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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do, what do you do to help them gain some perspective?

No snarky responses, please, this is a real concern and it’s hard to have these conversations in person.

We love the bubble our k-8 provides our kids — caring, small community, focus on kindness, etc. We plan to keep them in private school all the way — I’m not debating the value of private school for our kids.

We are also a relatively well-off family — seven figure HHI. We live a nice lifestyle, and I’m happy with how we spend our money.

However, I don’t know if it’s possible for my kids to gain perspective on how fortunate we/they are, and that most of the world (even within in US) doesn’t live like we do. We talk about it, I talk about my own, very modest childhood. My kids do chores and they get told no when they want to buy things. They have visited where my family comes from (parents are immigrants, I’m a POC) and have seen the poverty that exists there.

But their daily life and exposure is large homes, lots of toys, expensive experiences, and just generally abundant. Also beautiful school grounds and lots of resources to support their goals.

I went to HYP from a low-income public school and was really turned off by the spoiled, entitled private school kids who mostly found each other. I don’t want my kids to end up that way.

To answer your question -- no I don't care. What you can do is try to raise them correctly to respect people and understand the world they live in. To understand that they are blessed and lucky and for whatever reason or no reason at all others are not. To be a force for good in the world and leave it a bit better. You do your best -- but there is no way to know if it will stick. My kids are rich kids -- nothing you can do about that. Private school, cc, trips everywhere, money for everything, college, grad school, and likely their kids college is already in the 529. They will get into good or great colleges. They will not have student debt. They can find what they want to do and not worry about money right away. And hopefully many years down the line they get 10-15 million each. Who knows how that will work out. You try your best.

You DO realize that having your children understand the world they live in means understanding their privilege, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing worse than rich, privileged kids thinking they understand poor people because they watched a documentary or read an article or because their parents vacationed in a developing country. In many cases, I’d prefer they just lean into their out-of-touchness. That unbridled confidence that you pay so much for makes it hard for them to admit that there are things they just don’t understand. So maybe just stop trying to drill some sense of perspective into them and teach them to be humble sometimes.

+1
And if they end up wanting to "make the world a better place" or "help the less fortunate," or whatever, they make a hash of it because they don't understand anything about how the world works or how people actually live and think.

And I totally agree about the overconfidence. My spouse has taught at a couple of different colleges, and says that the students at the more elite/expensive college were more polished and well-spoken, but not actually any smarter. They were, however, extremely confident and used to being told that they were amazing, and had a really hard time with criticism. I've seen the same thing in hiring. A little humility and self-knowledge goes a long way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Books, documentaries, movies, YouTube videos, wikipedia articles, sometimes even social media posts.

You'll learn a lot more about the plight of the poor by reading a book written by a poor person than you will working alongside a poor person.

Huh? All this ensures is that you can pat yourself on the back for knowing all about poor people without ever actually knowing any poor people.

Also, a thing I'm seeing here is that rich people think there's them, and then poor people. No sense that there are people who are reasonably well-off, but not rich, or working class but not poor. It's like the world is made of people who need charity and people who can dispense it. That's the kind of nonsense I don't want my kid thinking. There is so much more to understand than "the plight of the poor." How can someone do good in the world if they understand it so little?

PP here and you’re reading too much into my statement. I agree that rich people tend to have a poor concept of class stratification but my comment about “the plight of the poor” was just one way that you’ll gain a greater understanding of an issue by reading broadly than you will by getting a low-class job. I honestly don’t know how you can dispute this. Like, if a white kid reads How The Other Half Banks, they will have a much better understanding of their privilege than they will just from working at McDonalds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Books, documentaries, movies, YouTube videos, wikipedia articles, sometimes even social media posts.

You'll learn a lot more about the plight of the poor by reading a book written by a poor person than you will working alongside a poor person.

Huh? All this ensures is that you can pat yourself on the back for knowing all about poor people without ever actually knowing any poor people.

Also, a thing I'm seeing here is that rich people think there's them, and then poor people. No sense that there are people who are reasonably well-off, but not rich, or working class but not poor. It's like the world is made of people who need charity and people who can dispense it. That's the kind of nonsense I don't want my kid thinking. There is so much more to understand than "the plight of the poor." How can someone do good in the world if they understand it so little?

PP here and you’re reading too much into my statement. I agree that rich people tend to have a poor concept of class stratification but my comment about “the plight of the poor” was just one way that you’ll gain a greater understanding of an issue by reading broadly than you will by getting a low-class job. I honestly don’t know how you can dispute this. Like, if a white kid reads How The Other Half Banks, they will have a much better understanding of their privilege than they will just from working at McDonalds.

I’m the “Huh?…” poster and I don’t agree with you at all. I worked alongside some very down-and-out people when I was in my 20s in restaurant kitchens. People working two or three jobs, recent immigrants sending money to their families back home—there’s not a book in the world that can provide more perspective than actually working together with people, talking to them, understanding their humanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The public school your child would attend if they weren’t in private is probably the same in terms of demographics if you have a 7 figure HHI.

Because you choose to live in a neighborhood where everyone is rich and mostly white. Move.

Why? I could care a crap less about the race. But why would I not live someplace where everyone is rich? That is where rich people live.

Because someday your kid is going to be around non-rich people. Maybe if they’re a doctor, or maybe they’re college roommate, teacher, professor, coach or teammates.

Sure. So?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The public school your child would attend if they weren’t in private is probably the same in terms of demographics if you have a 7 figure HHI.

Because you choose to live in a neighborhood where everyone is rich and mostly white. Move.

Why? I could care a crap less about the race. But why would I not live someplace where everyone is rich? That is where rich people live.

Because someday your kid is going to be around non-rich people. Maybe if they’re a doctor, or maybe they’re college roommate, teacher, professor, coach or teammates.

Sure. So?

Are you this dense all the time? You don’t want your kid to say something classist, entitled or out-of-touch when they grow up & the stakes are higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do, what do you do to help them gain some perspective?

No snarky responses, please, this is a real concern and it’s hard to have these conversations in person.

We love the bubble our k-8 provides our kids — caring, small community, focus on kindness, etc. We plan to keep them in private school all the way — I’m not debating the value of private school for our kids.

We are also a relatively well-off family — seven figure HHI. We live a nice lifestyle, and I’m happy with how we spend our money.

However, I don’t know if it’s possible for my kids to gain perspective on how fortunate we/they are, and that most of the world (even within in US) doesn’t live like we do. We talk about it, I talk about my own, very modest childhood. My kids do chores and they get told no when they want to buy things. They have visited where my family comes from (parents are immigrants, I’m a POC) and have seen the poverty that exists there.

But their daily life and exposure is large homes, lots of toys, expensive experiences, and just generally abundant. Also beautiful school grounds and lots of resources to support their goals.

I went to HYP from a low-income public school and was really turned off by the spoiled, entitled private school kids who mostly found each other. I don’t want my kids to end up that way.

To answer your question -- no I don't care. What you can do is try to raise them correctly to respect people and understand the world they live in. To understand that they are blessed and lucky and for whatever reason or no reason at all others are not. To be a force for good in the world and leave it a bit better. You do your best -- but there is no way to know if it will stick. My kids are rich kids -- nothing you can do about that. Private school, cc, trips everywhere, money for everything, college, grad school, and likely their kids college is already in the 529. They will get into good or great colleges. They will not have student debt. They can find what they want to do and not worry about money right away. And hopefully many years down the line they get 10-15 million each. Who knows how that will work out. You try your best.

You DO realize that having your children understand the world they live in means understanding their privilege, right?

I would call it advantage. They have an advantage others do not. Yes you try to teach that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Books, documentaries, movies, YouTube videos, wikipedia articles, sometimes even social media posts.

You'll learn a lot more about the plight of the poor by reading a book written by a poor person than you will working alongside a poor person.

Huh? All this ensures is that you can pat yourself on the back for knowing all about poor people without ever actually knowing any poor people.

Also, a thing I'm seeing here is that rich people think there's them, and then poor people. No sense that there are people who are reasonably well-off, but not rich, or working class but not poor. It's like the world is made of people who need charity and people who can dispense it. That's the kind of nonsense I don't want my kid thinking. There is so much more to understand than "the plight of the poor." How can someone do good in the world if they understand it so little?

PP here and you’re reading too much into my statement. I agree that rich people tend to have a poor concept of class stratification but my comment about “the plight of the poor” was just one way that you’ll gain a greater understanding of an issue by reading broadly than you will by getting a low-class job. I honestly don’t know how you can dispute this. Like, if a white kid reads How The Other Half Banks, they will have a much better understanding of their privilege than they will just from working at McDonalds.

I'm laughing, because I have done both. And it's nonsense to say that you learn more from a book than you do from actually interacting with people. They are different kinds of knowledge and understanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The public school your child would attend if they weren’t in private is probably the same in terms of demographics if you have a 7 figure HHI.

Because you choose to live in a neighborhood where everyone is rich and mostly white. Move.

Why? I could care a crap less about the race. But why would I not live someplace where everyone is rich? That is where rich people live.

Because someday your kid is going to be around non-rich people. Maybe if they’re a doctor, or maybe they’re college roommate, teacher, professor, coach or teammates.

Sure. So?

Are you this dense all the time? You don’t want your kid to say something classist, entitled or out-of-touch when they grow up & the stakes are higher.

I hope they do not. I hope we have done a good job on that front. But not sure how this translates into where I live. I not going to live somewhere I don't want to for those reasons. I grew up in a city housing project. There is no honor in growing up poor or even middle class. Nothing wrong with it either. It is what it is.

[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.

Why? This sounds like a great program. They are helping. Do you have an issue with that? Isn't that what they are supposed to do? It is not poor taste at all unless they staged the pictures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The public school your child would attend if they weren’t in private is probably the same in terms of demographics if you have a 7 figure HHI.

Because you choose to live in a neighborhood where everyone is rich and mostly white. Move.

Why? I could care a crap less about the race. But why would I not live someplace where everyone is rich? That is where rich people live.

Because someday your kid is going to be around non-rich people. Maybe if they’re a doctor, or maybe they’re college roommate, teacher, professor, coach or teammates.

Sure. So?

Are you this dense all the time? You don’t want your kid to say something classist, entitled or out-of-touch when they grow up & the stakes are higher.

I hope they do not. I hope we have done a good job on that front. But not sure how this translates into where I live. I not going to live somewhere I don't want to for those reasons. I grew up in a city housing project. There is no honor in growing up poor or even middle class. Nothing wrong with it either. It is what it is.

Your kid will have no perspective on their privilege if they live in a rich neighborhood. If you don’t care about them having that perspective, that’s your choice, although it may come back to bite your kids later in life.

[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.

Why? This sounds like a great program. They are helping. Do you have an issue with that? Isn't that what they are supposed to do? It is not poor taste at all unless they staged the pictures.

The rich white savior complex of people who’d never actually attend those public schools or step foot in them is appalling. It’s so obviously being done for college admissions.

[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.

Why? This sounds like a great program. They are helping. Do you have an issue with that? Isn't that what they are supposed to do? It is not poor taste at all unless they staged the pictures.

The rich white savior complex of people who’d never actually attend those public schools or step foot in them is appalling. It’s so obviously being done for college admissions.

+1 I had a feeling there’d be plenty of people here thinking it sounds like a great idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Books, documentaries, movies, YouTube videos, wikipedia articles, sometimes even social media posts.

You'll learn a lot more about the plight of the poor by reading a book written by a poor person than you will working alongside a poor person.

Huh? All this ensures is that you can pat yourself on the back for knowing all about poor people without ever actually knowing any poor people.

Also, a thing I'm seeing here is that rich people think there's them, and then poor people. No sense that there are people who are reasonably well-off, but not rich, or working class but not poor. It's like the world is made of people who need charity and people who can dispense it. That's the kind of nonsense I don't want my kid thinking. There is so much more to understand than "the plight of the poor." How can someone do good in the world if they understand it so little?

PP here and you’re reading too much into my statement. I agree that rich people tend to have a poor concept of class stratification but my comment about “the plight of the poor” was just one way that you’ll gain a greater understanding of an issue by reading broadly than you will by getting a low-class job. I honestly don’t know how you can dispute this. Like, if a white kid reads How The Other Half Banks, they will have a much better understanding of their privilege than they will just from working at McDonalds.

I’m the “Huh?…” poster and I don’t agree with you at all. I worked alongside some very down-and-out people when I was in my 20s in restaurant kitchens. People working two or three jobs, recent immigrants sending money to their families back home—there’s not a book in the world that can provide more perspective than actually working together with people, talking to them, understanding their humanity.

I'm not saying that kids should stay in a bubble and I'm not denying your experience. But it's very possible for somebody to work alongside a less-privileged person and still feel comfortable in their own privilege. I grew up poor and worked at a fast food place with kids whose parents had much less money than I did, and nothing I could have said to them would have made them think "you know, maybe there are structural issues at play here that favor me."

And you might already know this, but it's important to underscore that underprivileged people often don't want to just be the supporting characters in the story of a privileged person's personal growth. Nobody wants to feel used. But when a person who is underprivileged writes a novel or a book or even a twitter post sharing information and a perspective they hope others will hear, they can be the main characters of their own story.

It seems bizarre that people would push back so much against reading books written by underprivileged people, by the way. They want you and their kids to read them! Get your kids educated!