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

Forum Index » Money and Finances

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op unlike the previous poster I will try to be helpful. My mom was like you and I am a product of grandparents who were homeless,?drug addicted, teen moms, etc.

My dad did very well in business and my family is now wealthy. My mom tried to play the game and was frustrated all my youth and probably still is.

Things she did--she got etiquette books and treated them like the Bible. She paid attention to other parents in the social circle she found herself in all the time. Asked open-ended questions like what activities is your DD doing?  And pretended like she knew what was going on. "Oh, your DD is in tennis? We're considering it. I've been too busy to get her registered" The next week I'd be signed up for tennis. Of course she'd never thought of tennis. Same with piano.

Healthy food became important in these circles. She stopped cooking rice a roni at some point and moved to organics and steamed vegetables.

My advice is be yourself. This is a game you can't win and will kill yourself if you try to play. Just enjoy your kids and give them love and what you think they need. [/quote]

Does anyone have a good modern etiquette book they would recommend? I don't need to know how to write a proper long-form rsvp to a wedding invitation, but there's probably stuff I'm missing.[/quote]

I like The Miss Manners book, and Kate Spade has a cute one out too. The important thing is not to be too stiff. "Drag your mink" as they say. A littler irreverence goes a long way.

Now that you have accumulated money, you and your family need cultural capital. I like the ideas above about reading and visiting museums. Watch films and immerse yourself in international cinema.  Try to go to just follow along in social media when it's fashion week. Have the kids find their "thing" and develop it so it is broadly applicable. For example. I'm a curator, and my art history background is great for dinner party and cocktail hour conversations.[/quote]

Please teach your children how to set a table.  One of the few ways you know my MIL was working class/lower middle class growing up is that she doesn't know which side of the plate to put the spoon.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics