Do you care if your DC has perspective about their privilege?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

That was us but we scrimped for parochial, not private. I did my best to open the bubble for my kids. Oldests went to colleges with predominantly blue collar family kids who were scraping together tuition. That’s when they realized that they’d always seen themselves as the “poorest” in their friend groups but it was privileged compared to their new friends. Neither came back to our DC suburb after college and I’m happy for that. They live in a world that’s more representative of the country.

[Anonymous]

I’m so sick of this interpretation of the word, privilege. Being free from want should not be considered a privilege, but a right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sick of this interpretation of the word, privilege. Being free from want should not be considered a privilege, but a right.

Being free from need should absolutely be a right, but not everyone has it. But the degree of freedom from "want" that comes with a 7 digit salary is absolutely a privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

5 figures is not middle class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t live in the DMV anymore.

The city I live in is mostly very poor & has extremely low-performing public schools. A group of (almost all white) local private day & boarding school students started a free tutoring program for the public school kids. The advertising specifically stated it was for “needy X school kids.” These wealthy kids’ (untrained teenagers, mind you) parents have a lot of clout here and got a spot reserved in an establishment in our local mall multiple times a week for tutoring. There were billboards for it, a website with its own domain name & other similar forms of advertisement. The program had an Instagram account, and would post pictures of them tutoring these kids in raggedy clothes. The whole thing was in such poor taste, I cringed every time I saw the billboards. It was clear the tutors were doing it for college admissions, and each year the tutors would go off to top colleges, and by year 4 it dwindled down to nothing. I doubt the tutors will ever live in this city again. So patronizing.

Moral of the story: don’t do what those private school kids did.

I love how posters love to mention that the rich and privileged are white. They ALWAYS mention it if they are white. Not one post makes a point to identify a less privileged person as white or a more privileged person as brown/black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t live in the DMV anymore.

The city I live in is mostly very poor & has extremely low-performing public schools. A group of (almost all white) local private day & boarding school students started a free tutoring program for the public school kids. The advertising specifically stated it was for “needy X school kids.” These wealthy kids’ (untrained teenagers, mind you) parents have a lot of clout here and got a spot reserved in an establishment in our local mall multiple times a week for tutoring. There were billboards for it, a website with its own domain name & other similar forms of advertisement. The program had an Instagram account, and would post pictures of them tutoring these kids in raggedy clothes. The whole thing was in such poor taste, I cringed every time I saw the billboards. It was clear the tutors were doing it for college admissions, and each year the tutors would go off to top colleges, and by year 4 it dwindled down to nothing. I doubt the tutors will ever live in this city again. So patronizing.

Moral of the story: don’t do what those private school kids did.

I love how posters love to mention that the rich and privileged are white. They ALWAYS mention it if they are white. Not one post makes a point to identify a less privileged person as white or a more privileged person as brown/black.

If they did, they wouldn’t be able to virtue signal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're a middle class family with kids on heavy financial aid at a private school. I worry about this a lot. My kids are very aware that people have more than them. It's in their face every day! And while they have opportunities to see that people have less, I still worry that their perspective is skewed.

If you have several kids in private, you are not real middle class, just pretending to be.

My income has 5 figures, and my kids get an enormous amount of aid. I am pretty sure we are middle class.

5 figures is not middle class

Imagine having so much privilege that you are detached from basic facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sick of this interpretation of the word, privilege. Being free from want should not be considered a privilege, but a right.

Being free from need should absolutely be a right, but not everyone has it. But the degree of freedom from "want" that comes with a 7 digit salary is absolutely a privilege.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Then why are you raising you kids in huge homes with an abundance of toys and sending them to private school? Don’t feel guilty about your wealth op. You earned it. However, imo, you can’t have it both ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t live in the DMV anymore.

The city I live in is mostly very poor & has extremely low-performing public schools. A group of (almost all white) local private day & boarding school students started a free tutoring program for the public school kids. The advertising specifically stated it was for “needy X school kids.” These wealthy kids’ (untrained teenagers, mind you) parents have a lot of clout here and got a spot reserved in an establishment in our local mall multiple times a week for tutoring. There were billboards for it, a website with its own domain name & other similar forms of advertisement. The program had an Instagram account, and would post pictures of them tutoring these kids in raggedy clothes. The whole thing was in such poor taste, I cringed every time I saw the billboards. It was clear the tutors were doing it for college admissions, and each year the tutors would go off to top colleges, and by year 4 it dwindled down to nothing. I doubt the tutors will ever live in this city again. So patronizing.

Moral of the story: don’t do what those private school kids did.

I love how posters love to mention that the rich and privileged are white. They ALWAYS mention it if they are white. Not one post makes a point to identify a less privileged person as white or a more privileged person as brown/black.

If they did, they wouldn’t be able to virtue signal.

There is an element of truth to this observation. Do people really care about privilege when measuring themselves against poor whites, of which there are plenty? I suspect not. Same for poor Asian immigrants in Chinatown tenements. Those groups are always somehow exempt from the oh woe is me privilege competition. Likewise, no one asks the Obama girls to check their privilege either.

That aside, it can be difficult to get children of affluence to truly become aware of how much effort and work it takes to achieve a successful outcome in life. Contrary to what some want to believe on DCUM, most professional UMC people didn't get everything handed to them on a silver platter. Life is a hustle for most people outside the top 1% (and even much of the top 1% is there because they outhustled everyone else).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t say yes every time they ask for something.

Consider making them get a 30-40 hour/week summer job the summers going into 11th, 12th & freshman year of college. And I mean a physical or customer service job, not an “internship.” And yes, they might encounter “bad influences” there. By that age, they need to learn how to handle that sort of thing.

I think many of us in the DMV with children in privates and hopefully headed to decent universities know that between sports and challenging academics, the FT summer job isn’t possible…why? Because internships Are important … I would rather our children focus on school, sports, internships and work various self created jobs (tutoring, dog walking, lawn work, etc) …

That said, I agree that working in a service industry preps people to deal with the demands of people and life.

The DMV environment is
Competitive. Unfortunately that means teens need to work harder academically than many of their parents did to prep for college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t say yes every time they ask for something.

Consider making them get a 30-40 hour/week summer job the summers going into 11th, 12th & freshman year of college. And I mean a physical or customer service job, not an “internship.” And yes, they might encounter “bad influences” there. By that age, they need to learn how to handle that sort of thing.

I think many of us in the DMV with children in privates and hopefully headed to decent universities know that between sports and challenging academics, the FT summer job isn’t possible…why? Because internships Are important … I would rather our children focus on school, sports, internships and work various self created jobs (tutoring, dog walking, lawn work, etc) …

That said, I agree that working in a service industry preps people to deal with the demands of people and life.

The DMV environment is
Competitive. Unfortunately that means teens need to work harder academically than many of their parents did to prep for college

So funny. Service industry jobs, yes. But not my kids or their friends. Too busy doing important things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t say yes every time they ask for something.

Consider making them get a 30-40 hour/week summer job the summers going into 11th, 12th & freshman year of college. And I mean a physical or customer service job, not an “internship.” And yes, they might encounter “bad influences” there. By that age, they need to learn how to handle that sort of thing.

I think many of us in the DMV with children in privates and hopefully headed to decent universities know that between sports and challenging academics, the FT summer job isn’t possible…why? Because internships Are important … I would rather our children focus on school, sports, internships and work various self created jobs (tutoring, dog walking, lawn work, etc) …

That said, I agree that working in a service industry preps people to deal with the demands of people and life.

The DMV environment is
Competitive. Unfortunately that means teens need to work harder academically than many of their parents did to prep for college

I can guarantee that, in today’s college admissions landscape, a summer service industry job looks better to colleges than an “internship” or expensive travel sports. Both scream privilege to AOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t say yes every time they ask for something.

Consider making them get a 30-40 hour/week summer job the summers going into 11th, 12th & freshman year of college. And I mean a physical or customer service job, not an “internship.” And yes, they might encounter “bad influences” there. By that age, they need to learn how to handle that sort of thing.

I think many of us in the DMV with children in privates and hopefully headed to decent universities know that between sports and challenging academics, the FT summer job isn’t possible…why? Because internships Are important … I would rather our children focus on school, sports, internships and work various self created jobs (tutoring, dog walking, lawn work, etc) …

That said, I agree that working in a service industry preps people to deal with the demands of people and life.

The DMV environment is
Competitive. Unfortunately that means teens need to work harder academically than many of their parents did to prep for college

Working a summer job does not conflict with challenging academics in any way.