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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sidwell is not THAT small.  It's 1200 students overall.  And while my kids went to bigger, public schools they largely had the same friends from first grade on, and I have to tell you:  I couldn't tell you where half their best friends' parents went to school (then again other classmates' parents) and what they did for a living, and I certainly could not recite every extracurricular activity in which the friends engaged.  And I was a very involved parent.

Some of us have a life beyond our children's schooling.[/quote]
Overall size of school is irrelevant.  It's only something like 115-125 per grade in high school, so not too many families.  I'm more surprised by your claim that your kids have had the same friends since 1st grade, but you don't know much about those friends or the parents.  My kids are in middle school at a local private school, and I'm not a particularly engaged parent, but even I could tell you what all their friends' parents do and where most of them went to college.  Maybe it's a size difference.  I get the sense there are lots more parent activities at my kids' school than at our local public school, and because the classes and grades are so small, you can't help but spend a lot of time small talking with other parents.  There's only so long you can talk about the weather and the Nats, so conversation naturally extends to other things.  I guess if it's a public school with 200-300 kids in the grade, you'd be less likely to get to know other parents as well.[/quote]

There's another way of looking at it.  Private school parents tend to be so uber competitive that they make it their business to know not only what their kids' classmates are doing but what their kids' classmates' parents do for a living and where they went to school.  It's all about comparing to see how everyone measures up.  I never said I didn't know "much" about my kids' friends or their parents.  I know a lot; I'm just not interested in where they went to college or how much money they make or how many sports my kids' friends play.  That's all trivial bs that says nothing about these people as people.  I've been to hundreds of parties and events with my kids' friends and their parents and this stuff doesn't come up because none of us cares.  This is why I couldn't imagine sending my kids to elite private schools and having to partake in such trivial bs competition and "show me your and I'll show you mine" with the other parents, even though we easily could have afforded it.  [/quote]

These are wild negative assumptions.  I for one know where my friends work, including fellow parents, because our jobs are important to must of us and many if us have professional interests and friends in common.  Nothing competitive or ill-willed about it.  Do you and such negative assumptions about everyone?[/quote]

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