Anonymous wrote:No. I'm not susceptible to that sort of thing, OP.

If you are, it's only going to get worse! My kids are in college and high school. The college admissions industry is INSANE. People pay 20K+ to private counselors to tweak essays and strategize applications. There's a whole world of test prep and tutoring, not to mention pay-to-play extra-curriculars manufactured specifically to look good on college apps, that cost thousands of dollars.

It's good you're realizing now that people are out for your money.

Me again, to add that it's not that you should turn all of those down. You just need to be thoughtful about it, and figure out what's actually going to help your child in the long-run and what is just money down the drain. It starts when they're young, and wondering which activities to expose them to. You can try a variety of them for not too much expense, but then you need to be more strategic at the secondary level.

No. I'm not susceptible to that sort of thing, OP.

If you are, it's only going to get worse! My kids are in college and high school. The college admissions industry is INSANE. People pay 20K+ to private counselors to tweak essays and strategize applications. There's a whole world of test prep and tutoring, not to mention pay-to-play extra-curriculars manufactured specifically to look good on college apps, that cost thousands of dollars.

It's good you're realizing now that people are out for your money.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Especially in this area, where parents are willing and able to pay to ensure that their kids get the best start.
The upside is that many useful resources also exist. You just have to be a discerning consumer.

+1. I'm no longer in NOVA but elsewhere in Virginia, and I can attest to this fact. Just look at the stickers on the back of cars at stop lights touting their kids' extracurriculars. Those always caught my eye. The K-12 teachers there struck me more as there to assign the work rather than to teach. The whole vibe seemed to be: go ask your outside tutor for help at your next tutoring session. You have a tutor your parents are paying $300+ a month for, right? If not, why not? I assign it, the tutor teaches it. Our kids never had tutors (but both parents have masters and Ph.D.s in STEM and humanities) so we could sit down with our kids and help pretty well and I was a SAHM, which made it even easier. But not every household can do it as easily, so they reach out in the DMV striver culture for "resources" to help their kid keep up academically and they pile the ECs on top of that (sports, music, etc.). There's a reason preschools are now called "academies" instead of just preschool. It's all for the appearance of that "best start" mentality -- my kid will be set up to do better than yours -- but it's still just preschool. You have to see through the hype, the marketing, the pressure, the lies.

You sound like someone way too uncomfortable with possibly upsetting someone. Just say no thank you and move on. I do, and have forgotten about it two seconds later.

Yep.
But also happens when there is no kid.
Look at all the stuff marketed to women to make their lives "better" - the skin care, the makeup, the purses, and clothese, etc.
And for everyone - it's not stop bombardment of ads - even when pumpin gas - it's so loud, I hate it.
The emails and snail mail and everyone is trying to make a buck.

This is capitalism.

Yes, you get told you have to spend money on X, Y, and Z because "don't you want the best for your kid." They know your kid and wanting to be a good parent is your pressure point and they play on it.

Yes. Especially in this area, where parents are willing and able to pay to ensure that their kids get the best start.
The upside is that many useful resources also exist. You just have to be a discerning consumer.

Anonymous wrote:and the vultures really come out if you have a kid with any developmental delay or disability

Yes and also yes to OP.

Anonymous wrote:and the vultures really come out if you have a kid with any developmental delay or disability

+1

and the vultures really come out if you have a kid with any developmental delay or disability

Man, I wasn’t mentally prepared for this. Seems like everywhere I go involving kids or adjacent to kids, someone with used car salesman vibes tries to convince you to spend money on their unnecessary product or service to help your kid. Are parents just that easy to exploit?