Teach Me to Raise an "Upper-Middle Class" Child

[Anonymous]

To the OP: I grew up with money but parents who were immigrants so they didn't know what to do (i.e. I can't ski and didn't go to sleep away camp; but did go to boarding school and traveled overseas).

Don't worry - you are fine. My best friend is one of the 1 of the 1 percent and she grew up on welfare (again got lucky and is appreciative) and she didn't know either; she figured it out because of her husband and trial and error. She is the best mom ever and her kids are perfectly fine and fit in really well. The also aren't spoiled brats and know they were born lucky.

Find a bestie like me (who doesn't care where you came from) to help you navigate; ask your kid's friends what they are doing for camp; vacations; etc.

And if your kids miss out on going to Vail this winter so be it - they will be fine. Raise them to remember that everyone isn't born lucky, to be kind and to be giving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're rich, OP. Maybe you don't come from rich, maybe you don't feel rich, but you ARE rich.

Teach your kid to eat at the table, elbows off, chew with mouth closed, don't talk with food in mouth. Butter only the bread you're about to chew. Don't butter the whole piece of bread and don't put a pat of butter on your plate to butter from. Napkin in lap. Please and thank you to waitstaff. Don't eat until everyone at the table has been served. Teach to eat neatly. Don't stuff your mouth full. Be willing to try new foods. Know how to say "I hate that crap!" nicely.

Teach your kid manners. Get up for old, handicapped, pregnant people. Hold the door for everyone with a smile. People who are poor are always out for themselves and are always desperate to get everything they can free. Only take one sample.

My DD has never taken swim lessons. She figured it out herself. But yes, know how to play sports. Doesn't have to win awards, but you don't want to be picked last for a team because you suck.

Actually, I think this is where the very poor and the very rich come full circle and meet. I've never known a group more interested in arrogating alllll the goodies to itself than the extremely wealthy.

Okay I don't know anyone that rich, but it's always the support staff at my Fortune 500 company who get excited for a company provided lunch, no matter how dreadful the topic or occasion.

[Anonymous]

Table manners! I still get surprised eating at a business meeting and someone is holding their knife like they plan to stab someone.

As for switching hands to eat the meat/food you cut, that can go either way -- it's Continental vs American style and both are acceptable here. Americans always use their right hand with the fork to eat.

As for the butter, you put a pat of butter on your bread plate with the butter dish knife. Then you use your own knife to butter a bit of bread at a time. You don't make a butter sandwich out of it -- we're not at Subway!

Remember to put your napkin on the chair not table when getting up to use the restroom/etc, if you're not done eating.

My mother was a high government official in England and learned all kinds of stuff like how to toast the Queen as part of her training. Some of it rubbed off on me.

[Anonymous]

We're in the 1% (self-made) and a number of our friends are too (busienss owners), all in our 40s. I think it's a bit different with the self-made people -- we're much more casual about things.

[Anonymous]

I just had to google "Cotillion". Guess that pretty much means I grew up poor and probably still am

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're in the 1% (self-made) and a number of our friends are too (busienss owners), all in our 40s. I think it's a bit different with the self-made people -- we're much more casual about things.

x1000

Also less apt to GAFF about what other people think, according to my self made 1% friends.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people are confusing UMC with "old money."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the butter discussion fascinating! I had no idea that you are not supposed to butter your whole piece of bread

Really? You are either young (under 35) or not raised UMC.

Correct. Also grew up overseas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the butter discussion fascinating! I had no idea that you are not supposed to butter your whole piece of bread

Really? You are either young (under 35) or not raised UMC.

I'm am 45 and raised UMC and never heard about the butter thing. My parents and I also don't have a stick up my butt so.....

Do what you want with your butter! YOLO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're in the 1% (self-made) and a number of our friends are too (busienss owners), all in our 40s. I think it's a bit different with the self-made people -- we're much more casual about things.

Business owners are less concerned about being people pleasers than people who make their money as doctors, lawyers, i bankers, etc.

[Anonymous]

Tons of UMC don't care about the butter. I feel like you people don't know what UMC means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the butter discussion fascinating! I had no idea that you are not supposed to butter your whole piece of bread

Really? You are either young (under 35) or not raised UMC.

I'm am 45 and raised UMC and never heard about the butter thing. My parents and I also don't have a stick up my butt so.....

Do what you want with your butter! YOLO.

Having good manners means a person is uptight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tons of UMC don't care about the butter. I feel like you people don't know what UMC means.

UMC means in the top 33% and well educated.

[Anonymous]

This a useful, fascinating, and somewhat depressing thread. I totally identify with the OP; we were small-town middle class and now have a gross income that puts us in the 1%-ish demographic. I feel like my entire life since college has been spent trying to crack the code of all the things that I didn't know that everyone else did. It's even more extreme for my husband, whose family lost everything in a revolution before they fled here. He looked in amazement at our kids when they were ordering in a restaurant one day and said "I didn't know how to do that until I was in my 20s." His family never had the money to go out to dinner.

Here's the thing though - we don't try that hard to make our kids fit into some social standard of UMC. We want them to be smart, kind, well-behaved, interested in the world, and have a powerful moral compass. Beyond that, well, if they want to learn to ski, great, but it's not a priority.

Maybe we're just lazy, but part of being a once penniless, clueless immigrant helped give my husband incredible disdain for peer pressure. He literally could care less if other people don't think he's good enough because he can't ski; he knows he is because he knows what it took to get where he is. I don't have that inner confidence at all. One of our kids takes after him in that department and I really wish that both did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tons of UMC don't care about the butter. I feel like you people don't know what UMC means.

UMC means in the top 33% and well educated.

Yes, and that includes lots of people who don't care about the butter.