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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Eh. I'm really not surprised that a seemingly rational and sane person puts himself in a precarious financial state keeping up with the Joneses. This is very similar to my family's story. My dad was a high ranking government official and because of whom we grew up and mingled with the world elite. The government perks made it so we were able to keep up with the Joneses and the prestige his title afforded us more than made up for our lack of actual funds. We wined and dined like the rich and lived like rich even though we had no savings no college funds no home. Ultimately dad retired and his pension isn't enough to keep us afloat. My younger siblings work part time in retail and attend NOVA. I have developed very elite tastes and find it hard to live a "normal" MC life. My parents have no retirement savings and no home. Its awful.[/quote]

+  1 I struggle with the same. It's a form of child abuse in my opinion to grow up with pictures that just don't represent the real world in any way. 
Good luck to you, don't let the anger eat you up. Jump over your pride. I dug myself out slowly but still feel like a fish out of water. 
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But what are you all doing as adults? OK, there are reasons to resent parents, but you, yourselves what are you doing to achieve the lifestyle that you want to have?[/quote]

Well, I do not resent my parents. My parents went broke trying to provide for us the best of everything they had access to-at their own expense. Today they don't even have a home. I am forever grateful to them for introducing me to that world. Even now, people mistake me for an upper class person due to how I naturally carry myself and dress myself. I like to joke about how I am a kind of a white elephant. I relate more to the rich but cannot afford their life. I had to majorly downgrade my lifestyle upon my dad's retirement 5 years ago.

Part of being from that world was...I didn't go to college to earn a living. I studied Literature and am today a very poorly paid admin at a non profit in the area. My parents encouraged me to study what I wanted and to cultivate my mind and tastes and I had no idea that the rug would be pulled out of my feet upon graduation. I have tried to hold on to my old life by attempting to marry rich. HAHA. That did not pan out as my dh, although raised in a similar UC life growing up, also now has to fend for himself because his MC parents went broke financing his very expensive private education and vacations in France.  We are both kind of confused, earning a MC living but living among and around the truly rich. I'd go back to school and earn a profitable degree but I have no money and do not want to get into debt. Its really quite a sick joke.
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How are you living around the truly rich? surely you can't afford rent/mortgage in an UC neighborhood from what you described about yourself and your spouse.  You can do a doctorate in literature as PhD programs offer assistanships and research scholarships for some well qualified doctoral students. With that you could teach or do something else other than non-profit admin.

To be honest, what you describe sounds a bit imaginary.  How do you think people mistake you for UC?  I can't imagine a conversation amongst a group of educated professionals in DC going something like "Wow, you certainly do seem and sound like you belong to the upper class". "you're an admin assistant, why, I never! I was sure you're from the upper crust, not like the rest of us".   It just doesn't happen.[/quote]

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