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Anonymous wrote:If the illegal Mexicans were so "hardworking," they'd put forth the effort to immigrate here the correct way. Get in line, Jose; you're no better than Sven or Hans or Soon-Yi or Katerina.

Psst. Sven, Hans and Katerina have a leg up on Jose. They're white. Soon-Yi is in between-his people are a model minority known for quickly assimilating.

Anonymous wrote:If the illegal Mexicans were so "hardworking," they'd put forth the effort to immigrate here the correct way. Get in line, Jose; you're no better than Sven or Hans or Soon-Yi or Katerina.

Anonymous wrote:The patriarchal hype around pro football is appalling. Yuck.

People who do "inspiring" things like walk a tightrope between skyscrapers, climb and sleep on the side of huge mountains and put it all over social media, jump out of planes, etc, are idiots with too much time and money on their hands.

The tyranny of cars in this country is absurd. Cars, cars, and more cars. Barf.

Anonymous wrote:I am pregnant with my first and DH and I agree that while we want him to know we think he is wonderful and special to us, he is *not* a snowflake. While I plan to encourage him and will be proud of him for giving his best effort, I want him to know that real life does not involve participation rewards, he is not above others, and the rules do apply to him.

I'd like to think this isn't a minority opinion, but I see so many parents out there who let their children run around screaming and bumping into adults in public and they have this look on their face like "isn't my little Jimmy just *the* cutest ever." Seriously, I do not want to raise a child who thinks the world revolves around him and he can do whatever he wants/that mommy and daddy will bail him out of eberthing when he gets older.

Anonymous wrote:I hate Panera Bread and chocolate.

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Anonymous wrote:I prefer the lifestyle in other developed countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc) over the lifestyle in the US. The idea that the U.S. is the greatest county on earth is a joke. It would only be great for those who are considerably wealthy.

I agree. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be born in Scandinavia.

And this is coming from someone with 2 degrees in American Government.

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes I dream of moving to Kansas City or Grand Rapids and buying a 4,000 square foot McMansion for $350K.

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Anonymous wrote:I think private tuition for college is only worth it if your kid can get into a top 10 (maybe top 15) school; if they can get into an ivy or Stanford, Chicago/Caltech/MIT or the like -- I can consider parents doing everything possible to make it happen.

But what I really don't get is the parents (who are not independently wealthy) killing themselves to make sure that their princess can go to her dream school -- Boston U or Babson or Middlebury or whatever. I say if you can't make the cut for the top 10, go to your in-state school. The education offered is no different and the name on the resume just doesn't mean anything once you get below a certain level. If you're an engineer from MIT or a finance grad from Wharton/UPenn -- that stands out in some circles and often for life; but your typical person and hiring manager cannot tell you whether a chemistry degree from Maryland is any better or worse than one from Boston U.

Now if the parents are independently wealthy -- do whatever you want. I just don't see killing myself or letting a kid take out HUGE loans bc they can imagine themselves on a certain campus -- I guarantee they'll be fine on some other, cheaper campus as well.

100% agree. Every word. No kid of mine is going to Davidson or University of Richmond. NFW.

+1. Add to this -- I also wouldn't pay out of state tuition to go to a state school in another state because a program is marginally better. If we're still living in Maryland by the time DCs are 18, they are going to UMD. I don't particularly care if Penn State or Rutgers has an undergrad business school or engineering school or whatever ranked 10 places higher than UMD and frankly I don't think hiring managers care either because they don't keep rankings memorized; I think they look at a resume they see -- ok -- big northeastern state school, how well did applicant do there. Now if they can get themselves into a Wharton undergrad or Sloan (MIT) business school then that's a different ballgame and I'll do what I can to make it happen bc those schools do open doors to different kinds of jobs at higher salaries and offer different types of mobility over the years -- I've seen it time and time again. Same thing with fields like engineering -- Caltech, MIT etc. are show stoppers -- otherwise state school like everyone else.

+2. The hand-wringing I've seen on this forum about DCs potentially attending a state school is ludicrous.

I don't wring my hands about it, but while my state university wasn't on the order of today's tuition, it wasn't cheap, either. It's not like back in the day when you could work and cover the costs of tuition plus a simple apartment with a roommate.

I really do NOT want my children to go to school in VA. I think there is great value in seeing a different areas of the world. Plus VA seems exceptionally backwards. Only school that is borderline ok is W&M.

I would hope that they have at least the same level of education I did - or better - but I know that it's much tougher to get into top schools these days.

I went to W&M and I deeply regret it. I started out at a large public school that was ranked higher but didn't like the atmosphere, so I transferred. W&M is academically challenging and known to be grade-deflating, vs other schools that more readily give out good grades. Many people outside of the world of academia and especially the DMV area don't know of William and Mary. Nobody knows of it abroad. I barely graduated with a 3.0 (I had a 3.7 at UCLA). I don't think my grades are good enough to do something post grad at highly ranked schools abroad because I transferred there. They won't know about W&M's reputation for being tough on grades, so they will just think I didn't work very hard. Not the case. Not all schools are created equal.

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Anonymous wrote:I believe most poor people are poor because they are lazy.

I'm a teacher. Tell that to my legal immigrant Latino parents of the kids in my class. They work three jobs just to put clothes on their children's backs. Give it a break.

I'm a teacher too and my Spanish speaking parents are some of the hardest workers I know. The parents of the white and black students are not though. They do not work yet somehow have the money for all kinds of expensive things (cell phones, Xbox, tattoos, etc). They won't come to parent teacher conferences and they complain when their kids have homework. They will however scream at their kids and the staff too. I feel sad that these kids have parents like these.