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

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[quote=Anonymous]Hmmmm. Something about your response made me think that you don't want the full UMC snobbery answer, since you said you were going to pick & choose what you will give your kids (horseback riding is really fun!! but I agree that there's a dangerously rich-girl subculture there that's not one I aspire to). I grew up UMC (maybe MC as my parents were academics, but prior generations were UMC so we had some of those values) in a suburb of Boston which was a bastion of old money values. I didn't understand all of it growing up, but as I became an adult I decided which pieces of it I valued. I used to reject most, if not all of the blueblood pretensions, but I now see pieces of it as really socially valuable. Old $ in New England meant: private school, cotillions, golf/tennis/country clubs (none of which I value, except maybe the tennis as it's a great lifetime sport - my DH & I don't care for golf). It also meant: stewarding your $ wisely (ie driving old Volvos until they died) so you could take trips to go skiing in the Alps; philanthropic work & donating $ to support less fortunate people in the community as well as cultural/arts institutions; aspiring to elite educational institutions for college/grad school; valuing family name & therefore creating a strong culture of support for one another. I can support all of those as long as you're not stuck obsessing over the Ivies. I think your dilemma is that you need to know the landscape so you can pick and choose what fits your values. Many PPs have laid it out, but: a) healthy eating & fitness have high value for UMC families now; b) educational enrichment in a highly competitive marketplace for college acceptances is important; c) appearing to have quiet wealth (I think there are a # of threads on UMC appearance but suffice it to say that ppl find personal grooming, understated yet expensive jewelry, being thin/fit/styled, and preventive maintenance against aging to be the norm for UMC women) like a vacation home someplace desirable & trips to beautiful, foreign, or educational places scattered throughout are all important. But, I agree with a PP who noted that it's a dangerous road to go down. People who are truly old money will never accept you & your gauche new money, no matter how hard you try to fit in, so at a certain point you just need to create your own community. Some old $ people who like you not for your $ but for you, and some other folks who worked hard for what they have made of their lives. People who share your values. I agree that there's a lot to be learned from people who have unlimited resources -- they can choose interesting options for their kids -- but some of the class baggage is not worth wading into.[/quote]

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