Things that are unintentional status symbols.

[Anonymous]

This thread is cracking me up.
I guess my family is of the shabby gentile variety of unintentional status symbols. Our generation is not wealthy by any means, but we have a 14 year old BMW, inherited from parents, old silver, inherited and used daily, because our everyday stuff was crap. No fancy kitchen remodel because our current one works just fine (same with bathrooms), we live in an old house with great bones, have the requisite golden, from a rescue org though. And we own a country home that is super plain. I grew up riding and DH sailing. Our kids go to privates and I work part time at home, mostly because I can't command the salary needed to farm stuff out (thank you liberal arts degrees!) Anyway, I never thought of my family as wealthy at all, mostly because we don't have much liquidity. I did BF each kid for over a year, and did cloth diapers. I never thought twice about that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is cracking me up.
I guess my family is of the shabby gentile variety of unintentional status symbols. Our generation is not wealthy by any means, but we have a 14 year old BMW, inherited from parents, old silver, inherited and used daily, because our everyday stuff was crap. No fancy kitchen remodel because our current one works just fine (same with bathrooms), we live in an old house with great bones, have the requisite golden, from a rescue org though. And we own a country home that is super plain. I grew up riding and DH sailing. Our kids go to privates and I work part time at home, mostly because I can't command the salary needed to farm stuff out (thank you liberal arts degrees!) Anyway, I never thought of my family as wealthy at all, mostly because we don't have much liquidity. I did BF each kid for over a year, and did cloth diapers. I never thought twice about that!

Your post cracks me up, b/c you are almost a satire of what we are talking about!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is cracking me up.
I guess my family is of the shabby gentile variety of unintentional status symbols. Our generation is not wealthy by any means, but we have a 14 year old BMW, inherited from parents, old silver, inherited and used daily, because our everyday stuff was crap. No fancy kitchen remodel because our current one works just fine (same with bathrooms), we live in an old house with great bones, have the requisite golden, from a rescue org though. And we own a country home that is super plain. I grew up riding and DH sailing. Our kids go to privates and I work part time at home, mostly because I can't command the salary needed to farm stuff out (thank you liberal arts degrees!) Anyway, I never thought of my family as wealthy at all, mostly because we don't have much liquidity. I did BF each kid for over a year, and did cloth diapers. I never thought twice about that!

PP here - and we didn't have reply cards in our wedding invites either! Not only that, the address of the ceremony and reception were listed as ______ St, "City of Washington". My parents call.

[Anonymous]

Referencing an NPR story
Wearing your law firm / investment firm / hedge fund's fleece vest around
Giving anonymously to charities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is cracking me up.
I guess my family is of the shabby gentile variety of unintentional status symbols. Our generation is not wealthy by any means, but we have a 14 year old BMW, inherited from parents, old silver, inherited and used daily, because our everyday stuff was crap. No fancy kitchen remodel because our current one works just fine (same with bathrooms), we live in an old house with great bones, have the requisite golden, from a rescue org though. And we own a country home that is super plain. I grew up riding and DH sailing. Our kids go to privates and I work part time at home, mostly because I can't command the salary needed to farm stuff out (thank you liberal arts degrees!) Anyway, I never thought of my family as wealthy at all, mostly because we don't have much liquidity. I did BF each kid for over a year, and did cloth diapers. I never thought twice about that!

Your post cracks me up, b/c you are almost a satire of what we are talking about!

I know - I'm a bit embarrassed. I guess I'm so used to seeing new build mansions and brand new luxury cars, that our old stuff doesn't register with me. I do have a core group of friends from DC who have similar lifestyles, so they don't twice at our beater cars, or our hopelessly dated kitchen, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is cracking me up.
I guess my family is of the shabby gentile variety of unintentional status symbols. Our generation is not wealthy by any means, but we have a 14 year old BMW, inherited from parents, old silver, inherited and used daily, because our everyday stuff was crap. No fancy kitchen remodel because our current one works just fine (same with bathrooms), we live in an old house with great bones, have the requisite golden, from a rescue org though. And we own a country home that is super plain. I grew up riding and DH sailing. Our kids go to privates and I work part time at home, mostly because I can't command the salary needed to farm stuff out (thank you liberal arts degrees!) Anyway, I never thought of my family as wealthy at all, mostly because we don't have much liquidity. I did BF each kid for over a year, and did cloth diapers. I never thought twice about that!

Your post cracks me up, b/c you are almost a satire of what we are talking about!

I know - I'm a bit embarrassed. I guess I'm so used to seeing new build mansions and brand new luxury cars, that our old stuff doesn't register with me. I do have a core group of friends from DC who have similar lifestyles, so they don't twice at our beater cars, or our hopelessly dated kitchen, etc.

Please, please tell me where you went to school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Jotting quick notes to the teacher on properly monogrammed stationery.

RSVP'ing to a wedding on same rather than sending back the little "check fish or chicken" cards.

HA! I do this. Only because I hate those reply cards

I used to do this until my son's friend's mom said -- very sweetly-- that it screwed up her box of reply cards for kid's Bar Mitzvah.

I just write a sweet note on the back of the RSVP card unless I receive one without an RSVP card (which seems to not happen anymore).

.


There, that is a perfect one! Sending out wedding invitations with no reply cards! Very very old school and an unintentional status symbol. Only those with enough knowledge will even get this. What is really sad though is people who don't even know how to reply to such an invitation.

Nah it's just the culture changing and evolving over time.

Ha...we did not have reply cards (my mother and grandmother's preference) and a lot of our guests were confused.

Me too and only guests on DH's side were "confused." Kind of funny to me but not to my mom.

I have to say, most of the wedding invitations I received from college friends did not have reply cards. I am in my early 40s so it's not that "old school". I know many people who think reply cards are tacky, even the plain blank ones. But I also did have friends and even relatives who sent these. They chose to largely because they were worried too many people these days dont know how to respond to a formal invitation without a reply card.

I have only ever seen one of the style reply card where you could chose your dinner. Had never even heard of such a thing. That was very humorous to me.

Like many other things on this thread, it is simply one more "tell" related to social class.

Bless your heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not having a wedding reply card is done a lot in the south. Old school good manners.

Old school PITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not having a wedding reply card is done a lot in the south. Old school good manners.

Yes, I'm the PP who said some of our guests were confused. I'm southern, but the people who were confused weren't.

[Anonymous]

I didn't understand the "chose your family's dinner selections" and filled out the card wrong. MOTB had to call me for clarification. I felt ignorant but after reading this thread, maybe she thought I was being intentionally snobby or unintentionally flashing status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not having a wedding reply card is done a lot in the south. Old school good manners.

Yes, I'm the PP who said some of our guests were confused. I'm southern, but the people who were confused weren't.

When my sister lived in Atlanta, she got one with no response card and she was confused. She was telling my mom and me about it (we're from Northern VA) and we were like, 'Ugh, you totally embarrassed yourself. Don't you know that means you have to write a personal RSVP?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't understand the "chose your family's dinner selections" and filled out the card wrong. MOTB had to call me for clarification. I felt ignorant but after reading this thread, maybe she thought I was being intentionally snobby or unintentionally flashing status.

My parents did not put dinner selections on my wedding RSVP card (I was the 2nd of 6 sisters to get married) but, by the time we were down to numbers 3-6, I think she gave in and just started putting them on there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jotting quick notes to the teacher on properly monogrammed stationery.

RSVP'ing to a wedding on same rather than sending back the little "check fish or chicken" cards.

HA! I do this. Only because I hate those reply cards

I used to do this until my son's friend's mom said -- very sweetly-- that it screwed up her box of reply cards for kid's Bar Mitzvah.

I just write a sweet note on the back of the RSVP card unless I receive one without an RSVP card (which seems to not happen anymore).

.


There, that is a perfect one! Sending out wedding invitations with no reply cards! Very very old school and an unintentional status symbol. Only those with enough knowledge will even get this. What is really sad though is people who don't even know how to reply to such an invitation.

Nah it's just the culture changing and evolving over time.

Ha...we did not have reply cards (my mother and grandmother's preference) and a lot of our guests were confused.

Me too and only guests on DH's side were "confused." Kind of funny to me but not to my mom.

I have to say, most of the wedding invitations I received from college friends did not have reply cards. I am in my early 40s so it's not that "old school". I know many people who think reply cards are tacky, even the plain blank ones. But I also did have friends and even relatives who sent these. They chose to largely because they were worried too many people these days dont know how to respond to a formal invitation without a reply card.

I have only ever seen one of the style reply card where you could chose your dinner. Had never even heard of such a thing. That was very humorous to me.

Like many other things on this thread, it is simply one more "tell" related to social class.

Bless your heart.

+1

[Anonymous]

I am hopelessly middle class because I don't think it is very polite or well mannered to shrug off the possibility of confusing your guests when sending out invitations. These are people who you *want* to come. If most people expect reply cards, then I think you should send them, regardless of what the tradition might have been fifty years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't understand the "chose your family's dinner selections" and filled out the card wrong. MOTB had to call me for clarification. I felt ignorant but after reading this thread, maybe she thought I was being intentionally snobby or unintentionally flashing status.

My parents did not put dinner selections on my wedding RSVP card (I was the 2nd of 6 sisters to get married) but, by the time we were down to numbers 3-6, I think she gave in and just started putting them on there.

Sometimes you need to just because that's how caterers work these days. They want to know everything in advance. We had the cards but several people returned them along with their own embossed stationery and a nice note. I think that was nice. It would have been unsufferable if they used their own instead of the card I provided, but nobody did that. All well-mannered people. I tend to just take my cues from the bride. That's the best form of etiquette.