not picking fights with anyone about it, but the friendships remain more distant because this kid achievement treadmill seems like such a central part of everyone's identities.

Meanwhile, the families we meet through our school really don't have much in common with us. They can't afford to do the kinds of activities we enjoy doing, they aren't into the same things, and again, we're polite, we hang out, but there isn't a deep connection because we're too different. (I feel like they also believe that the intense "top" schools are better, and probably would go there if they could afford it.)

We are not very liberal and actually really don't like woke culture, because it's a lot of pointless posturing. We thought a lot of the anti-racism movement was focused on symbolic gestures and overfocus on race at the expense of actually tackling the root issues of economic inequality. Our politics are more centrist and common sense. So I'm not sure that virtue signaling white liberals are our people either.

Is there anyone out there like us? Are we just doomed not to have any deep friendships? Why is it so weird for educated UMC families to just want a regular childhood for your kids playing with all kinds of different kids, being challenged but not overwhelmed, being happy, and not focusing on being the best or going to a "great" school?

It must be wonderful being you is all I can say.

[Anonymous]

There is absolutely no way this is real now that we're getting heavy into the political stuff. Every single "topic" mentioned was enough of a buzzword to get people talking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, OP. There are no others as unique and special as you.

This is the answer here!

[Anonymous]

OP you are so effing wonderful that you are too wonderful to eff! I believe you must have been inseminated by an other worldly being. Is you given name Mary and are you a forerunner of the Second Coming?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can be hard to feel like you don't fit in. I get that. But also OP doesn't sound like they are trying to fit in.

If you want to fit in with people who have less money than you, it's really not that hard. Just do the things the people with less money do. The end. You can still do things that cost more on your own, but prioritize spending time with other families and do the stuff they can afford. So if they like to take their kids to the local park on the weekend to run around, do that. You will get to know them and your kids will play together and it's fine. You can still take your summer vacation in Italy while they go to the Jersey shore. But when you are together you need to do things everyone can do.

What people like OP will do is they will always want to do an expensive activity other people can't afford, and then they'll be annoyed that people won't join them. So they'll suggest going to a trampoline park with a $30/kid entrance fee. Or taking the kids to the movies at $15/each plus popcorn and drinks. Or going to an MLB game. And on and on. And they want to do activities like that EVERY weekend, not as a special treat every once in a while. Well, the other families can't do that, so they will avoid you, because they don't want to be reminded over and over that they cannot afford to do that stuff, and they especially don't want their kids feeling constantly deprived of stuff they didn't even know was a thing until meeting you.

If you are the sort of family who can't leave the house without spending $200 and who think nothing of weekend activities costing a grand for just like an average weekend in May, then you cannot expect middle class people with budgets to befriend you.

You have to choose. What is more important to you? Public school and being part of a down-to-earth community of families, or doing really expensive stuff every weekend?

Ugh this part is soooo true. I don't want my kids to grow up feeling poor or deprived, because we AREN'T poor and do a lot of cool stuff, but it makes it tough when these other families seem to be able to drop that kind of money on a random weekend activity plus snacks and takeout without thinking. I don't think spacing that stuff out is deprivation, but it's all relative.

But we organize pool and park meetups, we invite their friends over, we occasionally host parties. We're not unfriendly. We just have a budget. I'd be so bummed if people disliked me because I couldn't keep up with their lifestyles.

Guys, your posts are true but you're not hearing what OP is really saying. She doesn't really want to be friends with her MC neighbors. She is asking if there are any UMC/wealthy folks out there (like her) who share her (obviously superior ) views on parenting, education, and politics. She's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

Sorry, if you voted for Trump you are MAGA. At least own it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

Are you kidding me? I have to run to an event so I can’t respond. I am passionate and highly opinionated on many issues. Just because I can know when not to offend people and stay quiet does not mean I am stupid.

Yes, the main reason DH voted for Trump is for taxes. There are issues I actually agree with Trump and that is why I voted for him. What he is doing in office is not what I voted for.

Except he is doing exactly what he said he would do.

[Anonymous]

Look in the mirror.

You’ve built a “cohort” around people exactly like yourself and then wonder why everyone is the same.

If you had even the smallest inclination to befriend different types of people then you wouldn’t be in this situation.

[Anonymous]

OP it makes no sense that you’re claiming the high road of no-pressure-regular-life-public-school but can’t get along with the public school parents bc they don’t have money to blow to hang out with you. I think you’d be happy in a conservative midwestern city or town (no disrespect bc I went to school in a place like that and could see the value even though it wasn’t for me).