spin-off! What is so awful about attending school with exclusively upper middle class kids?

[Anonymous]

... At my daughters school (an elite private in DC) there are many parents that are shockingly wealthy but their main focus is on the education of their child and on good behaviour. For example the tooth fairy brings a dollar. My friend opted for the local private school and finds several parents to be "showy" about how wealthy they are, and the tooth fairy brings $20.

I feel cheap all of a sudden because at our house the going Tooth Fairy rate is only 25 cents! No complaints so far.

But maybe this points to a bigger issue that is relevant to this thread -- your child will likely learn more of her money/work values from home rather than from her school.

I'd also point out that in my personal experience, in every upper-middle class family I know (let's say in the $200-900k HHI range), the parents both work extremely hard. Yes, they often have nice things (eg, nice house, nice car, private school) because one or both parents work at high-paying jobs. But those high-paying jobs usually require lots of education (and hard work to get that education) plus lots of hard work at the jobs themselves. If the kids mimic the parents, they certainly won't lack in developing a work ethic. It's definitely possible the kids may develop unrealistic views on how many/few families in the world are lucky enough to have those high-paying jobs and afford those high-cost items, but that's a slightly different issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up this way...private school with all upper middle -upper class people (not in this area.) I think the danger is thinking that everyone lives that way and living a very insulated life.

Thankfully, I was smart enough in high school to regularly volunteer at soup kitchens, Habitat for Humanity, etc and realized there is a big world out there not everyone looked like me, grew up like me, or had the privileges that I did. it really shaped the way I viewed myself, my school, my upbringing, and the world. Now I am a teacher in SE - a long way from that private school and I love it.

OP, if it works for you, that's fine but I think for others of us, like this pp, there are disadvantages. I grew up like this pp and was pretty much scared of urban poor and working class neighborhoods growing up. Later in life I made a point of seeking out different experiences and it has opened up my world a lot. Years ago, I used to be afraid to drive east of the park, let alone east of the river. Nowadays, I'm comfortable in all wards of the city. But it took a lot of work to get there.

I found getting out of that homogeneous world liberating - but that doesn't mean it's a bad place for your kids to go to school. It's a great place to grow up! It's just that like with everything there are tradeoffs and a big tradeoff for me was being afraid of neighborhoods different from mine. But those are my priorities. And you can certainly broaden your kids' perspective by taking them to volunteer at soup kitchens and Habitat for Humanity. Just trying to explain why it's important to some of us to live and work in a different environment.

[Anonymous]

my kids are 7 & 5 - is it time to tell them we can't afford some of the things their friends enjoys because daddy & mommy don't make enough money? and when they ask why don't you do i say because we're not as well-educated or competitive or our parents didn't have money?

[Anonymous]

I think one should also take into consideration that going to a public school around here doesn't automatically mean you are exposed to more diversity. We're in the Langley pyramid of McLean. My kids go to a private school that, thanks to FA, has greater socio-economic and racial diversity than the public school we're zoned for.

Their friends live in many areas in and around DC--it's the neighborhood kids and kids from local teams (i.e. non-tryout/travel teams) that are homogenous. THere are many ways to expose kids to diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in SE DC. I love it. My oldest DS goes to a good Hill DCPS school and went to a daycare where many of the children were poor. I think he's awesome - I am clearly biased. I think he has the best social skills of any 7 year old I've ever met. We are white. We have been to parties where everyone else is black - he walks right into the room of kids and is like, "What are we going to play?" He understands that some people have disabilities because he has classmates with disabilities. He understands that some families have gay parents because we have friends who are gay and go to church with families where the parents are gay.

I do think he might be getting a better reading/math education in Arlington/Mont. County or a good private school. However, I think we are preparing him for life in our amazingly diverse and diversify city and county. If he's really smart and becomes a doctor, he will walk into his first day of residency in an urban emergency room and be less freaked out and more comfortable with diversity.

With every school and every neighborhood there are trade offs.

Agreed. That's what I want for my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my kids are 7 & 5 - is it time to tell them we can't afford some of the things their friends enjoys because daddy & mommy don't make enough money?

My kids are both two years younger than yours and I have told them not that long ago that we can't go out and eat at a restaurant every day because we just don't have that much money. The five year old said that she will save her pennies that she gets from reading books to us each night so she can pay for her meal. It was a great conversation! (No, we are not destitute, by any means, but do have to set some limits, like only eating out once or twice a month).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great question OP. As someone who came to the US as an adult, this desire to go out of one's way to surround one's kids with those who are less fortunate is the most puzzling thing about this board.

I want my kids to grow into high functioning empowered adults. The best way to attempt this is to surround them with smart, hardworking kids from well-functioning families and get them used to interacting and competing with them, both in academics and on the sports field. Sure, it will be important for them to learn that the world is full of all kinds of people, but that they will learn from travel and interacting with friends from different activities and camps. If I can give them successful role models, why should I go out of my way to show them "average." They can find that anywhere.

You're equating "smart, hardworking" with kids whose families are wealthy enough to afford $35K (or $70K for two kids) per year for education. And you're equating "well-functioning families" with parents who chose law school instead of government or not-for-profits. So essentially, you're associating all these desirable characteristics with the upper class, because for much of the middle class, private school is out of reach. I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt, because your came to this country as an adult, but it's hard to think you understand US social classes, and it's even tempting to suspect classist yourself, and/or you're trying to limit your kid's exposure to "regular" US kids.

I agree with the poster who said that upper class kids often work less hard -- unless they happen to be in an elite private, and specifically if they entered that elite private in the upper grades when they were judged on their achievements and grades.

There are lots of well-functioning families where the parents didn't choose to enter law, and their hard-working, well-functioning kids are generally in public. And believe it or not, some of the hardest-working kids come from immigrant families with obviously lower SES than yours.

FWIW, sending your kid to summer camps won't expose him to a different SES, unless you choose one of those karate camps with signs on the street corners.

That's not quite accurate. If you have a DC that is into competitive sports, many of those camps, particularly in certain sports, are very diverse. My DS started attending some of those last summer, and let me tell you, it was eye-opening for him. Literally. He was bug-eyed on Day 1 when I dropped him off--gone were the parents he used to seeing at drop off (mostly). By drop off the 2nd day, he was running to catch up with his new friends....

[Anonymous]

Perhaps you should consider not paying your 5 year old to read books. Let her just enjoy the intrinsic joy from reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my kids are 7 & 5 - is it time to tell them we can't afford some of the things their friends enjoys because daddy & mommy don't make enough money? and when they ask why don't you do i say because we're not as well-educated or competitive or our parents didn't have money?

How about telling them that you make different choices than spending your family's money on things? I tell my three-year-old that if we break something, we don't just replace it right away -- we can fix it, we can do without it ... similarly, if she wants something that I don't want to spend money on (whether because of the thing itself or because of the cost), I tell her that's not how we choose to spend the money I earn. It's worked so far -- and it's what my parents told me. I grew up in a very affluent suburb in a comfortable-but-not-affluent family, and while I remember the angst of longing for things my friends had that we couldn't afford, I think I got some good lessons about values in the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my kids are 7 & 5 - is it time to tell them we can't afford some of the things their friends enjoys because daddy & mommy don't make enough money? and when they ask why don't you do i say because we're not as well-educated or competitive or our parents didn't have money?

Yep - tell them you screwed up - you took a non-profit, teacher, public service job when you should have gone to law school/b-school or invested in that crazy start up back in college. You decided to become a cop or fireman - too bad - you suck. They plainly lost out on the parent lottery...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in SE DC. I love it. My oldest DS goes to a good Hill DCPS school and went to a daycare where many of the children were poor. I think he's awesome - I am clearly biased. I think he has the best social skills of any 7 year old I've ever met. We are white. We have been to parties where everyone else is black - he walks right into the room of kids and is like, "What are we going to play?" He understands that some people have disabilities because he has classmates with disabilities. He understands that some families have gay parents because we have friends who are gay and go to church with families where the parents are gay.

I do think he might be getting a better reading/math education in Arlington/Mont. County or a good private school. However, I think we are preparing him for life in our amazingly diverse and diversify city and county. If he's really smart and becomes a doctor, he will walk into his first day of residency in an urban emergency room and be less freaked out and more comfortable with diversity.

With every school and every neighborhood there are trade offs.

Agreed. That's what I want for my kid.

I also agree.

On a larger societal note, it is profoundly depressing the degree to which income level, housing costs, and school quality are linked. The "good" public schools are all in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods where housing is basically unaffordable if your HHI is less than $100k. My husband and I are both educated professionals. In the context of the rest of our families (who live in other parts of the country), our $175k HHI is astronomically high. In DC, we cannot afford to buy in the "nice" neighborhoods because 3 bedroom houses in those areas are over a million dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps you should consider not paying your 5 year old to read books. Let her just enjoy the intrinsic joy from reading.

Well, my 5-year old is lazy and needs a little extra push to challenge herself. So yes, I pay her a quarter a book. Also helps teach her about the value of money, and how some people have to work for it. I'll let her enjoy it when she can read well enough to do so. In the meantime I'm glad I can get her to sit long enough to sound out the hard words for me, instead of automatically giving up on anything longer than five letters. She gets plenty of other intrinsic joy that I'm not paying her for

[Anonymous]

I want to clarify something: 900k is upper middle class??? If so, what is considered middle class in the dc metro area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to clarify something: 900k is upper middle class??? If so, what is considered middle class in the dc metro area?

That's what I was wondering. The "upper middle class" schools we're talking about here are either private schools, at $35K per year, or they are public schools mostly in really rich neighborhoods in NW DC or Bethesda, where houses cost $1M. Either way, you're talking about a household income of$250-$300K, at least. DCUM has had long, agonizing threads about whether $200K is middle class, or if it's middle class in DC. But it seems pretty clear that an income of $300K, or a house of $1M in a good school district, is upper class, not upper middle. And these are just the entry-level incomes and housing values to get into a private school or good public, respectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to clarify something: 900k is upper middle class??? If so, what is considered middle class in the dc metro area?

That's what I was wondering. ... But it seems pretty clear that an income of $300K, or a house of $1M in a good school district, is upper class, not upper middle.

This can be (and has been) debated for dozens of pages without reaching any real answer. Real academics who actually study this stuff cannot even come close to agreeing. So it seems unlikely that any of us can make many unequivocal pronouncements of fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_middle_class_in_the_United_States